Three back scratchers
Box of tissues, off brand
Birthday card
Six pencils
Four erasers
A couple of paint brushes
Hair dye
Pink pony tail holder
Ruler
Magazines
Marbles
Empty pill bottle
Towel
Toothpaste
Marvel comic book
Scotch tape
Three-year-old ding dong
Inhaler
Thank you note
Pencil sharpener
Two notebooks – one red, one blue
Gel pens
Blue paint tape
This is a tiny peek at what I keep in my basket next to my chair
Because you never know when you will need something ……
wide computer screen
white copy paper
folders and files
markers and pencils
large laser printer
pack of gel pens
swingline stapler
green plaid scotch tape
purple ruler
paper punch
paper clips
ink cartridge
scissors
pushpins
desk
Tight about the past—
transparent glass panes,
stained and cracked
by crooked, wicked lies.
Sacred are these settled energies.
They muddle about,
never lifting their feet.
I mean higher than the next—
higher than anything else.
Tether thyself to greatness.
Witness its greatness,
or keep thinking
in the same tones you speak in.
There is no treatment—
only the fight
against debilitating sickness.
You hold it together
with shoestring,
scotch tape,
and wink-less nights
working alongside the sabbath,
long past first light.
Long double-shift shiftiness
into the only off day.
No longer tis old boulder—
a new obstacle
has been waiting for me.
I urgently need
the percentile damage increase.
If my awakened visions
lie in legitimacy,
or if they’re just
daydreams re-sold—
Sandman’s regift,
passed down,
along beside me,
and made well past due.
What use is standing upon
business if it’s business
encroaching on you?
It’s not impossible—
but the benefit
must be mine
before I just give it to you.
The man in front of me is a broken one,
and my fingers are drowning in dripping glue,
in cement,
in something meant to hold things
To hold him
To hold myself and others together.
Yet he binds himself
with puppet strings, scotch tape,
and the wet breath of drugs.
Batting at my outstretched
Hands
Dodging the warmth of a true touch,
He flinches.
He bleeds- visibly
and he screams from a
starlight-lost, daydream-blinded face
that I am wrong.
He shoves daggers into my seams,
prying at my wounds.
Burning red and pulsing in purple bruise
Image of a warrior
turned blue.
while leaking he bursts open.
Pain seeping into my sobbing mouth
From his unstitched scars
So easy to tear.
He rips with his own hands
At the both of us
When he does not cover his ears and turn his back
To cradle in a seething silence
Clutching with razor blade hands
the child,
The pained,
Chained, caged pet he swallows with every breath as if I cannot
See the lump in his throat
Or feel the kicking in his chest.
But I am a mountain,
capped in the blood of a hundred storms,
and I will not cave.
I can almost smell the fresh paint. That isn't possible however. That scent was almost 19 years ago… Butter Yellow was the name on the sample card. Rocking chair. Tiny pink booties.
Stickers hide butter yellow behind princesses, animals, stars, happy faces, everything adhesive. About 50 inches up the walls.. stickers and fingerprints. Giggles echo.
Spray paint and posters. Black light. Neon glow. Butter yellow, mostly invisible. A Disney princess peeks out from behind a band poster. Black clothes with silver chains and safety pins lay on the floor, Saturated in emotion.
Bright Butter yellow patches. Dark splotches where dust clings to sticker adhesive. A scattering of scotch tape with just the corner of a poster stuck underneath.Shapes pressed in carpet. My breathing sounds too loud.
Lifting your suitcase, I shut the door behind me.
An ornament fell
Quickly to the floor
An angel object
She holds a lantern
Held held high in her hand
When the angel fell
The lantern came off
When the angel fell
I grabbed the scotch tape
Now the angel fixed
She is good as new
Lisa and I wrap and rap for Christmas.
Can you imagine the two of us doing that?
We’ve got Christmas playlists going
Christmas scented candles glowing,
and milky hot-chocolate flowing.
“Stir the marshmallows with the candy canes,”
Lisa says, like that’s something she has to explain.
We’re humming, singing and laughing,
and dancing because we’re happy.
We’re dashing to finish our wrapping,
we can’t have our suitemates catching
us executing the plans we’re hatching
to surprise them with gifts, enchanting.
The paper’s exotic, delicate and glittery
bought at Boyars Gifts, in New York City.
Why do the scissors keep getting lost?
Getting low on scotch-tape - we’ve used a lot.
We’ll be putting them, sneakily, under the tree
where they’ll add glamor and tease to our festivities.
I love the lights of the season - I love giving gifts.
For me, playing Santa is as good as it gets.
.
.
We never know what will jump out of the junk drawer
Scotch tape, thumb tacks, necklaces, gum, miscellaneous galore.
I sort it out about every three months, starting out small.
Within ninety days, it is so full, I cannot pull it open at all.
There were six rulers in here, says Joe. “But you had me buy one.”
“Of course, I did, because looking in here is not any kind of fun.”
Don’t you ever look first? I laugh at this question from the king
Of someone who almost never again can find anything.
They say Adam and Eve pranced around wearing nothing
But fig leafs and the biggest grins the world has ever seen
Imagine NO FREAKING RULES!!!
All they had to worry about were those thorny bushes
And the occasional lightning bolt accompanied by a loud booming voice
Reminding Adam, “You owe me big time for this one, my friend!”
Caine and Abel along with seven other offsprings
Were the result of a lot of hanky panky
Do you blame him??? He was the luckiest dude EVER!!!
My question is, how did they keep those fig leafs in place
Scotch Tape? Elmer's Glue? Velcro?
Also why did they need those damn things to begin with
There wasn't another living soul to be seen
Imagine today, if we walked around naked as a jaybird
The population of the world would soar from 7 billion
To well over 20 billion in a matter of nine months counting twins
I'm not saying we couldn't carry on as usual with our daily routine
But perhaps the routine would be interrupted now and then
I have a suggestion for future generations if this becomes a problem
Think of Drew Carey nude!
In their mid eighties, they no longer worry about the fashion
his biggest worry is will she walk away from the bathtub again
she sleeps all day he rides his bike, checks in, now and then
but most of the time he just rides with a memory of gumption
She has dementia he has courage, atop of that God's grace
Donald wears a cardboard square on his chest stuck with scotch tape
on it is a hand drawn syringe showing that he has had the vaccine
his blue eyes are alert, "my friend made this for me" he's in shape
"because I lost the receipt to my second vaccine" I see his gleam
She has dementia, he has courage, atop of that God's grace ...
"I was at the legion they had a DJ and we purchased some lunch
he smiles we listen, "soon you'll need a passport Don, goodluck
"Yes I know " he says, then he drives away, scared, I got a hunch
Once we were euchre buddies laughing, today just small talk
She has dementia he has courage, atop of that God's grace.
I look around and I cannot help but see
Fodder and seeds for poems in every corner
Along the ceiling, in a cobsweb
How can you write that many some ask?
How can I not? I ask the bag of cereal that is reaching for its coffee
The scotch tape laughs; making fun of me always
Super heroes in capes grin at me from their posters
They want to be diabolical, but they got ruined in their youth
A tiny glow worm scratches his back on my back
Ideas are lining up at attention; my muse is in charge
She twirls her maestro baton and they fall down laughing
I need blinders so I can stop writing.
(A Shakespearian Sonnet)
Is faith we own a stain on ‘faith more real,’
or tattoo burned on skin that’s in life’s game?
Our faith stands up (when waves are not genteel)
or lives on land (where tests are likely tame)?
Does God look down and think our faith’s divine
or each man’s faith judged, works are not enough?
It seems obtuse to dream our soul is fine,
that Jesus’ blood suffices! Grace through snuff!
Let me trust God’s provisions for my soul,
no life gets wrecked eschewing pride’s device.
Does faith say glue and Scotch tape make me whole?
My eyes search for what’s right; ears His advice.
Is Grace the key? Christ saves though I’m a jerk?
Or that’s too easy? Heaven needs more work!
Long Tooth
July 22nd in 2020
I come before you holy;
Ah! but the pebbles on my feet are so rough;
The mack daddy will flee, in pants of poly;
Forgot to check for cars first though;
Hope is never hopeless;
Alas, my leg of dry gangrene,
hath fallen off again;
Where's the Scotch tape?
In a dress? A dress, address;
Out west,
is where I went, alone in my escape
4/24/19
I have six thousand things in my house that I do not need
Cannot find, do not hope to find. I would rather call Amazon
And have them bring me scotch tape, a hammer and nails
Than try to find them again, and I used them yesterday.
The day that three different people delivered something here
In an Amazon box. One picture frame, but I had ordered five.
Do not worry, my husband said, the other four are coming.
Today? I asked. Yes, believe it or not, they did.
Good thing too. I had painted five paintings specifically for
Those frames, the day before. That is how fast I am, and how
Compulsive I am and how determined I am to do whatever I
Want to do whenever I want to do it ….except organize stuff.
• She was a control connoisseur.
• Her hair was afraid to move.
• Church ladies called her daily to ask permission
• To move a basket of flowers
• To open the Baptists' refrigerator
• To use the blue pitcher left by the last minister’s wife
• Her scotch tape was afraid to tear wrong.
• Her husband had to raise his hand to go to the bathroom.
• So glad he did not raise his hand to ask for children.
At least they were spared the control connoisseur.
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