Literary as hell.
I walked on eggshells until the yolks
revealed themselves as the true enemies.
Then I beat myself up over
the inevitable, which, too, was inevitable.
The sun told the moon
to thank her lucky stars chickens
kept hatching, uncounted by sheep
pretending they gave a fuck who fell
asleep. Continue reading
In response to my most recent rant
About the politics of my state
And the new governor who plans, among
Numerous other evils, to save money
By denying dialysis to those on Medicaid,
To establish “right to work zones” where
Workers can be paid whatever the bosses want,
To cut funding by half to universities
Where people might be educated
To be wary of folks like him, Continue reading
The Size of Fruit
When I was born
with disappointing body parts,
Mother cried in tears
the size of full green grapes,
did her best to hide their shapes,
make me smile like slices of a cantaloupe.
They hired surgeons by the herd,
combed the country for a plan
to help me walk, certain it was just a dream.
Because they didn’t quit in
centers of that prayer, I’ve stood
and walked for many years.
When Father read the fatal slide—
Leukemia with all the dots,
he couldn’t, wouldn’t try to talk.
Mother’s death at 33 left him there
in kitchen nooks with tart green olives
in a jar, martini glasses empty, clean
and put away, nothing left to celebrate.
He cried in plums, but kept them all away from us,
like pit bulls famous for their teeth.
Silence robbed so many years.
I told him straight I wanted some
acquaintance with her countenance,
the size of sweaters in her drawers,
the way she touched piano keys,
filled the room with sweet ballets inside his ears.
He played deafer than he was
the times I asked, punched his stomach
way too hard with question marks.
When death took him,
I wandered through a wilderness—
no figs on trees, no leaves on hope,
no corn beneath the stalks and strings,
no avocado under skins;
what scraps were there were bruised by then.
Desperate is desperate. I learned too late
dumping grief is not the goal—
you follow ivy to a grave and sit with it—
let the weeping willow weep.
My tears the size of coconuts,
I shook the tree and set one loose,
broke it quickly on a rock,
drank the milk, then found a plum,
seeded it, chewed the meat,
squeezed the juice and guzzled it.
If only I weren’t thirsty still—
I suck on ice all day long.
Give Me Grace I Do Not Have
The only thing that’s green today,
a heavy tank beside the bed.
He sucks on borrowed oxygen—
I bring him ice cream, watch it melt.
The final day of Father’s life,
a catheter runs his leg like caterpillars
up a branch, his fingers scratching
at the tape. I lotion skin around the edge.
I’m listening to piercing screams,
crows inside a muted glimpse
of Hitchcock films in black and white.
Pills will yield a scrap of rest,
but not for long. The real scuffle is with God
and what he says will happen next.
I pace the floor, leave the room,
return when I can breathe again.
His eyes are closed like sleeping owls.
I hear some noise, a vacuum sticking to a rug;
it’s sucking dust I want to stay,
anything to cover this.
“I want to die at home,” he says.
I sit up straight—a Blue Jay startled from a fence.
To steer myself away from wrecks,
I scribble on a notepad just inside my purse.
A poem smells old—mothballs in a dresser drawer—
all I own for coping skills, shaking stilts.
I’m not standing tall enough.
Times like this are not for kittens
whining for their mother’s milk.
I hold his hand, wishing it were mine, not his
inside this tome, between the shale
and blooming poppies in a field.
The quilt I was to keep him warm,
losing stitches one by one.
The hospice nurse suggests
we sing “Amazing Grace.”
A eunuch in the land of love,
I have no voice.
Mugs of Tea with Hemlock Leaves
I’m here to place the last
of yellow marigolds to keep
the insects off romaine.
Here to water what is left.
The hose is crimped, its rubber
far too hot to touch.
An August sun that comes in June
could fry a slice of bacon
spread on lids of garbage cans.
I raise the blinds, stretching
out what sight is left.
Pods of lilies pop and bloom.
Their stems are 8 ft. tall at least.
I beg my husband: “Please buy stakes,
some sturdy rope.” He doesn’t see
our garden shows how seasons walk,
trip and fall. Dirt to daisy, then
to petals dropping off.
Embedded rocks along the grass,
once a trail to pleasantries,
mutate into shale and cairn.
Our neighbor has a hemlock tree.
Trumpets vines along the trellis
just outside our windowpane,
one deceased or getting there
in shrinking, melancholy strings,
the other wears a symphony.
The screen and view
insulted by a cobweb’s map.
Black widows or a brown recluse—
either way, the bite is sitting,
waiting there—
some stray arm will come too close.
Empty Answers—Empty Drawers
Liver Cancer started this.
Spreading fast like poison ivy—
lymph nodes to her burning ribs.
A prayer chain and a team of doctors
working hard to build a bridge to promised health
are not enough to calm me down.
Sending gifts—this fruitless fruit
of 13 scarves, sweaters for the trips to church,
all that tea, quiet music making noise
when rest is all she dreams about—
this isn’t very practical, when someone
spends entire weeks curled beside a toilet bowl.
Someone on the prayer chain types: “God is Big!”
Well, I am small, cannot sleep, lost inside a queen-sized bed,
twilight comes, then all the hours attached to moons
grow thick like building calluses.
I suck on pens, guzzle tea, notice that I haven’t touched
our black remote since March arrived
and this is June. Dozing off, head first into dinner plates,
I wipe the oil & vinegar, mashed potatoes off my face,
thank my husband for the towel.
It’s 2 a.m.—I haven’t hit the pillow yet,
grabbed a shower, answered e-mail, paid my bills.
I open windows, gulp the air to wake me up,
eavesdrop as the crickets sing, their clicking slippers
made of glass and fairytales.
I throw my laptop on the mattress, pick it up,
try again to write about what should not be her destiny.
It could be a Hallmark card or putting down
a facile pen, pinning ears to baser truths
that halted sterling symphonies. I don’t know.
She doesn’t say. Both of us are weak and tired
from tragic times divided only by their themes.
I’ve Googled every niche and corner
matching roads where this might lead.
When she calls, we listen to the silences
longer than we ever have—
breathe and sigh, a quick duet.
She’s got the guts to call it Cancer;
I’m the one who calls it IT.
We’re two birds that fly by strange
coincidence down chimney flues,
end up in the kitchen nook—
no idea where to go, losing feathers,
running into furniture and painted walls.
A whistling kettle on the stove
is making sounds I cannot hear.
I want to be a marching band
that hurries ‘cause it’s raining hard.
All she says is: “Aren’t you tired
of playing strong no matter what?”
We agree like matching socks.
I will sit until a fleet of hummingbirds
comes tapping at the window glass, self-assured
that nectar’s still inside a Calla Lily in a vase
poised upon the dresser’s wood.
Empty answers. Empty drawers.
Full of stuff, too much to move and organize.
I carry crystal with both hands to water
what is still alive. My husband turns the faucet on,
tells me that I need some sleep. Of course he’s right.
She’ll need me in the breakdown lane.
Hustle, Hustle—Hurry Up!
On this one day, I hated the shapes
of both our phones. Even tore one
off the wall, then put it back.
Stared at my insanity — until one rang.
Vomited beside the bed
before I ever answered it.
I have Cancer in my liver,
in my lymph nodes, in my bones.
My best friend’s voice hit me
like five olive pits thrown inside
disposals in the kitchen sink.
The silence gap—Grand Canyon style.
Then I can tell by listening,
she’s fighting hard, hard enough
to win some war, busy in a distant land.
She lives too far away to touch;
since all the gifts I mail off
aren’t medicine and she has that,
I stand between the shale and cairn.
She’s been a living, breathing angel
all her life. Every move is hurting her.
I understand why Rimbaud
scratched upon a brick on Paris streets:
Merde a Dieu! Artists try to be polite—
sometimes life destroys a clause.
Never certain when to call—don’t
break minutes when she sleeps—
they’re weak saltines. Don’t crush a second
in the day, where Cancer isn’t
what begins a sentence rolling in her head.
Pitch the stupid pansies in their pony packs;
buy perennials in bloom; grab the shovel,
move the dirt. Hustle, hustle, hurry up—
find that God-damned Northern Star,
cradle it in bubble wrap,
double check your address book—
ship it Fed-Ex Overnight.
Janet Buck is a seven-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of three full-length collections of poetry; her work has won numerous literary awards and she has published roughly 4,000 poems and non-fiction essays in print and internet journals around the globe during her 18 year writing career. Buck’s most recent poems are scheduled for publication in forthcoming issues of The Milo Review, Mistfit Magazine, The Ann Arbor Review, Antiphon, River Babble, PoetryBay, and other journals worldwide.
Lost
Geese get lost in mist, sidetracked
in heavy stillness, dew-wings
from burn-off, just around the corner
of mountains no one can see
but remember are there, reliable
as geese calling out to each other.
Some are unable to follow the lead,
break from the pattern. Their sounds
bounce off clouds and mountains.
Stillness is stirred from the low ground,
biting the air. At noon, still, no one can see.
It might get worse. It is better to sit tight,
hope for the weather to shift, clouds lifting
like a flock of geese over transparent lakes.
Astragalus
If you want to be a herbalist,
open this secret like a woman’s silk kimono.
You have to have some knowledge of tinctures.
Otherwise, it has no purpose.
You will go crazy trying to make cures
and it won’t work for charlatans.
If you do not know what you are doing,
you are little more than larva
feeding on astragalus leaves.
It is the natural gum Tragacanth you are after.
Twist into ribbons or flakes, powdered,
absorbed with water, stir into a paste
the size of an ankle bone. Otherwise,
it is useless. The mixture is not right.
The cure will fail the patient.
You might as well try to cure using a kimono.
it was not supposed to rain today
none of the mourners
has brought an umbrella
gentle mist
is beads up
on black suits
polished shoes
runs down the sides
of a mahogany casket
tracing manic patterns
across its burls and bird’s eyes
tracing a serpentine
path through a forest
of nicked up chairs
and tumbledown couches
he finds his way
out to a decaying deck
standing still
his mind consumed
with nothing
he begins to wonder
how many times
he would have to jump
before the wood
at his feet
gave way
while most folks
would lean
on a stubbly brick wall
welcoming all casual
Observers to bask
in their carefully
crafted casualness
perhaps a cigarette
burning forgotten
in their hand
Sophie looks
to the untrained eye
(and those schooled
in observational technique)
as though she is a critical
component of the building
as though the architect
has placed her thus
with great intent
form following function
poor Sophie
it appears
has been tasked
with holding up
that damn wall
J. Lewis Fleming, a graduate of Michigan State University, lives in a house on a hill in the fog with nine other mammals. He was poetry editor of: nibble, Cranial Tempest, and CannedPhlegm. Fleming has seven chapbooks to his publishing credit. The first: Delirious and Purple, from Kitty Litter Press. The best: Shades of Green, from Alternating Current Press. His favorite: it is winter, from nibble press. Tweets @nibblepoems.
Love was there
spreading hope like jam over my taste buds.
Then the first skipping rope broke,
got snared on a fence and frayed.
I stole away on a subway train where
hundreds have gone walking into a warzone.
Amen to the end and the predator’s
happy-go-lucky disposition. One claw,
one tentacle, in flowing precise motion.
Another lifetime and it may be different,
tender as lovers beneath their first full moon,
or worse, like cartilage deteriorating.
My parents rest in drawers of steel,
within shiny, cushioned boxes
behind walls of stone.
Slid in like bakers’ trays,
but they will not rise,
will not resurrect, Continue reading
You are just a tiny pinpointing dot
But you can pin an end onto
Anything, anybody, even the entire cosmos
From the strongest statement
In the most powerful discourse
To the weakest form
Of the representation of life
A solid full stop
A minimal black hole
Among all punctuation marks
You have the most uses:
In ancient Greek you were meant
To cut off everything as if to show
All the continuity in modern English
Even in Chinese, or Babelangue
Art should be a work able to startle the heart
Belief is impossible with a lie in it, while
Business never goes well without sin in between
Fact cannot be produced in a factory
Issue is anything that can lead you to sue, while
Life, like your wife, is always a matter of if
Recovery always implies something that’s over
Signature reveals the nature of the signer, while the
White have a hidden agenda to hit; by the way
Forget what you may wish to get:
Passion is the emotion of an ass
*******
© 2024 The Furious Gazelle
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments