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Barbara Cotter Poem
There is so strongly grained in me
some ideas like saying “no” just
saying “no” to certain propositions,
my Catholic upbringing, or upbringing
in common with inclination. I have not
been so nice as to say no to everything,
not very nice at all, but when I do say
that’s said and no more discussion.
I’ve decided, and that’s enough reason
to say “no, I won’t do that at all.”
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2010
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Barbara Cotter Poem
When you are retired,
you'll be just an old man,
with a fishing pole.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2007
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Barbara Cotter Poem
If it's just the organ grinder
with his little pet monkey
give him a penny
and send him on.
If it's just the organ grinder
coming around to tell me
what time it is,
tell him I bought a clock.
I had a tolerance for the old man
and his little dressed up monkey,
but day after day the same old tune,
I grow bored. He was quaint once
but now I'm seated comfortably.
If it's just the organ grinder,
give him a penny, or two cents,
send him on to the next house.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2007
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Barbara Cotter Poem
Letting go lightly
like bee flying from flower
with nectar for miel
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2009
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Barbara Cotter Poem
I’ll be slipping away like morning
into the bright blue tomorrow;
before you realize I’m gone,
I will be there, where
the yellow flowers bloom.
What matter of air, or earth, or space
can keep me from my hour
in that so green meadow
where the yellow flowers grow
wild up toward the sun.
Every moment is tending
to a natural conclusion;
stream to river runs,
to field, to flower.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2007
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Barbara Cotter Poem
Why, the old man froze to death
fingers and toes burning,
a slow, painful death, the coroner
says; the neighbors say they tried,
the city never lies, they will shut off
service of essential services,
and so life goes. Why,
the old man froze to death
huddled in double layers.
He’s not alone this season,
‘tis a freezing season, three
reports this week. I reckon
we’re not civilized enough
to have heat for everyone.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2009
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Barbara Cotter Poem
Not out of sight,
but far away
like a fresh peach
rosey on the top
branch of a tree,
he was too far
for me to reach.
Some other woman,
a better climber,
might pick and eat
that distant fruit,
or a bird perhaps,
or maybe he’ll dry up
and wither on the vine.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2007
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Barbara Cotter Poem
There are some souls made of alabaster,
not hard as diamonds, but enduring stones.
Who is surprised if years later the little fetish
is just as the man carved her, not more or less.
He took the stone fragment in hand,
shaped the marble with his diamond blade
into something like, but quite unlike
what she was before his knife.
She fit in the palm of his hand.
He left her on a shelf by the door.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2008
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Barbara Cotter Poem
My parents were both cut in two,
my mother head to torso, laterally bisected
into equal parts, my father cut slightly off center
into unequal parts, his heart bisected, his head intact.
My parents were cut in two, as if
giant shards of sharp glass
were free falling in the universe.
She happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time, he standing next to her,
they were both cut in pieces.
When I look at this picture carefully,
I notice their only daughter so close
by her mother's side, pierced through
at an angel, my viscera partially exposed.
These are my addictions,
this my disorderly conduct,
here is my gore, mixed
with the coffee stains
on the cluttered table.
I go on living like this,
cut almost through,
remembering my parents,
her vacant eyes, his neck wrenched
sideways, wracked with pain,
how they died a thousand deaths
before they both died young.
This is the shard of glass that fell
out of the universe through me.
I go on living like this, hoping
someday I'll meet a surgeon
or discover a way to dissolve glass
before I die young, too.
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2007
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Barbara Cotter Poem
The good hedonist says, “I don’t mind
holding your hand through this crisis,
or playing some other part.” He can
lay awake all night watching over her,
or make love like a lover, only, finally
he will leave in the morning
like a vacume cleaner repair man
going back to the shop.
Never call him on the off day,
he won’t answer or if he does
he’ll be nonchalant, a time
for everything and everything
in it’s time. The good hedonist
is a wonderful lover but hard
to find on other occasions.
He says, "never mind."
Copyright © Barbara Cotter | Year Posted 2008
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