Family Trappings

Mother, twice married,
conveys reluctance,
exaggerates fear –
charted history
obstacles a given.

Father’s outing
perpetuates disconnection
anxiety replacing
communication
group wishes null

Sister desires crack –
living spectacle –
addiction barrier
to forgotten
privilege

Husband’s end plan
race transmissions –
dispossessed of
direction –
a dreamer

Fodder for gossip –
elaborate gong show –
we are lost navigators
memories relative
routes amusing

I visit nostalgia –
repetitive missives –
host allowances
hope for justice
a transfer point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retirement

Sought-out careers stagnant
communication with colleagues
soaked with commitments –
underlying imposed courtesy

we are doubly dependent –
mutual caregivers supporting
water treading, our authority
drowning in preset obligations

Past dwellings, connections
sopped with history, hold on –
leftover dregs, stale-dated –
their validity disappearing,

We are overcoming, debriefing,
navigating release, minimilizing
plan to alter direction, trade
accommodations, rest willingly

have boarded sanctity – a timely
cubicle of release, slotting an exit,
having transformed belonging –
are wrung out seeking drier ground.

 

Hope’s Folly

Mystery holds allure –
dark, unkempt unknowns
entrap a young woman’s heart

She is bright-eyed, trusting
hurried engagements, equates
fatherhood with responsibility

moves in, settles, adopting
parental roles, motherly caring
washes the dishes – is committed

he roams, prowling old haunts
unquenched by domesticity,
hunts for new beginnings, projects

contentment into her passivity
disregards her pleas for passion,
lusts after intimacy of strangers

Stone-faced silence of his family
shatters her disillusionment, echoes
of past follies, like knives punctuate

the repetitive forsaking of self –
putting hope above discernment
desperation selling out to servitude

she is ready to shake complacency
shudders at how low she has fallen
will arise, face her demons, and go.

(image: theordinaryreview.blogspot.com)

 

Colouring Lessons

Favourite colour?
Black, says she
without hesitation;

I falter, stumble
mind reaching –
who likes black?

Is that a colour?
It’s all colours,
she’s nonchalant

intent on task –
carefully keeping
within the lines

Of course it is,
ill equipped am I
to disagree, images

of dark somber
corners, sorrow
and death crows –

Why black? ask I –
composure forced –
had anticipated pink

equate childhood
with primary shades
splotches of yellow

and rainbow skies
candy red apples
on lollipop trees

but black? no –
black obliterates,
negates, destroys

It holds the colour
inside, she explains;
It’s the outline.

Not annihilation –
order; her mind
conceives of order

so much to learn
from innocence
have long forgotten

the art of staying,
within lines, finding
good in all things.

(Image: www.siparent.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re Just Family, After All

Performing this at my third open mic tonight, in honour of my dear friend Nadine who will not be able to attend. I know she loves this piece.

VJ's avatarOne Woman's Quest

In anticipation of guests,
the hostess – always bent
on pleasing – carefully selects
the script, ascribes roles,
envisions an afternoon
of light repartee, peppered
with philosophical pondering –
satisfactory entertainment.

They’re just family, after all,
she tells herself, confident
in the outcome, fatally smug.

Crowd arriving, she fails
to read disinterest in the eyes,
politely attempts to orchestrate
interactions, while they cast about,
calculating, shunning protocols
of etiquette,  dispersing in
an unsettling way, then returning,
savagely encircling their prey.

They’re just family, after all,
she tells herself, panic rising,
confusion overriding confidence.

Unprepared to defend herself –
bears no arms but the giving type –
she ducks, grasps, attempts
retreat from the onslaught
of vindictive agendas, but the wall
of stored grievances, spotlighting
a history of injustices, corners
her, hopelessness in its wake.

They’re just family, after all,
she tells herself, knowing
full well the legacy of pain.

It…

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Absence

A year ago, my husband was in hospital, having suffered a heart attack and awaiting bypass surgery. I wrote this in his absence. ( Image from http://www.meredithtowbin.com)

VJ's avatarOne Woman's Quest

Slippers, perched at night stand,
twitching impatiently,
mark the absence of feet,
cannot appreciate the meaning
of unruffled bed covers.

Abandoned, a coffee mug
bemoans its curdling contents,
complains of thick brown lines
contaminating its porcelain shine,
has not noted absence of hands.

Chair, pushed back from desk,
in partial rotation, sits awkwardly,
commanding attention, disturbed
by its misalignment, has not thought
to ponder absence of body.

House, uncomfortable with silence
creaks unnaturally, loudly voicing
objections to the absence of footfalls,
automated machinery and incessant
rings, beeps, and chimes of technology.

I try to reassure them that the absence
is only temporary, that the man whose
presence so strikingly fills this space
will return,  hope they cannot read
the apprehension in my tremulous heart.

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A Bee’s Perspective

(Note:  I draw much of my inspiration from dreams, and recently I’ve been challenging myself to write prose as well as poetry.   This poem and the piece, The Vortex, are inspired by the same dream.)

A bee, caught
in a violent draught,
collides with woman

her body a salty
concrete wall
of frenzy, she is rigid,
obsessed, unspoken rage

emanating from her pores –
a gale force spiral, woman-made
vortex threatening the sanctity
of her contrived domesticity

Normally, she would swat at him –
is aware of the potential for venom
delivered via puncture – cannot pull
herself out of the vacuum of fixation

eyes riveted, hands locked on video
controls, breath shallow, heart pounding
a rabid diatribe of self – loathing:

useless woman,
irresponsible,
neglectful,
unworthy,
guilty,
fat

with each beat the tempest grows
perceptibly, the bee breaks free,
encircles the figure of a lone man
bent over a fragrant cup of brew,
is dismissed by a distracted swat

lazily careens upward, buzzing
past a sleeping child, and settling
on a sweet sticky cheek, startling
its owner, who lashes out then rises

unsteady legs toddling in search
of Momma! , the whine a catalyst,
piercing his mother’s mania –
her instincts now cat-like, body

pouncing past the insolent insect,
arms reaching towards pudgy limbs
thrusting forward into loosely
attached guard rails, now plunging

the bee surveilles the scene –
a final circuitous flight before
finding escape, the drone of his wings
a testament to the glory of being a bee.

(Image: www.flickr.com)

Solitudes

Solitude, I dream
of expansive landscapes,
crave your panoramic
silence, thrill to the ideal
of your boundless sanctity

Solitude, you wrap me
in separateness, strip away
my cardboard walls, tear
at the corners of my instability;
no refuge from the stillness

Solitude, I am smothered
by your starkness, by my
starkness, cries of madness
reverberating through vast
canyons of aloneness.

(Image: serendipityteam.wordpress.com)