The initial spoonful –
salted caramel cool –
consoles bitten tongue,
slides down burning throat:
appeasement for churning gut.
Each spoonful savoured
sweetness countering bile,
dark chocolate shavings
as bittersweet as the emotion
being pushed down, buried
Bruised by conflict,
words ineffectual,
ice cream an unworthy
compensation, cravings
turn to salty reprieve.
Is the writing on the wall so cryptic –
graphic images depicting rage,
flames of dissonance,
young men bleeding at their own hands
compassion incapacitated.
A sad awakening for a society fixated
on rights and privileges, dominating
culture to the exclusion of nurturing
humanity, preserving lives.
How can we continue to closet
our children’s pain – their vitality
oozing – hopelessly abandoned
by morality’s shelter?
It is the wall, not the spatters
of blood upon it,
which needs amending –
adolescent minds too tender
to wade through the cryptic messages
of priorities so divided.
Problematic situations
invite expansion – ego
near the point of torment
I am outcast –
newcomers fail to understand –
this missing motor
so I retreat –
into distraction
fail to reveal
caregiver
left to seek
scattered connections
self-absorbed
needy, settled
idly moving towards
desolation
abandoned on the edge
of initiation –
ego contracting.
Drunken bodies –
silhouettes of adults –
ignore posted warnings
and locked gates –
clumsily scale fences
and plunge into dark,
their hoots echoing
between uniformly
lined-up balconies –
pristine rows of duplicate
houses, trimmed beds
and cement curbs
punctuating order.
I watch, horrified,
feel the bile rise,
have signed responsibility,
will bear the brunt
of any damage –
am burdened with worry
unwilling and unable
to take such a risk;
walk away and await
the fallout…
A vainless fret –
two old women
testing the rules,
stretching the limits
of structured guidelines
more ridiculed than
prosecuted, but the rift
has been solidified
used, I feel, and
disrespected, enraged –
not yet able to examine
the tension settings
of self-imposed restraints,
carefully guarded decorum
choking out compassion –
sensibility rattled.
(The story behind the poem is posted at One Woman’s Quest II)
Mother’s feet scream –
agony of her miserable condition,
underlying disease eating her.
My feet, free of calluses,
paddles slightly bent and fallen,
carry on with forgiving kindness.
Husband’s knees are red-hot pokers
shooting knife-sharp volts
with every rickety step.
Mine are knots in spindly
trunks that bear movement
graciously, allot me flexibility.
Father’s back grew weak
faltering in the end, hunched,
as if he’d born a cumbersome burden.
My back, not without its moaning,
carries me proudly erect –
like the spring sapling, winter endured.
Uncle’s heart beats erratically,
ceasing despite its mechanical support,
his life a testimony to modern science.
My heart flutters with expectancy,
aches with disappointment,
and soars with each new birdsong.
Sister’s tension rises,
the stiffness in her neck suffocating,
headaches blinding her vision.
My neck, slung now like a rooster’s,
puffs around my face like an old friend,
allows me the comfort of perspective.
Brother’s mind has seized,
lost somewhere between today
and yesteryear – never certain of either.
Mine, a constant churning cog,
gathers information, spews ideas
and bends in the face of creativity.
My eyes have seen suffering,
my hands throbbed with desire to help;
yet each bears their cross stoically,
and so I watch with compassion
and gratitude for the life I might have lived,
had my own vessel not been so blessed.
(This is an edited version of an earlier post by the same name.)
I wrestle with sleep –
need overpowered by unease,
senses on high alert,
as if a child
trying to intuit
the degree of volatility
in father’s drunken slur
what will it take
to find rest,
to reassure
the littles
that the tyrant is gone
and life will unfold
as it will
without the stress
of constant monitoring.
On hold
immobilized
face pressed against glass
pane repelling wind
gusts stirring dust
clouding vision
forced to wait
patience tested
on hold.
Please let me preface with a confession –
I am not familiar with your work.
It is not oversight on my part, rather
a deliberate avoidance – you see,
I too have faced the brand of madness
that drove you to your death, have
feared that any intimacy we might share
would stir my own apprehensions.
Indeed, I understand all too well
the presence of walls,
have believed in the power of sky,
the promise of green, found faith in angels –
nature my solace – realized too young
that the sun’s brilliance, that my brilliance
cannot be sustained by the innocence of white –
bleeds at the fate of indifferent stars.
I understand how gray seeps in,
tears away at the illusions,
entraps us –
how the past stalks, spirals
threatens to suck us in, and how
having lost my own connection to birds and trees,
wonderment sours.
It is the fate of women
born into patriarchal times,
that the blood of our menses
should colour our fists –
our fury as potent as a paper bag –
how can we not feel terror
when we worship a God
whose religion disparages our gender?
I have faced the inevitability of black –
what once brought solace having lost
its definition, unidentifiable –
have faced mortality, the cold blank
stares of death still haunting –
I am the one who has passed you by –
afraid to linger too long in your words,
have woefully overlooked
the merit of a sympathetic read.
(Today’s prompt is to write a response to a poem by Sylvia Plath.)
A look back to two years ago. Sometimes we need the perspective of the rear-view image to put the present in better focus. How far we have come. (Photo from our earlier, healthier days.)
Preoccupation with my own woes blinded me to my husband’s suffering, which culminated in a heart attack on Saturday night. We are shell-shocked.
“That’s what happens to caregivers,” a callous nurse commented. Am I supposed to feel guilty?
Unable to either drive myself, or push my own wheelchair, I am reliant on the goodwill of others to get me to the hospital, although even then, my body’s limits scream: Halt!
I trust that my husband is in good hands, and getting the help he needs. Meanwhile, I am home, alone, processing a gamut of emotions and what if’s.
This is not his first heart attack. The first was silent, and according to the specialists, all but fatal. It caused sufficient damage to have us all on edge. Thank God I saw the signs and called 9-1-1 this time around. The hospital said they will not release him until either medications…
View original post 304 more words
Moving on – it’s top priority,
sorting through the collected,
the unused, the forgotten –
ready to let it all go, but…
there’s a snake in the drawer
and the temptation is real –
to do the irrational, flee
in a panic, shoot the beast,
or set the house on fire –
I’m overcome with anxiety
there’s a snake in the drawer
and it sure is getting to me.
Practicality says this isn’t helping,
hasn’t got time for the drama, says
let it go, re-prioritize, focus on
what’s important, making progress
there’ a snake in the drawer,
and if it got in, it can get out
I’m terrified now, my skin crawling
with the certainty of confrontation –
the cold-bloodedness of a reptile
immobilizes me, and I’m certain
there’s a snake in the drawer,
and it will be the end of me.
Common sense directs me back
to the task at hand, uses distraction
to dissuade panic, promises to deal
with it tomorrow, tucks me in, but
there’s a snake in the drawer,
and I won’t sleep a wink, only…
I do, and in the morning light
it’s clear the snake didn’t make it
a lifeless body, coiled in death
revealing a harmless garter –
there’s a snake in the drawer,
dead now by my own negligence
an unfortunate serpent, lost
and afraid, misinterpreted
by a woman desperately trying
to move on, apparently still afraid.
(Day six of NaPoWriMo focuses on line breaks. It’s not to late to join in
for National Poetry month.
One Woman's Quest 