Toasting the glittering nine -

aged twelve to seventeen (fine
and prime). Serenely surreal
(displayed and deprived) they dine
in inappropriate style.
Posed, composed, practiced, rehearsed
students/artists of beguile:
feel hallowed never hollow.

Be not emptied by façade
or broken by time (not a
price for you to pay). Focus
on truly glittering stars –
real if far away. Find fire
inside. Build and tend till you
find light in another choice.

unconditional

We ask for love – only love –
acceptance without judgment.
We judge – refuse to accept.
We break our own hearts,
hurt our own feelings
with our dreamy teary eyes.

We withhold, secrete, pretend.
We isolate our true selves.
We begin our search for love
in a stranger’s arms.
Don’t we ask too much?
We lie awake, leave early.

Don’t we dread an endless need?
Didn’t we invent Jesus
to spare us salvation’s debt?
Don’t we send dollars
and our best wishes –
easier than facing fear?

3 birds 1 suicide

She dragged from her bed,
sagged to the kitchen.
She sighed at the cat,
then sat with her flakes.

She had a headache
(always did lately).
It just never stopped.
So (flakes flushed) she dressed.

She moved in Dad’s house
after mamma died –
left her life (friends, job)
to cook, scrub, keep up
appearances while
he played, jeered, ignored
(like Earth’s turning or
leaves falling or death’s
shocking constancy
go mostly ignored).

She started her car
inside the garage.
Relaxed she waited.
Gas and time ran out.

Mike came in the front
dropped off after darts.
No smell of supper . . . .
(Right. No smell at all.

No reason to think
his cat might be dead
on the cool tile floor
or that his whole house
could still be filled by
lingering poison.)
Reclined he waited
watching loud TV.
His breath fell silent,
expired. The phone rang.

dearly departed

Put a candle in the window.
Raise a glass. Let but one tear fall.
Heroes (angels gone before us)
yet guide our way, answer our call.

Longing stirred by a humming wind,
faith restored in a storm’s gray light
remind us not to forget to
wake and make this day bright. Salute!

heatwaves

Busy wasps build behind a shutter.
Hibiscus bloom, fold, then fall.
Weightless birds suck at leaves for water,
while July’s sun bakes it all.

Who do I amid these creatures be –
digging, bowed so I don’t see -
breaking my back so I won’t feel
that in this world I’m not real?

heaven

Green treetops whisper under the hot breath of summer.
Zada Hawthorne’s Mother is callin’ us t’ supper.
Ridin’ bareback longside a field of grass ‘n’ manure,
Zada ‘n’ me are as dusty as 'his road, for sure.

We shared everything for a time,
but Zada grew up ahead of me.
Last I heard from any Hawthorne’s,
Viet Nam got tall, handsome Teddy.

We head for the weathered gray house in a pinklit dusk,
takin’ our time, like night’s creatures singin’ all round us.
Daddy says one day Jesus will call me home to bliss,
though I can’t imagine anything sweeter than this.

consequence

When it was over
he ducttaped her limp
and ravaged body
to a tree at the
edge of a car park
leaving her to be
found happenstance by
a random stranger
out for a jog in
early morning fog.

from VIOLATIONS -
an ongoing series of poems about rape