A brief poem, inspired by JWJ...

So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
     And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,
     I shall, full weary of the feverish light,
Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt...

from Mother Night, by James Weldon Johnson

For a Friend, Before Darkness

When you run, may it be with grace,

     o'er grass and hill, or beaten path

     hair pulled back, feeling the wrath

of sleet and wind across your face.

He picked you up and pushed you on

     and from afar cheered you forward

     knowing always they path was hard

believing your heart and all it had won.

So keep running, do not settle

     for now the shining light

     cracks through your might

proving your courage and mettle.

Underneath Bed

Nooks
and crannies
and corners
and cracks

in

any closet
or crawl space
or octagon table
brown
with left swinging door
or boudoir
left untouched
virginal
unscatched

were spaces
she found

barefoot
oversized sun dress
like painter's smock
over skin pale
untouched by sun
yet
sun kissed from
a sandy school yard
a dried-out lawn
a jagged 'scape.


Found it
she did

on her birthday
in April late.


A hat box
hexagonal
bow out of ribbon pink
sheen dark magenta skin
no label
no sign
no picture of rose
or lyric in prose;

Didn't matter
the lock
one loop pulled
lid set free

so she picked
and peeked
and plucked
the contents three:

old cassette tapes
hand scrawled T.O.C.
smileys and winks
next to long lost songs;

the jane austen journal
hand-scrawled with color pencils
a sonnet, a sorry, a seance
poetic pics of older days;

a population copy worn
pages loosed and leafed
from lingual pick-up truck artists
in a cross-country drive.



She didn't know

this untold narrative
'tween mom and dad.



Or really

the left behind lover
mom never dared whisper.

Wingspan Out the Window

After the nurse asked

Would you like some ice chips?
          for the twentieth time

I grumbled caveman
     and I think she sneered
     her nose edged itself
     into her right eyeball
     lip curled Elvis

but I saw all that

excuse me

"saw" all that
out my eye's distant corner
     the space checked only at
     the DMV
     along with superfluous tests
     of sight, sight, and sight.

                (I fought with those homonyms
                  one night a fortnight ago:
                         sight
                             site
                             cite

                   even googled all three
                           broke google
                           and checked
                           missed connections
                           instead.)

Out my window
was the wingspan
of the Calatrava.

Under the wingspan
     out my window
was the falling rocks
       woman wading in a suitcase
       teapots turned bullets
gallery
       tucked into its own white corner
where you asked
how I felt about being cut
                                        open.


To answer many fortnights later
I accessed a site
about hindsight
and cited the source:

"I imagine
               it'll hurt" (523).

Would you like some ice chips?