Poetry

Original poems, some romantic

by

In Memoriam: Diane

You wanted to see “Fantastic Beasts.”

It was playing in the next county,

But we were undaunted.

I picked you up on a rainy Friday

Arriving in plenty of time for good seating.

Front row of  the main section

The only ones in the theater.

Today I relish the memory:

The two of us commandeering the theater.

We loved the casual way Newt Scamander

Retrieved his fantastic beasts and stowed them in his suitcase.

Nothing to see here, folks, but infinite imagination,

The possibility of the what-if and the hereafter,

Where my sweet Kathy was traveling.

Easy to range into unknown worlds in a theater

We had all to ourselves.

Today you are in that fantastic place,

Far from me.

Your defiance of mind boxes,

Your faith in the unseen,

Your unassuming kindness,

Recall the rainy day

We shared

So sure of

The beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by

Ruthless Mercy

Torments of women and children

Torment me, Lord,

Stoning and amputation—

Cruelty of Sharia’s

Impossible burdens,

Without a single finger to help.

Reports of brutality weave through

Ponderous negotiations with our enemy,

Delivering the powerless to

To the merciless Taliban.

Whoever causes these little ones to sin

Incurs justice. Without battalions will we

Deliver young girls from bondage

Young boys from savagery?

Dispassionate as Saul, will we stand witness to

The stoning of the weak adulterer,

The maiming of the petty thief?

Have you prepared a table for our enemies

And commanded us to indulge strange believers

In a strange land?

by

 Willow-wish

Willow-wish

 

Ascending the supple willow branches,

Their leaders bending,

Finger-leaves and spidery lines

Brushing the lower branches and grass beneath them,

You face the ground.

Out on a willow branching,

You feel that supple strength,

Give way, give way.

You never know the chill of danger

Swaying there gently

In the arms of the willow,

Unless an impulse awakes

And reckless,

You swing into space.

by

First Impressions

First Impressions

What impressions could I expect

Of two dozen incarcerated women

Impersonating British gentlemen and ladies?

Most never laid eyes on Pride and Prejudice

Until they were handed the cumbersome dialect,

Adapted for the stage.

Some admitting they could not finish the book,

Several preferring the zombie-enhanced movie,

They collapsed the courtships of the Bennets,

Laced with their frank impressions,

Into ninety minutes.

Jane Austen would have been charmed.

The inmate-dramatist  Oscar Wilde

Would have roared his pleasure.

For me, pride and pathos overflowed,

So amazed at the clarity and pace of the dialogue,

So delighted by the futile match-making of adults,

By the meaningful Bennet-glances

To ward off clueless suitors,

Other sisters charging into matrimony.

The actors made me proud

As if they had been my students.

And how do I explain the pathos

That squeezed tears from me

Over a comedy of manners?

Because

I could not forget where I was

Who these dauntless women were

How much confronted and overcome,

How much risked and renounced

To deliver a two hundred-year old drawing room comedy

With spirited excess.

Two dozen stories, within this story,

Grabbing at my heart.

 

by

Daffodillies

 

The deer crossing our yard ignored

The proud daffodils at the edge of the wood,

So I could feast my eyes

On their unappetizing blossoms.

Less fortunate were

The pansies laid out in the front yard.

Their charismatic red, blue, and yellow

Would have welcomed our visitors

Had they not become the Fleur Du’jour.

 

Blessed are the rejected

For they shall bloom another day.

by

Momentous

From a Journal Entry, October 3, 2014

I am easily distracted, O Lord

by other days, faces

other loyalties and dreams.

These are not your gifts,

They are the mighta, coulda, never shoulda-beens.

 

God grant that I love

the present: loves, challenges, hopes,

the plough that stands in the field

the field that beckons the farmer

the season that will not wait

that is now.

 

The Lord is my present, my hope

I shall not want another.

by

Song for Eng 3854

 

I am onstage

A little stage right where

Soliloquies are delivered

Seven fellow writers scattered

Where the audience should be.

We are writing treatments for a play

No, we are writing script

No, actually whimsical stories

                           About what has brought us to the Zack

                         On a chilly January afternoon.

                                  No, we are filling up time

                                                                         Till we get to move on to Urban Chestnut

                                                                            No, we are filling lines in our notebooks

                                                             Till the teacher says, “Stop.”

No, we are  in a theatrical production

Portraying what we what we think

A writer looks like.

We are recording our journeys

Across the land of the Billikens and Busches

Breaking ground and tracing paths

Apart and together

Randomly and purposefully.

We are trying on all these roles

Until we find a good fit,

A glove that slides over our cold fingers,

And finally says

This is what it feels like to be

A writer.

by

Sleepless in Ypsilanti

Teachers call it

Wait time

Thinking lingers on the question

So they wait

 

Mystics call it

The sense of presence

Waiting for God

To fill the silence

 

Parents call it

Respite,

When the echoes have died

Peace returns.

 

Firearms experts call it

Hanging fire

“An unexpected delay in firing,

Which can be several seconds.”

 

When the eventual pause

Comes between us on the phone

I rest on the hinge

Between awkward and anticipation

I want to call it “wait time”

But it feels more like . . . .

“Hanging fire.”

by

Sixth Month Anniversary

My doubts about match.com

Were pierced in a moment

Looking across the table

At green-eyed blonde sunshine,

By your animated story-telling

Filling my shy silence,

By the sudden expectant pause

As I barely opened my mouth

The startling confession:

“It is nice to be wanted.”

Welcoming love

Before dinner even came to the table.

 

As the salad plates were cleared

Eagerness to listen

Fun-welcoming laughter

Life’s glass half full

Your sudden fierceness

Holding your hand up showing

How joy and pain could fuse in a moment

Your delight in the small coincidences

That piled up before the dessert menu arrived.

 

I was not too dazed to notice

Your slender legs retreating to the rest room

Or the gentle curve of your back 

As we walked back to your car

Or the soft lips I barely touched with mine.

Almost too cautious to be a kiss.

Your so-delighted smile said otherwise.

 

A few hours later I was turning out

Verse as never before.

Our words performed feats of intimacy

For weeks over our 500-mile separation

Until that ferocious hug

You gave me at the airport when I returned.

I could never be close enough after that.

Words, hands, embraces,

Dinner-time, quiet-time, FaceTime

Only fed our teenage addiction

To be together. It would have been

Embarrassing, if it wasn’t so wonderful.

 

Six months ago I had only 

The fierce and tender looks

The parallel lives 

The easy threshold to fun

The glass half full

The delight of hardly-a-kiss

That revealed

By the grace of God

Two meanderers had found each other.

by

Victoria

From the start you coached me

To look beneath

The teal hat, blown by the wind,

The elegant matching shawl

Donned only for the occasion

The make-up

Betrayed by the reddening eyes,

The smooth face

Trembling with the touch

Of grief and joy.

 

Deeper I saw

Only more light

More sweetness, more willingness

To be known,

So unexpected at the first meeting

When every defense

Rises to the occasion

And couples compose

A flawless first impression.

 

But we were on the clock:

One dinner date

One hack at the façade

Three hours to decide

Our future 500 miles apart

Not so much speed dating

As speed revelation,

Skipping the pleasantries

Of the first, second, and

Third meetings.

 

The first unveiling

Happened in ten minutes.

The emotional dam

Broke before an hour,

Weeping, recovering, apologies

Tremulous admissions

Swept us along till we stood up reluctantly

Too soon out on the street

Walking toward anti-climax.

 

Swimming in disbelief

I pulled you closer for a few steps

As we hurried through the

Night chill toward your car

We parted with a chaste kiss,

Yet even that opened the curtain

Of your smile; my pulse spiked:

The evening had been no delusion.

 

I could not testify in court

What information was exchanged.

Oblivious to details, I even asked

what to call you at the end.

I would have trusted you

With my life, but I wouldn’t

Have known enough

To call you the name

I cannot now stop saying

Victoria.