Long Palsied Poems
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Approaching winter...
OK, maybe encroaching mid-winter
of life's seasonal span
with resonantly compelling grace,
perhaps even transparent vulnerability,
feels controversial,
too laissez-faire
Too much courage
in declaring preliminary success
with too little curiosity
about what happens next
on planet Earth
Continuing to revolve all four seasons
dynamics
holistic lenses.
I recall the poet's admonition
to not go quietly
into this winterish
cold night.
Life's final reflective opportunity
does not invite quiet
so much as impassioned peace
of a windless snowfall
blanketing all I can see
and more faintly hear,
touch and awkwardly feel,
smell and bittersweetly taste
unsafe passage.
I recently moved from autumn habitat,
a creative tension between summer's midlife climax
and this new winter habit
above Connecticut's exquisite Salmon River.
This is a compromised writer's winter hermitage
shared with my son who cannot speak
but can roar,
who cannot walk by himself
but can scoot
and belly laugh at his own internal sensations
and my external sensational sounds.
And, following Daquan
from my fall habitat
to winter's eremetical search for peace,
however coldly displaced,
with social
and political
and spiritual
and natural distancing,
Behind Daquan
are daily in-home nurses
and his most avid companion,
my romantically distanced husband.
He comes bearing gifts
of clothes,
cleaning supplies,
far too much meaty food
for a proper hermitage
and not enough
for sufficient redemption
and for self-forgiveness.
He comes unaware of my ecofeminist wintering spirit,
longing for Earth's warm womb justice
restoring peace
resilient through all four seasons
of present
past
and future Earth lives.
My ecofeminist lineage
feels too white to him,
not a journey for him
and our two brown sons
and my brown and cerebral palsied daughter
and Daquan.
So, this writer's winter hermitage
remains newly compromised by past fall
and summer
and even spring
of extended multicultural family life.
May it always be so
or no,
I'm not sure which to pray for
or against
as I quietly write
into this warm and peaceful night,
just right,
not too dim or bright.
Your lover’s drawing straws without you, better bid farewell;
he’d never time for rhyme or reason, so it’s just as well.
Slip out the curtained window quick, the future winks and calls,
ignoring paths of pagan gods, where faulty footsteps fall.
Identify faint flashbacks, cloaked and clustered in a heap
and sort out those you treasure most, you need or long to keep;
Forget about the epoch past, which wasn’t what you’d sought,
pursue instead remaining dreams before they come to naught.
Reflect no more on what it was he’d meant for you,
strike out ahead where something waits, has sent for you.
The graveyard night is haunted still, it hovers where you sleep
recalling souvenirs amassed, the ones that made you weep.
The poets poised in dungeon vaults, now growing old and bald,
retrace their palsied pleas in dust, like those that you once scrawled.
Except for runic proverbs carved on stone walls ill defined,
assumptions will not dog you that you dare to leave behind.
The fortune-tellers waiting at the moat for you
read tarot cards while setting sail a boat for you.
The road behind is empty now, the sky is painted black
so gather all the wisdom gained, no time for looking back.
Forego the prophets’ prophecies, so tempting to pursue -
although they might be asked advice, they seldom have a clue.
Reject the secrets they reveal, enveloped in their guile,
which be betrayed between the tombs in ruins of their smile.
They’re waiting with a fractured rule of thumb for you
while beating on a perforated drum for you.
A sand-glass dribbles distant dunes, the sun dial’s shadow’s late,
so now’s the time for slipping through the open swinging gate.
A joker wild defies the fools to read between the lines
in search of cryptic radiance the future world enshrines -
“the days ahead will wake again like waves before the dawn
when picking up the pieces left behind a passing pawn.”
A noble knight awaits to clear the board for you
when, soon, a cup of nectar wine is poured for you.
The power to name is a trait of God.
After making man, He named him Adam.
The power to name, God shared it with man.
God made the woman; Adam named her Eve.
God made the creatures; Adam gave them names.
The power to name, God’s image reveals.
The names Adam chose, were pleasing to God,
For Adam and God, were of the same mind.
The entrance of sin, corrupted man’s mind,
Sin put man at odds, with the will of God.
The power to name was soon used to shame,
And in short order, to play the blame game.
The power to name can be used for good,
But the same power could be used for bad.
The names we give things aid conversation.
They do not just name but also describe.
Children learn to use their power early,
naming some mates friends, and some enemies.
They know the names to use to hurt and harm,
and the ones to use when they want to charm.
Many parents use their power to name,
in ways that cause their children pain and shame.
The names they call them cause deep wounds and hurt,
that for many an adult never heal.
The power to name can humiliate,
when the goals are, to control and dominate.
By calling men slaves and naming them brutes,
some take the liberty to treat them like boots.
The power to name can incriminate
when the purpose is to exterminate.
Call a race a disease or name them fleas,
then fumigate them as one would do bees.
Some men described their foes as cockroaches,
then ordered their tribe to hunt down and kill.
This led to genocide on a grand scale,
to brutal murders and violence wholesale.
The power to name is as potent as wind,
Given by God to men who have since sinned.
Give names that lift those who are palsied by pain,
Your power to name, don’t ever profane.
I've often wondered if my non-verbal
cerebral palsied son
dreams in colors
and/or words
he can hear clearly
but cannot himself see or say,
at least not clearly articulated.
Yet any sounds and gentle touch
we appreciate perhaps too dearly
if that is possible with D,
my wounded son.
So, I was surprised,
after twenty years of delighted wonder,
and awed last new moon night
when he shouted "Hey!" into my ear,
about one inch from his mouth
in that time of darkest sight
While I had been dreaming of stepping out
where full moon's light
brights a mysterious pilgrimage into mystic,
perhaps even mischievous, adventure.
My heart sparked
as D shouted Hey! miraculously
just as I was greeting moon light
splayed across our front porch,
intending to leave him behind
to rest in peace
while walking out into Earth's brighter staged sights.
My eyes popped open.
While D slept peacefully on,
without triumphant smile or despondent frown,
although perhaps just a hint
of his mischievous shy dimple, down
toward the front of his right cheek
curling open to grace me
with a loopy grateful grin
shallow but neatly round.
Say Hey! together
calling out this night's pilgrimage spell
swelling day's scavenging bright un-voiced adventures
in listening well.
Calling out
to both Sun and Rain
to thank these for their presence
and remind them of covenants
to remain in perpetual organic balance,
co-present presence,
not too hot and ultra-violet,
not too wet
and green moldy degenerate.
Calling out
in dreams of healthy new moons
and wealthy fullness, shout
resting in Advent's
adventurous
adventuring
peaceful outback pilgrimage
into boundaries of minds
in dreaming full-voiced bodies.
The guitar pick necklace rested in the hollow of her mottled throat like a chandelier in an old house. A pair of fish net clad legs counted the seconds like a cellulite pocked metronome.
Taking a drag off of a half spent Pal Mall under the neon glow of a no smoking sign, she bobs there like a retired row boat tied to a disintegrating pier, well passed her prime but she still floats out of sheer spite.
She stares at the deep lines in her palsied palm and quietly remembers what porcelain felt like underneath her fingertips. But now, all she has are tremors, a dirty pair of baby shoes and a dog eared photograph of her lifes greatest regret.
Her breath started to come in short gasps as she ran to the bathroom.
The sign reminded her to kindly not smoke and she gives it the finger on the way by. She pulls out her pipe. She's gonna fly.
The meth chases away the deep green eyes and that smell..that special smell....she never cries when she's high.
That's why her bra is full of condoms and foil packets...her barely there shorts don't have pockets.
It dulls the shame of what she is about to do next. She can taste the salty flesh...and so she washed her mouth out with a bottle of Jack.
The only time she says God's name is when she is straddling a stranger. She's caught astride the fugue state of a high ride. It's a transaction without expectation except for the occassional black eyes, split smile and bruised thighs; penance recorded in sores on her skin.
She is pain. She eats it. Her teeth grind on the marrow and the poison in her blood then fall out when they've had enough. Until....even her smile..like her stockings...like her heart...is full of holes.
My oldest friend,
and older, too,
has a daily yoga practice
of self-care,
which I would healthier emulate.
But, when I mentioned this
as rich in comparison
with my own brief leg stretches
while tube-feeding my son,
and occasional too brief dancing
and jumping
with my cerebral palsied daughter,
He responds
to my neglect of self care
with self-deprecating acclaim
for my daily investment
in young adult bodies
inhabiting wounded child concerns.
I recognize this response
in literature of sacred messiahs
and family health care martyrs
and extended family matriarchs
and secular ecofeminist mentors
of selflessness,
ego annihilation,
empty nesters,
nonself-investors.
While all such roleplays,
diurnal through eternal,
are counter-cultural,
with redemptive value
and stretching of compassion,
I question their/our capacity for resilience
as even the most cooperative
win/win co-invested economist
would question total eco-investment
through absolute ego-divestment,
outgoing care for health
while bleeding out all internal wealth
of energy
power
light.
Yoga stretches internal minds
to resonantly balance
external bodies
fully re-creating
co-acclimating
resonant resilience.
This stretching,
toning
touching
feeling
balancing
centering
communicating
cooperative empowering
compassionate enlightening
I could do with my son
and my daughter
daily,
and perhaps timelessly,
with sufficient commitment
and imagination,
creativity
and regenerative health
intent to optimize
our shared systemic wealth
Stretching from where we are
toward when we will become
together in shared passion.
I awaken from the dream...never
can I recall seeing emotional pain
manifest itself so physically vivid.
An elderly gent is at the site where
the World Towers once stood. He is
accompanied by a faceless elderly
woman. He falls to his knees and I
search his face for what emotion
dropped him. I see nothing, no
shock, no realization, no nothing.
His face is blank, bland.
Upon noticing he isn't rising, the
woman assists him to his feet. As
she guides him forward, his face
crumbles into tearless hysterics,
silent screams. His chest begins
begins pounding in rythym to his
heartbeat as if dealt powerful
blows. It jerks his chest backwards
even as his feet carry him forward.
His arms flail wildly as if palsied.
I can't tell who he's lost: a son, a
grandchild, a beloved wife. But,
then, pain so intense must be for
the thousands upon thousands that
have lost their lives and the
thousands upon thousands left to
mourn.
One death could could not cause
such physical manifestation of
agony and pain~such visual
wrenching and ripping of spirit and
soul.
Or could it?
Perhaps this is the grief felt by
each and every one left behind
having bore witness to such
careless, senseless hatred.
Anxious in Ancona (1)
His plan, as he’s boarding his baldachined barge
en route for the easterly sea,
(arthritis allowing) is giving it large,
but the pain is as bad as can be:
though Rome is his home, he must go and take charge:
Cortona is cortisone-free.
One thousand four hundred the Christian years
(and then we’ll add sixty-four more):
Pope Pius the Second, that subtlest of seers,
is bound for the Umbrian shore.
He’s even less warlike than Billie Joe Spears,
but wants to be wading through gore.
He’s running a fever, his legs have ballooned,
but he won’t be deflected or swayed.
He’ll not be impugned or dragooned or lampooned:
undampened his rodomontade:
the mention of mercy, mere salt in the wound –
hell-bent on a pious crusade.
The portents are palsied: a bargeman is drowned:
this project is just getting sillier.
“Venetians are keeping us hanging around:
we can hire troops for Tyre in Sicilia.”
The Middle East! Pius wants boots on the ground
(now why does that sound so familiar?)
The ominous omens are gathering thickly,
but no-one could call him a quitter.
He’s scrofulous, suffering, sallow and sickly,
but boyishly buoyant, not bitter.
They land him on sand on the strand of Otricoli,
and lift him aloft in a litter.
The Grand Old Dame sat at the table
with cream on the corner of her mouth
from a donut she ate as she sat in her chair
and a coffee she held in her shaking hand
A ribbon and pink visor donned her head
and a reddish hue sprinkled with white
was the color of her coiffured hair
reflecting from a ceiling light
from a diner in the urban night
At one time she was the elite
the meat
of notoriety of a certain group of society
where decisions were made
by a select few
Whom the masses never knew
that shaped the way the world would turn
The hand that shook once kissed by royalty
now wizened and palsied
picked up a crumb and stared at it
as if it were a gem
the jewels amassed as she recalled
in times of wealth
She placed the crumb in her mouth
and conjured up tastes when her palate was young
the delicate meats, the caviar
her suite in Paris
her gentleman friends
But all is gone now
Oh dear, she laments,oh dear
then she rises from the table and stands erect
befitting her character
and leaves the contents on the table
and the past behind
Ralph Sergi contest: NEW POETS OF SOUP 11/26/2013
The Crumb
The Grand Old Dame sat at the table
With cream on the corner of her mouth
From a donut she ate
And a coffee in her shaking hand
A white visor donned her head
And red sprinkled with white
Was the color of her hair
Reflecting from a foggy light
From the ceiling of a dirty bar
At one time she was the elite
The meat
Of notoriety of a mysterious group of society
Where decisions were made
By a select few
Whom the masses never knew
That shaped the way the world would turn
The hand that shook once kissed by royalty
Now wizened and palsied
Picked up a crumb and stared at it
As if it were a gem
The jewels amassed as she recalled
in times of wealth
she placed the crumb in her mouth
and conjured up tastes
when her palate was young
the delicate meats, the caviar
her suite in Paris
her gentleman friends
But all is gone now
Oh dear, she laments, oh dear
Then she rises from the table and stands erect
Befitting her character
And leaves the contents on the table
And the past behind
The Creative Collective Anthology Series
Sponsored by Geraldine Taylor July 18. 2017