She dresses for company,
every day –
just in case.
Keeps a puzzle at her side –
a distraction for lonely times,
entertainment for guests.
Body failing,
eyes challenged,
but mind is sharp.
At ninety-one,
how she keeps going
remains a mystery to most.
(Mish is hosting in the dVerse pub tonight. The challenge is to write a poem in 44 words (quadrille) using the word puzzle. Thanks Mish!)
The house is brand new and we move in without our mother, who is in the hospital getting our new baby. There are three floors of living space, but I am most interested in the room in the basement – the one that no one else knows exists (except my dad, of course, ’cause he built the house.) You have to go through the rec room, past the door to the bar, into the laundry room, and then squeeze past the furnace. There’s a long narrow hallway that leads to a secret room behind the bookcase. The walls here are concrete, but there is a rug on the floor, and some of those fold-up chairs. There are boxes too, and it smells kind of bad, but the best part is a hole in the wall, just large enough to peek through, and if I come down here before anyone else, I can spy on them. Mostly, it’s my oldest sister and her icky boyfriends – boy are there things I could tell Mom and Dad, except I’m not supposed to be here, and if Dad knew, he’d kill me, so I have to keep it quiet. Why do we need a secret room anyway?
Frosty panes glisten,
while innocence bears witness –
mysteries rampant.
(Lillian at dVerse invites us to delve into the traditional with a halibun examining a room from our early childhood. )
Whatever you do
give it 110%
Father’s words
whirl,
confuse,
belittle
ambiguous, at best,
attainment remote
I am not enough
Good, better, best,
never let them rest…
morning chant –
eggs and bacon,
(seldom acceptable)
served up
by an ever-inadequate
mother,
Father’s criticism
whipping,
cruel
I will never be enough
apologize before beginning
a wallflower
on the social scene
a plebe
in the working world
presence hesitant
accomplishment tentative
Winners never quit and
quitters never win
blood boils
silently
I scream
Till I cannot bear one more
extempore lecture
face my foe
square on
catch a glimpse
of what?…
self-doubt?
fear?
These tirades
are not personal
it is not my ineptitude
at stake
merely the railings
of a tortured soul
trying to find
solid footing
on unsteady ground
I am learning to be enough.
(V.J.’s weekly challenge is accomplishment. I’ve been pondering why it is so difficult to feel as if I’ve accomplished anything, when logically I know I have. The daily prompts helped me to put this in context. Thanks for Fandango for ambiguous, Ragtag Community for extempore, Daily Addictions for remote.)
A two-story, red brick
set on the edge of town
was our castle, tall cedars,
like a moat, separating us
from unwanted onlookers
Strategically placed intercoms
tracked our movements, and
walls that moved revealed
forbidden spaces – passageways
that led to covert rooms
Our King was not benevolent,
and nor was our mother his queen –
for the woman he worshipped,
who held his heart’s throne,
dwelt in the shadows, and reigned.
Elizabeth, she was, regal
and bejeweled, long white gloves
brandishing a silver holder,
red lips blowing rings of seduction,
her presence a disquieting menace
She would not stir from our fortress
and none of us would speak of her
lest our kingdom might crumble
Our castle was two-storied: one
a man’s the other his alter ego.
(Written for Laura’s Manic Mondays 3-way prompt: castle)
Picnicking with mother
happened only once –
The summer’s day
a perfect pitch of bright,
the breeze a welcome companion
Laid our cloth atop rickety table,
perched in anticipation
of waxy wrapped sandwiches
and homemade bread and butter pickles
and the certainty of some fresh-baked treat
Hadn’t taken so much as a single bite
before the buzzing started –
bees inviting themselves to our repast
lured by the sweetness of our fare –
sent mother screaming
commanding us to pack up at once
Never again did we venture
further than our back yard,
reserved the park for drive by visits,
and, if lucky, the occasional
opportunity for a swing or a slide,
as long the bees stayed out of sight.
Summer of ‘67
the British had invaded
and Canada celebrated
100 years of confederation –
and Dad, at the top of his game,
came home with a brand new,
powder puff blue convertible
Eagerly, my sister and I
loaded into the back seat,
laughed at strands of our long hair
flying into open mouths, strains
of our uplifted voices competing
with the 8-track bellowing:
“Do you believe in magic?”
We were so alive then:
I, just barely nine, and my elder,
and idol, rocking sixteen –
she was hippie, go-go girl
and model all wrapped in one
and always humble, never mean.
We headed to the shoreline,
Sauble beach, where muscle cars
prowled, and tunes blared,
and all eyes lit on sister
and I wondered what the draw was,
still too naïve to understand the lure
of feminine wiles, my sandcastles real.
Barbequed steaks and mom’s
homemade apple pie, and
a trip to the ice cream store
if we were good, and Dad
shooed away the men who buzzed
about and lectured sister about “friends”.
I surfed the waves, and
avoided baby sister, her brash cries
and quick, chubby legs a distraction
for our mother, constantly in pursuit;
and observed the life, Neil Diamond
promised I was about to enter:
“Girl, you’ll be a woman soon.”
Ah to be nine, in the summertime,
when cares are few, and ideas
like popcorn, burst and pop,
filling my head with such fancy,
and then to forget it all, plunging
head first into the oncoming waves
still content to be a child.
(Thank you to Laura Bailey at All the Shoes I Wear
for the photo, song and word (summertime) that
inspired this memory.)
“Is that you father?”
acquaintances would ask –
voices deep and dreamy.
Particular about his dress,
meticulous in his grooming,
Dad’s eyes sparkled oceans
his dark, wavy curls
framing a strong face,
his body tall and muscled.
I’d tilt my head sideways,
incredulous at this response,
then realize they’d fallen
for his mask – carefully
debonair, he exuded charm,
a well-rehearsed routine.
It’s his birthday today –
would be, you see, but
Dad passed over long ago.
Tortured, he was, relieved
to be done with a life
so defined by deprivation
for masculinity was only
a shell – housed a restless
spirit, a woman never seen
forced into seclusion by
a society – a family – who
could not/ would not see.
He may be free, but the tragedy
lingers – awareness now so raw
of all that might have been.
“Yes, that it my father,”
I might have said, adding
“A beautiful soul trapped inside.”
(My father was born June 14, 1924, and struggled all his life with his “secret”. He turned to the Navy commandos at the age of 15, hoping to “beat” his impulses, and then alcohol to numb the pain. We bore the brunt of his suffering, and were never able to cross the bridge to understanding. I have no pictures of my father, and only this one image of myself as a teen. We looked very much alike.)
Fandango’s word of the day is debonair.
Daily Addiction is deprive.
Played us with hopeful
promises – glimpses of calm –
our tyrant father.
(Added for Fandago’s Daily prompt: Control)
(Written for Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge #2 Hope/Tyrant)
Freedom is four hundred and fifty square feet of moveable tin, wheeling down the highway, destination unknown. It is long walks through exotic forests, where focus lasts only as long as it takes to capture an image. It is the privilege of sleeping and waking according to whim, routine an estranged concept. It is the breeding ground for creativity – passion unleashed – and it is tainted by the hue of loneliness, the stark awareness that ties are strained, and those left behind feel abandoned.
Freedom’s highway calls –
hearts follow, passions flow, flee
guilt’s far-reaching pull.
(Written for DVerse’s Halibun Monday: Complexity of Freedom prompt.)
The years have done their damage,
resentments, like border guards,
line up between us…
and then you just show up,
as if somehow that makes you the better person,
as if your presence will make me forget, forgive
and I fumble for the right words,
attempt graciousness, even as I’m struggling
to feed the hurt, coddle the innocence lost
you hurt the deepest core of me,
the child, barely able to stand on her own,
the burden of her frailty heavy enough
what amusement must you derive
from revisiting our torturous past,
I cannot fathom – all too much for me.
One Woman's Quest 