NAPOMO poems eleven through fifteen

I apologize profusely- I had 2 computers out of whack (one for good- my netbook) and the other restored with a complete clean install. I still don't have the printer hooked up or my word processing programs up and running but I HAVE been writing my poems in notebooks- not having a smart phone- I had to wait to send poems - here are poems
eleven thru fifteen - nine and ten are somewhere in another notebook, maybe at work-


Day 15

So she wins a prize

It’s true, she drops her uterus
like it’s a celebrity, filling the maw
with assorted body parts,
mewling proper names and fluids,

while you, timid sister, stammer
at the mention of pussy ‘n taint
(should I edit, should I?)
ask me again and I’ll tell you

the lips that say love can draw blood,
the sharp-tipped tongue craves
your "demure little asshole"* but
doesn’t linger nearly long enough.

Take you proper nouns and sit
on them, I’ll stay properly discreet.

* from Tony Hoagland



　
Day 14

　
More Cowbell


At the party, I re-met memories, people long out of my life, now back in because of a mutual friend’s natal observance. They spun elaborate tales of medical procedures as I nodded (just right) and said "Oh, my!" with proper concern. We all face our decrepitude with brave faces, canes and baggy dresses, woven wraps, and sensible shoes. Some have stopped celebrating their years, others insist you know immediately just how long it took them to get this far, as if they took the long way (and are the better for it) while you zipped down the bypass using family money. They ask about recycling. I want to say, yes, the crab dip is soylent green and you are what we eat but some have forgotten even how to laugh, if they ever did. I drive home alone, my generation on the radio, floating between lanes, singing along as loud as I ever could.


　
　
Day 13


clip art poem

sunrise, with eagle
new daffodils at the botanical garden
volunteers blooming at the fence
school buses red, yellow, black, slow
farmer’s market kale and gingerroot
biscuits from Hardee’s
hardware store for a hammer
lunch from Popeye’s
nap on an eyelet spread
quick load, colors on cold
healthy stir-fry, orange, green
neighborhood stroll
Maxfield Parrish sundown
guitars on the porch
neopolitan ice cream
cotton floral nightgown, long
fresh sheets
moonlight.


　
　
　
Day 12


　
That cake again

I made you a cake one year
when we were just divorced
red velvet, but it may have been
dump cake, better than it sounds

some recipe your mother gave me
forty-something years ago
I pretended to care a long time
but always made a cake for you.

Twenty years ago I wrote a poem
about the cake, but it was all a lie,
I think it was, the poem was,
after we separated I stopped cooking.

For some reason, I persist in the farce
that there was a cake I delivered
or didn’t, may not have made. I have
made a hundred since, none for you.



　
Day 11


　
She won’t say


what you did, won’t text or call
no indication of the sudden silence-
it may have been something you said

or she could be dead at the landing
from a tumble alone in her big house
blinded by a sudden light from outside.

she could have been hit by a taxi
on her way to the Empire State Building
or taken up in a pre-rapture practice run.

Alien abduction should be considered
though her neighborhood is quiet
and full of frame houses of a certain age.

The twenty-two text messages you sent
may have influenced her invisible state
advised by a girlfriend to "cool it"

she won’t say, you can’t ask
sometimes the best path is to back up,
back off, and go another way home.

NAPOMO poem-a-day April 8

Other recipients:

Right this minute

I am annoyed at how badly I use time

as if there is plenty, as if I have a secret.

Yes, I do have something to keep

from you, there are infinite reasons.

 

Twenty-nine years ago (right now)

my water broke a day early (gross)

Nothing has been the same since,

with great pain comes responsibility.

 

I’m tired of checking your breathing

waiting to hear your car door shut,

There must be a statute to limit

your expectations of how I can help.

 

Apologies your father isn’t taller,

you're welcome for the Palmer charm.

In the end you were cut out of me,

now let go of the goddamned apron!

Show trimmed content

NAPOMO poem-a-day April 7

Light a candle (for Yom HaShoah)


On days like this I leave the house dressed for sun
to warm my skin, enough if I get home before dark,
before the night chill rises around bare ankles.

The car is never close enough these times, the walk
too far, I fold my arms tight around me, hunched
against the cold and dark, uneasy but unafraid.

Then I remember her, the Catholic teen from Poland,
swept up in a raid of her father’s shop near the ghetto
where many Jewish girls worked, some she called friends.

Her father’s protests fell on deaf ears, they took her
and forced the frightened girls to walk to a train
on the edge of the city, wearing thin coats, gloveless.

She was the youngest, believing her family would come,
whispering assurance to those with her, as they huddled
in clumps, pushed along by the soldiers that night.

They sang and hugged on the ride, warmer in the car
with so many others pressed against them, then stood
in lines for separation, for assignment, they believed.

She was healthy, many were, the tiniest and frail girls
taken elsewhere, it was so cold! Everyone prayed,
cried until they were beyond tears, until silence came.

Her story enfolds me, I will light a candle for her tonight,
read an awkward Kaddish for them all, for the six million,
so I can say on the other side "I did not forget you". 

NAPOMO poem-a-day April 6

There is no bad day to die

In my teens I begged for my life

to see what was going to happen,

twenty years later I whispered

silent prayers for another decade

so my children would know me.

 

As time rolled on I wanted to have

all the "things" I’d missed

before the end, leave my mark.

I wrote furiously raw poems,

until I learned to be careful.

 

Right now, I want to sleep

with some assurance of morning,

rest in spite of your snores,

let silence embrace me when

you are gone and I’m still here.

NAPOMO poem-a-day April 5

Bringing them down

Roy Rogers liked rough sex, I can only say,

"Oh, Dale, dearest Dale, did you?"

It’s as if I caught my parents on the couch

naked, I know it happened but I can’t imagine

it was anything but perverse, no love lost.

 

I don’t need to hear what famous men

did with cigars, the stains they left.

How everyone knew (when we didn’t).

No stranger to animal instincts, I have

found solace there, in cowboy hands.

 

To those who live undamaged,

love themselves enough to know

pain is never reward, I offer blessings

and apology, the urban definition of sin

is good, dirty fun: a truthful lie.

 

There are so many transgressions,

so little secrecy, and less discretion.

What childhood hero will be outed next?

Did Eisenhower diddle little girls?

Madame Curie do it in the lab?

 

It’s not the desire to turn a blind eye,

but those pictures were set long ago

before I knew of harsher things.

Let the dead lie in restless peace,

the living keep me busy enough.

NAPOMO poem-a-day April 4

Fashion

Salt is the new lava in lamp-ery, that is

not to say lamprey (better suited to pie

and spice world worms).

 

Sometimes I hold my Himalayan close

longing to lick the luscious pink,

sad cow that I am.

 

It warms my breast as I breathe in,

say: ocean, ocean, ocean,

alternating nostrils.

 

I am what I have been made to be

by The Martin Agency, TV,

classic rock.

 

At twenty I would watch the lava

stoned, a mantra of bubbles.

the rise and fall.

 

This solid rock reassures,

I, too, am not impermanent,

but preserved.

NAPOMO 2013 poem-a-day April 3

Babysitter

It wasn’t hunger that made her

punch through the skin,

scooping soft vanilla wafers

into her waiting mouth,

drove her to lick fingers

and go back again and again

until the Pyrex dish gaped

half empty on the shelf.

 

They had told her "help yourself"

to whatever she wanted

but they couldn’t have meant

the untouched dessert

covered in Saran wrap

well after the pudding set,

the big chunks of bananas,

twice the cookies called for.

 

The baby wouldn’t stir-

her role was watchman, only

there because someone must be.

She rocked in mewling shame

on the Danish modern couch,

house perfectly decorated

in Bayshore Estates, nicer than

where she usually babysat.

 

What remained beckoned her,

whipped cream splotched

in lazy design, the soft wafers,

shut-eyed pleasure filling

empty spaces, she ate and ate

licking her palm clean,

as the sudden flash of headlights

made her heart clutch.

 

Not them. A neighbor.

She filled the sink with water,

scrubbed glass too clean.

"It slipped. I’m so very sorry.

I cleaned the mess." She wouldn’t

work there again. The husband

drove her home, where nothing

would be as good, or all hers.

NAPOMO poem-a-day April 2

April 2

 

Richly colored night (after a quote by Van Gogh)

 

 

There was a time when

drinks in sunrise shades

colored shy conversation.

 

Morning, the last thing

on our minds, always came

too soon, too bright, loud.

 

Walking back to your place

or mine, even the puddles

threw rainbows back at us.

 

My hair was long and red,

yours: plentiful. The moon

washed across our bodies.

 

Thousands of nights passed,

we shut the shades, put kids

to bed, fell into dark dreams.

 

Now we are alone again,

almost strangers. Unfamiliar,

uncomfortable, unsure.

 

The city streets are better lit,

angled, arched in yellow,

spattered with flash of neon.

 

In the old cafe, orange glow

paints our faces smooth, young,

we remember how to be foolish.

NAPOMO Poem-a-Day April 1

Giving up the ghost　

I saw you in the corner of the room

just yesterday, I was humming a song

we sang a long time ago, how was it

you knew to make an appearance right then?

 

If we’d been that connected at the time

you’d still be here or I’d be there with you,

none of this slow fade to forgetfullness

rising everyday a little dimmer.

 

The face I see in my head is not you,

it’s a photograph from the Facebook page

I memorized before you took it down,

your half-smile my addiction, secret fix.

 

If you quit showing up I can forget

but you’re the shoe sticking out from under

the bed I almost fall on each morning

you always kept me slightly off balance.

 

Even this poem is another way you

intrude unwanted when I was thinking spring,

Easter eggs, taking down storm windows.

It was April, I was playing piano.