Literary as hell.
My wife had selected Winnie the Pooh as our baby’s theme. “Classic, not Disney,” she’d often repeat to family and friends as they called to congratulate us and ask for suggestion on gifts or clothing.
Being new to all of this, I soon found out that matching and coordinating was a common expectation when it came to such things as babies and preparing a nursery. Together we had carefully selected everything from blankets, comforter and floor rug, to the Classic Pooh table lamp that would sit on the dresser.
So, at first I was a little worried about the dresser. According to the instructions I had everything I needed for assembly – Phillips screw driver, small adjustable wrench and hammer to tap the tiny black nails to the back of the unit to prevent it, as the instructions explained, from collapsing when finished. But, until I sliced open the box and let the pieces slide out precisely stacked as they had been when they left the shop floor half a world away, I did not know that the sand color of its smooth veneer finish was in fact an exact match to the sand colored trail of the wall boarder, on which a series of Pooh-Bears continuously roamed, night into day and day into night, honey pot in hand, appropriately accompanied by bees encircling the nursery at a height level with the top walnut railing of the crib. Continue reading
Quite suddenly, nothing happened.
With all the force in the world, nothing happened.
Assured the condition was only temporary,
we were told to return to our houses,
to leave the lights off and get into our beds.
To tremble at powers far beyond our comprehension.
Your skull is packed with razor thoughts, as Father is dying a horrible death, his camel chin, so tired of rising to meet your buzzard eyes. And yes, you have the power to take a papercut, turn it to rivers of blood. There’s a catheter bag taped to the hair on his leg. You know, when pouches of urine pull on the tube, it hurts much more. “I’ll empty it” is all I say. You’re busy with some young woman, bleached-fried hair, doing your nails—donning a silk-slick negligée–clearly the skin of a Python with those aging spots. Next she’ll dye your old coiffure, see if she can change the world. Yours, not his. I hate that fact.
You treat his dying as if it’s yours. He doesn’t deserve that Hell-made pickle of your tongue. None of us deserve your tongue. But go ahead, do what you do: tear down shrines, release the memories of lives that matter, toss them with that snotty tissue in the trash. When he’s gone, it’s free-fire zone. I have a mouth; I’ll use it then. Because of you, every step I make to hold the conch shell of my father’s hand is a field of mines. I’m the one who scratches the genie’s itching head, rubs his shoulders with all the power in my wrists and fingers, in my arms, as he quietly reads the news. Do you know your sour words are bile and hairballs in his throat? I make him crêpes for breakfast when you refuse to switch on morning coffee pots, but manage to open a gallon of scotch, telling someone watching you drink from a bed stand cup: Oh, it’s only apple juice, you say. And we pretend that we believe to save him from the whipping post.
I hate the thought of my father making love to a woman built of shale and splintered wood. That heavy clay horse in the pompous living room you never use but had to have—like six mink coats—will do just fine. I could come up from behind, knock at the door of a head filled up with pharmacies you never needed from the start. And you. You over there—the one with eyes glazed over same as donut holes, the one who will not hold me when he’s gone—I’ll bet you’re stealing his morphine pills.
***
It’s over now. I stand beside him, stumbling over syllables. “A Love Poem to My Father” is the piece I wrote. My wrist too weak to hold the frame, a hospice nurse helps me out, reaching underneath to steady the paper pinned by glass, now hit by cold November winds. She knows these cracking cricket sounds will live forever in my voice. You are screaming, Get that body off my bed! I wish it were some bullshit job of paraphrase. Where’s that horse? A thick, black zippered body bag is on a stretcher telling me there’s no tomorrow.
Janet Buck is a seven-time Pushcart Nominee & the author of four full-length collections of poetry. Buck’s most recent work is featured in The Birmingham Arts Journal, Antiphon, Offcourse, PoetryBay, Poetrysuperhighway, Abramelin, The Writing Disorder, Misfit Magazine, Lavender Wolves, River Babble, The Danforth Review & other journals worldwide. Her latest print collection of verse, Dirty Laundry, is currently available at all fine bookstores. Buck’s debut novel, Samantha Stone: A Novel of Mystery, Memoir & Romance, was released courtesy of Vine Leaves Press in September, 2016. Janet lives & writes in Southern Oregon—just hours away from Crater Lake, one of the seven wonders of the world. For links, announcements, and interviews with Janet, visit her new website: www.janetibuck.com
At the British Museum in London, many of the world’s greatest treasures are on display. As I studied the Rosetta Stone, one of our modern-day wonders, there was only one thing on my mind: What does that feel like?
Fortunately, the British Museum anticipated that desire. They recently started hosting Objects Handling Sessions, where visitors can touch historic artefacts daily under supervision of a trained volunteer. They’ve also added an interactive Touching Tour, which allows blind visitors to handle plaster replicas of some of the artwork, to better visualize it. These features can help bring history to life in your fingertips.
However, I noticed no one seemed shy about touching the real deal. “Please STOP TOUCHING the art & artifacts!” reads one 5-star review from an unamused guest.
Indeed, the guards seemed blind to it. Pictured below, a woman rests on an ancient statue marked PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH.
Encouraged, I partook myself. Here is a guide to my favorite sites at the British Museum by taste and texture.
The Sphinx tasted enigmatic. Truly, there is nothing in the world like the feel of a genuine Egyptian sphinx beneath your tongue. Each lick imbued me with years of wisdom.
On the downside, I probably have a curse now.
The coin room in the British Museum has a handful of coins out at all times to be handled. Naturally I popped a few in my pocket when no one was looking.
I felt supremely powerful holding the coins of generations past. However, I discovered that the thousand-year-old drachmas, though purportedly valuable, could not buy me a snack from the museum’s cafeteria. Whoops. Now I know what people in Greece feel like.
Comfy, but short.
“I know what you did to the Sphinx,” a voice whispered in my ear as I stroked the Mummy’s hand. Whoa. I’ve really got to get out of here.
See the spectral
blaze of a child’s
silhouette seared
against the plaster.
Sound waves of
laughter take shape
into that of a hum
drumming through
my body, no
ponderous
force pulling me
down the center.
Her phantom bore
a hole through me.
Pink fractals sprout
throughout my skin.
The longing has
gone, disintegrated
into the brackish
water that’s
extinguished the
flames of need.
I no longer
sense the urgency
in my womb.
She’s just a faint
memory of want,
an etching fading
from erosion.
I ruminate about the past and
future, in a world that subsists
in the present, spinning in a
cyclical existence. Stories
form creases across the folds
of wan, scarred skin. My
clothes are torn and faded.
Dressed like a vagrant, I let
words slip out from my mind,
down through my fingers,
and onto the typewriter.
Indelible memories flow out
in ink. Into the night, my
head nods as sleep beckons,
a miasma of cigarette smoke
and ash hangs. A nicotine halo
wreaths me. Disgruntled
drones wake carrying off to
work in a sleep medicinal daze.
I am the stupor filling in the
fractures of their skulls. Dusk
has long passed and dawn
sneaks its way across stretches
of moonbeams over the
landscape of my psyche. I
yawn, fanning my face with
scribbled pages in the heat.
Show me it’s time to lay my
head, my world upon a strained
neck, down on my pillow
to greet the escape of slumber.
Don’t analyze me, complain about my size,
or conclude I’m an idiot with cat breath,
don’t glibly flash frowns or smiles
over this octopus stew and ginger beer.
We’ve tangoed together longer than forever,
so don’t defer with those sly eyes or
grin with trust in your silver tongue.
I’ll splurge for diamond and platinum rings,
feared by everyone, for I’ll soon own
the Vatican. I know where cottonwoods
pray to depressed skies, when cardinals sing
to their shadows, why perfume lingers in dark Continue reading
“You won’t find pepper trees this size anywhere outside the tropics. They have to be kept above seventy degrees at all times.” The guide rattled on and on.
With thirteen-year old impatience, I was aching for the water lilies and bromeliads. I let Selene, an extremely forward girl from one of the upper grades who was supposed to be a “student mentor,” rub my arm because it was stinging. Arielle had tackled me, just for the hell of it, inside a greenhouse while the teachers weren’t looking. She had also given me a punch that clearly hurt her more than it did me. In front of the adults, Arielle put on her best Ellen Terry impression, soulfully imbibing the scents of flowers and gently parading a shiny Noble Chafer on her soft little palm. If the beetle had been one of her fellow classmates, she would have crushed it with glee.
This is the wall of his memory
A photo to his disappearance
Pale, washed out with years
Yet, still, there he must be found.
His laughter haunts the echoes;
Not too far, she too remains;
A moment so long ago, outside
Of the time they both knew.
There, I will stay, searching
The nooks, the crannies, the seams,
For a signature has been apposed
Perhaps only a sketch of a life.
Palimpsest, the scientist
Will uncover every layer
Of the story finished too soon;
Unshroud a death only in rumors.
His skin reddened by the attacker
Weather of all seasons,
A shirt wearing spots of inks
And many chapters untold.
He laughs into the thickness
Of an unfathomable fortress,
Only from time to time, to
Emerge and wink at finitude.
It is his wall, the cover he built
Upon which his portrait lasts
Author of his biography.
She found words running loose in the Strand,
fit them for goofy hats
corralled them into a corner
and conducted them into photographs.
She knew how to assemble them.
You kiss like you are,
she whispered
as I sat stumped on eight across,
You’re vulnerable,
Then you’re not.
Drift out the window
Land in a puddle of silk
Float skyward, unbound.
I wish that my jealousy
Would stagnate like a dammed river.
Instead,
Jealousy rages on—swelling, overcoming.
While the only damned thing
is me.
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