Babysitting

eyes wide with wonderment
fix on me, beseeching attention

rosebud lips part in genuine glee
when my coveted gaze meets hers

she tilts her peach fuzz head and
with a shrug of a shoulder expresses

a learned coyness, a treasured cuteness,
softening this old woman’s jaded edges

clumsy, chubby fingers reach, fumble,
eventually grasp their target, instinctively

raised to mouth, pink fleshy tongue
ready to explore – my aged hands

reacting, reflexes set to protect,
shelter inexperience, purity

I am awed by her perfection –
innocence flanked by innate trust

what do I have to teach this precious soul
whose joy of life, untarnished, mocks

my own brand of cynicism,  my words
painted with such bias as to destruct

not encourage the fearlessness she displays
eager arms reach for mine, seeking support

unskilled legs desperate to gain a stride
wobble, infantile toes slightly curled

she leads me to the staircase, pridefully
demonstrates how she’s learning to climb

fear fogs my appreciation, having known
the pain of many falls,  I reluctantly follow

admire her determination, the patience
it takes to build such dexterity, a resilience

I could learn from, wonder which of us
has more to offer the other, and then

she is done with the exercise, desires to
descend, has no idea how to proceed, and I

happy to oblige, guide her with the proficiency
of someone artful in the act of backing down.

 

Dear Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(This is a repost of one of my personal favourites.  Check out a live performance of this poem.)

VJ's avatarOne Woman's Quest

I have examined your wallpaper,
discussed the scholarly attributes
of shades of yellow, traced the edges
of your unravelling with my mind,
argued the merits of Gothic horror;

marvelled at the brilliance of wording,
the courage to define the nature of
feminine madness, the boldness to
highlight inequalities long before the
establishment of a Person’s Act.

Forgive me, but I need to set aside
this keyboard for a moment, for I tire
easily, am suffering from an exhaustion
that is systemic and calls for elimination
of all stimulus in favour of rest, you see

I share your sentence of confinement,
isolated to a room with windows, my
mind wandering to ancestral gardens,
contemplating shadows and movement
cognizant of underlying forces, creeping.

My husband has just left, dear man, having
checked on me, taking on my burden,
concerned that I am not sleeping at night
thinks that by reading and rereading…

View original post 195 more words

When We Meet in Heaven, Dad

I picture it: a convention –
where like minds congregate,
learn from one another,
aspire to betterment

A conference of healing,
dedicated to those newly
passing on, like limbo,
only educational.

Imagine my surprise, then
should you be there, Dad –
you who’ve never before
attended my performances

I’ll attempt to stifle the
discomfort, suppress doubt,
cherish the moment,
but I know you too well

will catch the gist of
your duplicity, easily
recognizing self-serving
motivations, feel the rage –

intact despite the body’s demise –
intent on tracking you down
one final confrontation
to elaborate on the deplorablity

of your manipulative ways,
your brick-wall tactics,
the cruelty of absenting
yourself from a child’s needs

would check the registry –
surely they have a registry
in Heaven – will not find
your name listed there

In an aha moment, think
to find you under an alias –
I’d be right – stand at the door
of your chamber, inflated

righteousness ready to
denounce you for eternity,
feel the strike of bolt-like
revelation, decades of wrath

disintegrating into sorrow,
sudden clarity washing over me,
as you open the door, hesitant
to receive me, I’ll declare:

“Dad, it’s okay – I accept you
just the way you are;  I just
don’t want any more
distance between us!”

(Image: dorotheacarney.com)

Love Matters

Ex-lovers,
like criminals
line up –
a visceral backdrop

Another vies
to take their place,
a critical eye
and no-nonsense
disposition

questions motivations
highlights the faults
in righteous accusations,
bends the arrow of blame
reassigning guilt

the jilted,
now pathetic,
craves absolution,
starves for appreciation

awakens to
sickening revelation
that sex alone
cannot sustain
relationship

understands
too late
the value
in personal
accountability.

(Image: www.psychologicalscience.org)

 

Tired

so tired…

the heaviness of slumber
settles on me like a straight jacket –
no point resisting…

was it a poisoned apple
that struck me so –
or is this exhaustion
emblematic…

of what….
a soul aspiring to flight
weighted down by sensitivity…

an ego tied to ideals
no more salient than balloons
whose once inflated bodies
now pollute the landscape…

I am withered…

lifeless…

breath shallow…

pulse irregular…

cursing the elusiveness of sleep…

suspended in a tortuous limbo,
mocked by vitality,
scorned by ambition,
loathed by the hale…

is there purpose
to this perpetual cycle…
a message
carved within the walls
of this fleshy tomb…
cryptic whispers
buried deep beneath
the hardening layers of fog…

no strength here
to decipher riddles…
encumbered by lassitude,
like an iron blanket
smothering desire…

even weeds will push
through concrete barriers
follow the sun’s rays
to find life…

why then can’t I…

…so tired….

(Image from personal collection)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

–

 

Sanctity

He possessed a certain divinity,
a soft-spoken modesty she read
as safe harbour, fell for maiden-like
innocence, her blessed compliance.

Married in the sacred way, carnal
mounting accentuating a tailored
love – husband and wife exploring,
celebrating glorious submission

until joy plummeted – impossible
to duplicate infatuation in a void –
they grasped at objects, mystery –
remodeled, relocated, searched,

constructed a delicate balance –
contrived happiness, passionless,
spontaneous and fearful, rawness
of exposed souls clinging together

saw deliverance in the perfection
of celebrity, worshiped at the feet
of media icons, like fools pandering
to a naked Emperor, no amount of

polish could contain the anxiousness
of their precariousness; quietly he
undressed another, fiery girl, while
surprised onlookers, sensitive, yet

unwilling to intervene – the discernible
darkness seeping through cracks of a
once golden haze – closed their doors to
the holy union now veering off course,

shielded themselves from bludgeoning
nostalgia, the anguished cries of vows
slaughtered bleeding onto sidewalks,
as if pain bore tentacles, spidery limbs

able to infiltrate the secrets of their
own carefully compartmentalized
partnerships, disrupt the grind and
lay bare the godless infidelities within.

(Image: nypost.com)

Daughters

You think we don’t know
what happens in the darkest hours;
that somehow slumber blankets,
plunges us into oblivion….

The same slamming of fists
that awakens you, alerts,
drags us from deepest sleep,
thrust into the violence

No amount of denial shields
from the trail of bloody droplets,
witnessing his arm on your throat,
threatening….always threatening…

we have risen to burning rubber
watched with the same submissive spite,
powerless to call for help, muted by
the futility of endless abuse, bystanders

cowered by a caregiver’s venomous spittle,
estranged witnesses,  marginalized,
held hostage by the choking reality
of an offending appendage.

(Image:  Pinterest)

 

Educational Lapse

Confess, I am a proponent
of life as education, and would love
to expand on the lesson at hand,
but haven’t made the morning class yet
as consciousness and I have no early rising
agreement, and higher learning
involves climbing, and
staircases are out
at the moment

so even if the term
is in progress, I lack essential
energy to aspire to enlightenment
and I appreciate that you have prayed
for me, and Mary and her Son
may have inspired motivation,
but without working memory
directions are lost –
I could guess

at a destination,
would likely discover that
my aim has been off base,
could pretend I am gleaning
reams of information from the process,
just to appease higher-ups, but healing
is what I really need, not learning,
and help finding those elements
of self that others

have come to depend on
and now grieve, and if life is
education, then my time is fading
and as day gives over to darkness,
I’ve found my bed beside
the ocean of consciousness
calling me to another cause.

Midsummer Night’s Trap

I am no Titania,
whose mind poisoned
by Puck’s subterfuge,
finds your asinine
nature alluring.

You once slaughtered
all rational instincts,
beheaded my sensibility,
paraded my gored heart
like a trophy oozing blood

Thought to seduce me
anew, so confidant in
your primal charms,
my carnal libido, but no
flowery fog deludes me

you are not a guileless
Bottom, but an incubus
maliciously motivated,
a destroyer of souls,
conquest a side sport…

So willingly we entered
that midnight garden
of lust – me, innocent
as Helena, you a serpent
in the plot, more twisted

than Puck’s foiled plan;
I fear I have not removed
myself far enough from
that enchanted dystopia,
am grasping to reach

something stable, sane…
a solid security that defies
magical notions, grounds
me in respectability, a return
to a banality that precludes you.

(Image:  classicmoviestills.com)

 

 

 

Bundled Memories

I carry my past
in a long, white sack –
canvas like a sailor’s –
as if my life depends on it…

or a laundress toting
bundles, tied with string,
promises of toil and
recompense to come.

My contents are not
sustainable, though,
only sorry tales,
entangled woes
mutated into plastic
figurines, more comical
than menacing,
torment born of
pretense and shame.

I am eager to set
this burden down,
loosen the binds,
but self-assurance
and management skills
are just out of reach
a level above me

preoccupied with
organizing
appearances,
disinterested
in healing
old hag’s haunts.

Common sense says
let go, but I’m not sure
I can handle the repercussions,
fear there is more to suffer
for their release

can’t be sure I won’t be
feeding these frailties
to a bigger beast –
the stuff of nightmares –

once exposed will become
bait for a lascivious predator
who toys with ruffled emotion,
a vulture for vulnerability.

Is it not better to cast the
damned so far as to be
forgotten; to be free
for once and all, board
a bus on out of here
find comfort in masses
following a common drum?

My husband has license
to drive a bus, if I take
my chances, could we
prevail together?

How I wish I knew
the protocols of social
etiquette when involving
baggage, am so afraid of
igniting rage in anyone else
but me.

(Image:  www.ebay.co.uk)