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Tedly Bare Poem
Sitting in bed.
It’s time for sleep, shower first.
Three baskets of clean clothes, bedside.
Cats' nocturnal sport rumbling across the wood floor, mother pouncing daughter, chasing rubber balls.
Tinnitus and the sound of air whuffing through the ventworks. Faintly piano music seeps through the seal of my door from children’s room, as they dream. I’m sitting... in bed.
I need to shave. My razor’s dull. The hairs will be plucked from my face, less shorn. I will examine skin for blemishes, and finding none will probably aggravate a neutral irregularity to the point of bleeding. I’ll brush my teeth first, to avoid the taste of shaving cream. Then shave and shower, and recall the salt stone my abuser once gave me. She loved me then. Perhaps.
My shampoo is infused with tea tree oil and mint. It irritates my sensitive scalp a little. It smells so good.
I’m not ready to sleep. I’m not ready to shower or shave. I still taste milk on my breath. And I’m awake, as if capturing a few more moments of consciousness… were a virtue. Is it?
Tinnitus my faithful friend. A frequency so high it’s almost imaginary. A close listen reveals dissonance, two or three tones. The warbling interference pattern. You are the closest I come to silence.
Cotton swabs, shoot. I need to make a list. One or two things I remember in the store, and more I forget. Some microwavable containers for rice, to take to work. I’ve been eating sweet potatoes in an effort to lose weight. I like them, but… variety.
Something… something else I wanted to remember. Batteries? No, that wasn’t it. Cobwebs? No, why would I need to remember cobwebs? I have cobwebs in my brain. Ah! Kitty litter. So that too, and… well, I’ll think about it later.
I’m starting to lose feeling in my feet and lower legs. It’s better than restless legs, with which I sometimes wrestle. Usually when I’ve done this, procrastinating sleep. Magnesium depletion, I suppose. Or something.
To have a hand on my back, scratching sweetly. An tender arm draped lovingly, even excitedly over my large belly. The sensation, the meaning. I long for it. Long hair, gentle voice, she's with me. Forever. If only.
Goodnight.
Copyright © Tedly Bare | Year Posted 2015
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Tedly Bare Poem
p
The first today.
The first in some time now.
Beneath the strained and toughened husk of tissue,
a heart given shape by the corregated cardboard armature scavenged and rigged together in haste for the sake of offspring.
Years pass, and today... maybe... an attempt to put to words a fraction. No more is practical. Ambition to share it all is laughable. It cannot be shared. It refuses. It defies. It mocks.
The offspring play, in the big back yard my Heavenly Father permitted me to buy despite my failings innumerable. Lessons suffered. They toss water balloons, squealing gleefully. Something I've done right. I'm a father.
I cannot give them what I had growing up. It pains me. I had a dad, a mom, a sibling. My dad was my step, but always dad to me. I cannot give them what I had. I'm too fat.
I'm too fat.
The sounds of nature, so beautiful. The birds I hear through the thin glass pane of a basement window. The tinnitus in my ears. The mechanical hum of a deep freezer compressor. Something else, I'm not sure what. Another hum, outside. It's not the air conditioner compressor. That's not on. Hmm...
Stomp stomp stomp stomp my ten year old crosses the living room upstairs, overhead. The girls are in the kitchen making dish noises. Probably doing something they shouldn't. But I'm going to let them be. I don't want to bring down the fun just yet.
Now the AC is on. So maybe it was a compressor. It sounded like a mind control device. No matter.
This recliner is sharp. Staples poking my right thigh. My ex wife wanted it, bought it used 14 years ago, as part of a "pregnancy furniture" campaign. It's worn out now. Foam protruding from the left and right.
Is it a poem? To what category would it belong? The title could be something now, not just p for poem. But I am what I am. Perhaps it should be what it is.
McDonald's again. I wanted not to, but it happened. Hunger came predictably and we were not near the house. Temptation is strong when satisfaction is convenient. Lies, such lies. This is what you want, even if it keeps you from what you need. Give in because it's okay this time.
It's okay this time.
I love my children. Thank You Father, for them. Forgive me of my failings. Please, and thank You.
Where is she? Where is she?
I wish I knew. She who could. She who would. Alas. To avoid the fruitless waste of energy, I change the subject of my thoughts. Because I'm too fat.
Copyright © Tedly Bare | Year Posted 2015
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Tedly Bare Poem
The fat guy. The one who sits with his back to the wall.
The one who doesn't make small talk.
He's serious, and smart and he smiles when he comes in to work.
He seems successful, and eats beans for lunch. He's a little awkward once in a while. A single dad.
Well he's me, and I'm all alone. My heart's still broken from 6 years ago. And life goes on. We file a patent, and life goes on. We get the bad news, and life goes on. It's the weekend.
I'm a person. The cat's on my belly, and I'm alone. 41, grow up. 41, and life's gone by. Wasted time. I'm off to Indonesia now.
Building a solar heater in case the shit hits the fan, to keep my daughters warm. In the winter. Just in case. It's falling apart, this country. The world. That's all I've got. No fortress, no fortune just a homemade box... and some caulk.
I'm drinking sweet tea, and I'm all alone. You'll be fine, she said, and life goes on. That's all there is. Life goes on.
Copyright © Tedly Bare | Year Posted 2015
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Tedly Bare Poem
Forgive. Forgive.
Father, please do the forgiving for me.
I am unable.
Father please forgive on my behalf,
that I too may be forgiven by You.
Forgive. That is my escape. I grasp for it.
I miss.
A human did this to me. A human, I thought.
No, I did this to myself.
I did this to myself, with the consent of a human.
With the consent of a sociopath.
Forgive. Forgive.
It is one thing to be told a lie.
It is another to tell oneself.
I knitted a woolen sweater for a wolf.
We shared passion twice a day.
With my feet on the soil of my ancestors grave,
I cried out across time, and was heard.
The echo of destiny. Of pain.
F... Accept.
Accept, like my body weight, the immovable truth.
My fault or no, only I can decide how to cope.
Like the dead part of my pituitary,
some fates must die that others can be discovered.
And so it is.
Accept. That only the positive can replace, can displace, overwhelm the past. So she must be found. The true. The unknown and new. What kind of partner, now that I have adorned myself with the hyde of a wolf?
If not found, she must at least be sought.
Hope, though a curse, a blessing. True.
Hunting, silently.
Hunting, from a screen.
Hunting, all alone.
At home, in the dark.
Copyright © Tedly Bare | Year Posted 2015
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Tedly Bare Poem
Water in my ears from a shower in the past, too wet to ever get dry.
The weight of my soaking hair. Pulls my gaze... down.
Drip, drip the punishment for foolish engineering.
Steal from the plate, I thought I would, just take my fair share.
Just get enough to make it fair.
Bruised knuckles to settle the score, and I lose.
Broken wishes, falsetto dreams. And the wind blows.
My temples are hot, my skin so cold.
I'm getting old.
In the distance, in thunder I hear voice, no a flute.
It sounds so innocent and true. But is it real?
Too many wolves in the fog, to tell.
Too many hungry dogs.
Fair lady, sweetheart, sing for me. My wounds hear you.
I sway in place.
Sweet siren, call my doom. Face like the moon.
I want to know why you whistle this direction... Danger is real.
Danger is real.
Copyright © Tedly Bare | Year Posted 2015
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