Tag Archives: poetry

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The boring vampire

I meet a boring vampire
when I am boring too
when I am worrying with angst and ire
and have too much to do

It’s in the time of covid
We start to walk the beaches
The vampire won’t take paxlovid
His ego overreaches

He says his life’s perfection
He says his brain can’t fit his head
He has no belief in resurrection
That’s probably because he’s dead

I wonder that he lies
Does he think that I don’t see?
The person that believes the lies
Must be him, not me

I grieve before he ousts me
He says he’ll always be my friend
And he speaks of longing to be free
I know there will be an end

I know before he ousts me
He says we’re friends forever
I blink and calmly see
That it will soon be never

Some vampires don’t need staking
They do it to themselves
Isolation of their making
Hoarding blood upon their shelves

______________________________

The photograph is a “swamp robin” (Varied Thrush) from my yard, December 2022.

This has nothing to do with the Ragtag Daily Prompt: festival. Except that swamp robins are very festive.

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Forgiveness

Rumi writes about the wound being where the light gets in. Leonard Cohen says the cracks are where the light gets in. My poems about being reborn or changed seem to involve either burning or the sea. I wrote this in 2009.

Forgiveness

I want to forgive something
Someone
In fact a group
Something that hurt a lot
I’ve tried logic
I tell myself
“It was an expression of concern”

My heart doesn’t agree
It is sullen
Immobile and grumpy
It whispers
“They have not apologized”
It whispers
“When people say you’re crazy
It could be a joke
An expression of concern
It wasn’t
It was a palm held out
At arm’s length
To distance me.”

My head argues
“That’s what it felt like to you.
You don’t know their intentions.”

I want to write
A poem of forgiveness
Hoping my heart will follow

My conscious doesn’t write my poems
My conscious wrestles with an idea
The poem comes out of this struggle
I look at the poem I’ve written
I think,
“That is what I would like
my conscious heart to feel.”
My poem is often more generous
than my conscious feels

My poems are not mine
They are a gift
From the unconscious
It is much larger
Than the small conscious me
I dream of feeling envy
I climb into a bathtub
And transform myself
To battle a trickster
We are transported
To the bottom of the ocean

In the ocean
The trickster and I are one
It is unlimited
It is not my unconscious
There is no separation
It is all unconscious

I did not think
A poem would give forgiveness
But pain drove me
Into the sea
I am connected
You gave me these pearls
Thank you

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: crack.

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Mind

Facing a wall or lying in bed
breathe slow: four seconds in
one two three four
four seconds out
one two three four
keeping count

or facing a wall sitting
on a zafu, bell rings to start
how can forty minutes be so long?
fall asleep and body weaves
waking me up OH don’t hit the wall
adrenaline then slithering down
towards sleep again

zen mind, blank mind?
my mind wanders off again and again
what is for dinner? grocery list?
that annoying thing or person
at school or work
the mind busy as a squirrel
burying nuts and digging them back up

bring the mind back again
again again again
to the breath the wall letting go
of this well trodden mind trail
only to have the mind wander off
down another: this with briars
and falling into a pond
that has ice and cold

back shake like a dog
shake it off
focus on the breath the wall again
vivid multicolor cats
with paisley and stripes and spots
there is the BELL
forty minutes

Bow to the wall
and stretch
get up
ready zafu for the next time
meditation
mind

_____________________

Written today for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: blank.

The translation that I originally learned is here.

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the pale reflections of our bitter selves

they are neglected, you know, by most
the worse self, the worst self, the dark
the impulse to yank the moon from the sky
when she slides down the stair, to see who’s there

there are few poems written to the dark
impulses, the demons, the underside of our hopes
and dreams, the nastiness, the grief, the anger
we are kept in the dungeons below the basement

below the belt we band together huddle
in a pile of claws and unfeathered wings and teeth
wishing for a blanket, to be held, rocked
loved, wishing for the mothers who left us

the fathers who denied us, pushed us away
so that we knew and know what to hide
what to deny, what part of ourselves to kill
we try and try but few do

and then they are mourned, people say
they don’t understand but ask the demons below
and oh, they do, they do! maybe the next plane
will be kinder and love the demons

the bitter self, the dark self,
that longs so badly to be loved
that longs forever to be loved
that is not loved this round

this round

written 11/24/2023

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Volcanic fire

A friend and I travel to Hawaii in March 2018. The lava in the caldera had dropped on the volcano and the road around it was closed because of the gases. The changing eruption happened over the next few months. We found a place to wait for nightfall to take photographs. It is way more dramatic in the night, isn’t it? We could see fire rising up in the day too, but at night the smoke is lit up as well by the lava below. A scene on fire, beautiful and terrifying.

The smoke from forest fires has dissipated in Grand Junction. I stayed mostly inside for a few days, which is not hard on work days. The clothes I wear are backwards from the ones I wear on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. There I have a windbreaker and layers for outside and I think my heat pump has had the air conditioning on once ever. Here I need the warmer clothes for the air conditioned inside. I get cold at work by lunch time and go outside to warm up! Very strange.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: fire.

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Cagey

Traveling from Washington to Colorado, Elwha did not like the car and the unfamiliar places. I took the cat carrier apart in the hotel room and he decided that it was safer inside it than out, even if it was in pieces. Sol Duc did not enjoy the car but is less worried about it all.

And here is Sol Duc in a virtual cage, a shadow cage. She likes the back yard a lot. I have had the house closed up because of the smoke for the last two days, but there is less today.

Do you know the poem by Ogden Nash, The Tale of Custard the Dragon? The chorus is as follows:

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

I love that poem! And I love the lines:

Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Ogden Nash was perfectly happy to bend words to fit the rhyming scheme and to heck with spelling!

The entire poem is here.

I still have not heard about Elwha. I hope that he has moved in with an older couple and spends most of his time on their laps. I can see him crying for a nice safe cage.

I thought there must be a song of it, but so far I like this tenth grade rap version best!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cage.

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Tea and talk

Tea and talk and tittle tattle
exchange of views among some boomers
solving problems as ideas rattle
or spreading nasty damaging rumors?
Talk of science and books and space
are the words mean or kind?
whispers about someone’s face?
Rumors about someone’s mind?
It’s hard to fight a rumor mill
people talking behind your back
the poison seeps and spreads and spills
a deadly dagger in your back
Time passes and people find
sometimes it’s the accuser who lost his mind

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tittle tattle.

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Frail

I wrote this poem about my father at least a year before he died. He was on oxygen, on steroids, terrible emphysema from 55 years of unfiltered Camel cigarettes. He would not accept much help and became more and more of a hermit. He did continue with the Rainshadow Chorale and because of it he quit smoking three years before he died.

Frail

We are going sailing
My partner says to me
β€œInvite him if you want.”

Then I am busy for a while

I think of calling, then forget

He was not at chorus on Monday

At last I say,
β€œI haven’t called. We’ll just sail.
Just us today.”

I haven’t called
because he was not at chorus on Monday

He is frail
55 years of camels
two packs a day
as if each cigarette
destroyed one alveolus
in his lungs
one tiny air/blood interface
built to exchange oxygen
and carbon dioxide
the loss is cumulative


He is frail
he is proud that the choral director
says, β€œI need you.”
He can’t sustain
but his entrances and time
are the best
among the basses.
They need him.

Chorus
is our winter link
two introverts
we hug at the start of chorus
sing for two hours
and talk for a few minutes at the end

Occasionally we go for a beer
I invite him for dinner
but he comes less and less
he often does not feel well at night

He looks smaller at chorus
this season
this is normal in emphysema
the body sheds weight
too much tissue to oxygenate
too hard for the lungs
and the heart, working overtime
to make up the difference
he is blessed with low blood pressure
genetic, from his father,
tough English stock,
otherwise I think he’d be dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because I am afraid

I’ve driven out before
when he has not answered the phone
for a day or two
wondering if I would find him dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because he was not at chorus on Monday
because if he didn’t answer today
I would not go

______________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: frail.

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Tinker, tailor

Tinker brought up this rhyme for me:

Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief,
Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief.

It turns out that another version is

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor,
Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief

And I had forgotten AA Milne’s version called Cherry stones:

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Or what about a cowboy, policeman, jailer, engine driver, or a pirate chief?
Or what about a ploughman or a keeper at the zoo,
Or what about a circus man who lets the people through?
Or the man who takes the pennies on the roundabouts and swings,
Or the man who plays the organ or the other man who sings?
Or what about the rabbit man with rabbits in his pockets
And what about a rocket man who’s always making rockets?
Oh it’s such a lot of things there are and such a lot to be
That there’s always lots of cherries on my little cherry tree.

Now I’m going to have to play with a version with some current jobs:

What about a tweeter, a twerker, a medical AI?
Influencer, programmer, cooker of meth highs?

Oops, that might not be the children’s version.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tinker.

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Peak

The pendulum swings far and back
Too many babies, what will we all eat?
Suddenly the switch, another panic attack
Now too few to support Wall Street
We wait in running cars in the drive-thru line
Wanting our turn to order fast food
It’s sunny through the smog and we feel just fine
The weather’s getting stranger, the world in a mood
Maybe we’ve peaked while driving around
Who will take care of us when we are old?
Peaked at the drive-thru, going down without a sound
An AI wonders at the price of gold
This might be as good as it gets
Maybe an AI will keep a few of us as pets

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: drive-thru.