Poems-95

For Tony

There is nothing luscious as the sleep

all black and white surrounds

but for familiar darts of flash

and naked violet sounds

unless the stirring of the larks

sing praises in the sky

then nothing is as precious as

when tiny flutters fly

unless a looming stand of green

does bend in violent strain

then I'll not hope to see no more

of pine in winter rain

but what about my living love

he of transparent eye

the one who pleases while he's pleased

and gathers me to cry

I know I'll never more than want

himself so close to mine

much more than thousand roses red

or perfect rhyming line.

Spent in Silence

This was inspired by my American Literature class at CSUF around 1994.

I wonder why my voice sounds kind of crackly when I ask the guy waiting next to me about the Lit. class I missed last week.  It comes to me after I sit down at a desk in the darkened room.  I realize, a bit proudly, that I have spoken but five words the whole day.  Imagine that.  I think of my vocal chords sitting in the darkness of my throat, white and shiny, unmoving.  The rhythmic air of breath, and water, and potato have passed over them but still they stay, quiet.

A girl takes the seat next to me.  "What movie was it?" she asks.

"I'm not sure.  I was thinking maybe Il Postino."  I run the words through my head even as I speak them, counting them, hoping to break some sort of non existent record.  Fourteen.  Fourteen words in five hours.  

Mr. Y walks in then, a large stack of papers under his arm.  Hemley, I think.  I take to drawing on the Insight to pass the time he takes passing out the stories.  I give Professor Kapoor a hat for his head, Mahatma Ghandi, sunglasses.  They both look better, I think.

All the while Mr. Y is sprawled at the front of the room talking, drawling out his mesmerizing Mississippi accent.  A writing assignment, I think with excitement, then drop into the surface of disappointment when I find it's technical, not creative.

You want to write creative? I admonish myself.  Take his creative writing class.  I scratch in my journal some interesting Mississippi pronunciations.  "Tee-yews-dee" for Tuesday.  "Skyewl" for school.  Still, I do not speak.  I do not participate.

Have I ever spoken in this class?  I think.  Once, maybe twice, a while ago.  The first time I gave the definition of "alliteration".  Maybe only once.  I can't think of the other.

I listen with interest the first story Mr. Y reads, about furniture on a lawn in the dark.  I imagine the girl with wispy dark hair, big eyes.  The boy is younger, skinny and pale.  The man walks with a swagger, a determined swagger, bent with the weight of the bag.  He says his words with a measured air of "I don't care what happens.  Everything from this point on doesn't matter."

After the story I listen with half an ear to the discussion.  I really want to read Hemley but am not so rude as to flip through the pages.  I imagine my vocal chords again, bored at inactivity.  They are used to singing every day, strained and painful, but challenged.

What's not a short story? the discussion continues.  A narrative that is idea or subject driven.  There is no character development, it is not character driven.

My attention is pulled again when Mr. Y announces he is going to read one of his own short stories.  Finally.  The stories in the Norton Anthology are dead to me.  This will be a live story.  Mr. Y is asked if he's nervous.

"Not at all," he says.  "My throat's just dry.  It happens sometimes."

I listen as he reads, hearing for the first time in class a writer's own voice in his own story.  Soon I'm engrossed in the words.

A noise behind me startles me out of concentration.  I glance behind me, and there a man sits half asleep, head on chest, snores issuing from the nose.  Another snore, and I'm needlessly embarrassed as more kids turn their heads.  Their faces brighten at the recognition of the sound, at the sight of the man's head resting against the wall now, mouth half open, eyes closed.  They look from me to him, pleased amusement on their faces, as I were his sister or girlfriend and somehow connected with his sleep.

Mr. Y continues to read, either unaware or knowing and not caring.  I think of the irony of the situation.  Mr. Y would not be embarrassed.  He would make a joke, perhaps, and continue to read.  I think of all the words he's saying, all of the words he's said, all of the ones he will.  Hundreds, maybe even thousands.  I think of fourteen.  Fourteen.  I think of emotions without words.

I think, how many people can get through a school day without saying but fourteen words?  Not many.  Not many at all.  Especially not Mr. Y.

On Being a Mom

When you were born, our bodies melded to yours.  Our minds knew your thoughts, our hands discovered and remembered every fold, every wrinkle, every curve of your newborn belly.  Our lives changed, for the better, became far more difficult and yet indescribably joyful.  When you were born, we became Mom.

Now, in this season of newborn, toddler, preschooler, and big kid, our hearts, minds, and hands are still yours.  We wake in the night to nourish you, we forgo sleep to comfort you, we trek about our city to entertain you.  We anguish over decisions, some big, some seemingly inconsequential, and yet we seem to know that each decision made will have a lasting impression on these children we call our own.  

We work outside the home if we need to, we stay home and work if we want to, we scour friends and relatives for the perfect caretaker to care for the precious lives entrusted to us.  We cry as we leave, we laugh when we return, we cherish every moment we have together.

We nap (sometimes) but only when you nap.  We clean (begrudgingly) so that our homes will be fit for play.  We scrub, we sweep, we dust, we vacuum, we wipe, we chase bugs and spiders and scrape Play-Doh off the rug.  We labor, for love is not only the ease of cuddles and kisses. We work for the soundness of us.

We give our souls to God and hope and pray that you will do the same.  We teach, for the most part by example, and sometimes with words.  We repeat Bible verses and get you to church on time.  We grow in His love and in our love for each other.

And at times, when sickness falls and lays a veil of stress and worry over our usually peaceful homes, we rise to the occasion.  We take you to bed with us, diligently administer every drop of medicine prescribed, and offer fizzy drinks usually reserved for special times.  And sometime, someday, if one of you is called to heaven before us, a little piece of our hearts will break off and fly up to heaven with you, for we will always be your mom, wherever we are.

Now, as time passes and the shadows of "pre-teen" and "adolescence" grow larger in the sunshine of this season, we must remember to stop and watch.  Watch your baby walk, watch her chunky little feet pad on the rug as she chases the ball.  Watch your big girl, as she changes her clothes and washes her hair for the first time.  Watch as they struggle, watch as they play, for these times are made for memories.  It is impossible to keep every phase cemented in the recesses of your mind, every feeling of these moments locked in your heart.  So watch, and pray, and give thanks.

We are strong, we are tired, we love and are loved.  We forget, we remember, we live for others before ourselves.  Our arms grow tired from rocking, our feet grow tired from chasing.

And yet, we continue on.

We are Mom.  

Genesis (2005)

Like a brilliant sea of white

God brought forth the light

He cast the dark and shadows off

fleeing from His sight

and like a potter at the wheel

God brought forth a man

shaped and formed an image He

blessed it with His hand

and like the luster of a pearl

a helper, woman, Eve

beauty gentle, curved and new

her love his heart received

and like a serpent's tongue did he

taste the sweetness of the tree

and watched the fall-humanity

sprawl upon the earth

but like a servant king divine

He lived and loved, a Savior mine

upon the cross, the sacrifice

death and then-rebirth

Excerpts from "How Prince Eldridge Got His Own"

Ms. Eloise Jackson

My boy stands with a proud, straight back against the foul smell of indignity.

He likes to play saint.

He sings the song of a free man, the song full of chariots and shouts of "Lawd, Lawd!"

He paints pictures in the sky for his momma, pictures dripping with the lush colors of sweet air, earth, and time.

He sings, like I said, but as no one else on this living earth can sing: deep, magnificent, belting tones that fly into the air like the rush of rain under clouds and over dust-just as loud, just as wet.

My boy carries with him half of me and half of his daddy.  His daddy, a black man, as black as the thoughts some men will carry, (if not on their sleeves than in their elusive hearts) loved me as his own, loved me as in the Song of Songs.

"Your eyes are doves," he'd said to me, "my doves in the clefts of the rock."

And I loved him, oh yes, my man! I loved him as my own.

And my baby boy came to me through an etch of stained glass, like the light that warms a room, like the light that gathers dust, forever changed because of the color it pushes between.  But it is beautiful.  I would stare at the color, the warm tinge of his skin, the deep deathless eyes, the straight black pins that are eyelashes, and remember a perfect love, such as I had.

No, my boy can do no wrong.

My boy sits on the rocking stone, staring, hearing the rancor mouths around him, patiently gathering and dropping every slur, every laugh, every sting into a grave dug fresh every day.

He does not know I know.  He does not know I share it with him.

For the day I allowed young Theodore Howe to love me my skin darkened, too.  It struggles, too, through glass stained red, yellow, and blue, and yes, black; stained and swirling into a menagerie too bold to imagine.  Too bold to see.

Do you know this boy?  Do you know how I struggle with you?

My boy sits now on a stilled stone, staring at bars that don't break under the emotion of those within.  My boy, my boy, He knows, don't you see?  Are you holding to Him, like you held to me?  He knows, he forgives, and He sees...my boy.

Sing it like the free man you are.

"When Paul and Silas were bound in jail,

do thy a-self no harm

one did pray and the other did sing,

do thy a-self no harm..."

I sit with you, Leroy.  I sit with you, and I am dark, like you.  I am proud, like you, I sing well, like you; I swim in hope that's a tepid-still pond, like you.

No, my boy can do no wrong.

If he can see his momma as she sees him now, ignore the salt water that streaks this face, ignore the wringing of the towel under trembling hands.  My body is of no consequence.  My body bore yours, and this body would lie down for you.  This body would wail for you.

Boy, stand straight to the eyes of those who are looking in.  Make no judgement of them, make no judgement of yourself.  Let the Lord judge, He who is the only one who may judge.   Wait and hope for me, my boy, your tired old momma, your sad old momma, straw purse in one hand, white gloves in the other, brown hat on her head.

Your momma is coming soon, boy, wait for me on your tired feet.

Wait for me on your tired feet, boy, your momma is coming soon.

Poems-95

Awe

Cast away, prideful moon

her boastful beauty, plaintive

on the arm of night

her lip's breath halting and indulgent.

Turn deliberate away

from gallant sun, giver to us

the presence of bright,

where light touches and moves

silently mocking creation.

Sing praise then, of the Invisible

unlike his ashen movement

her glowing dullness.

Praise of what is felt but ungrasped

whose absence of material

speaks humbly volumes of greatness.

Do not entrust in dipped wisps of white

cluttering above both day and night

nor the one with heat consumes 

and while alive sustains life

(unlike death, which is the price of life)

but rather He who raises death

"come forth!"

sweeps its threat aside

and suffered us His suffering more

laid beside night,

awoke with the gallant sun

one times three times one

and saved us from ourselves.

A Better View

The Bible says “do not be conformed any longer to the patterns of the world,  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).   Transform and renew.  Do not live in the world, the world of narcissism and conceit,  vanity and pride.  Live separately but cohesively.  Be a Samaritan in a world of Levites.

 A tall order for the likes of me.

 I do not consider myself a nonconformist in any sense of the label.   But perhaps it is something I aspire to be.  By this I mean true uniqueness.  Is it possible to live in a way that totally breaks the established mores, norms, and values of society?  To be a true and complete entity apart from the rest of humanity? Yes, there are people who eschew the morals and boundaries of society, there are those who wear green pants with red striped shirts, there are those that listen to obscure music and call themselves nonconformist.  But are they really? 

 In Japan, conformity is the rule.  Businessmen wear business suits,  girls and boys wear uniforms to school, grown women cover their mouths with their hands when they laugh.  Young women and men wear trendy clothes and chat or text on the ubiquitous cell phone.  But on Sunday,  in Tokyo, these same women and men, in the name of nonconformity,   make a statement about their identities and their existence in the safest and sanest possible way.  On Sundays,  on a busy downtown street,  there can be seen people dressed in the most outlandish garb.  Women in white bridal gowns and bright red lipstick.  Men with spiked green hair and leather dog collars circling their necks.  Cat costumes,  clowns, and those who prefer the all black scheme.  All this because of the suffocating, drowning, fading feeling of being a very small voice in an enormous choir.  It must feel as if no one can hear you no matter how loud you try to sing.  Better to sing off key than to blend in, unnoticed.

 

But this is not the type of nonconformist I strive to be.  I gladly wear the same clothes, watch the same TV shows, and eat the same (comparatively) food most of my family and friends do.  The nonconformity I strive for is nonconformity of the mind, the heart, the spirit.  Like Jesus at the well.  Martin Luther and his 98 Theses.  Plato and his theory of a “round earth”.  Martin Luther King on the steps of the Washington Monument.

 Now, this is not to say that I am comparing myself in any way to these who have shifted the paradigms of the world.  I am saying that “if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.  I am the first to admit that I am an extremely small voice in a very big choir.  But perhaps by emulating those that came before me, I can find a way to make my voice a little louder, a little stronger.

 Perhaps someday I can even sing a solo.

Poems-1995

I wrote these in a frenzy in the spring semester of '95 when I was at CSU Fresno.  

Lightening lit his pallor

and thunder followed as scripted

line by line

and slowly

he lived his life as meant to be

Mr. Majors did not fly

only drove

passed all manors of distinction 

and lived his life as meant to be

His run slowed to shuffle

as blackbirds and rain

dented once a myriad 

of defenses

He depleted stores 

of normalcy

Mr. Wiggles pointed fun

and flaunted paper dolls

both whole and torn

but dolls nonetheless

He waggled and shook tail feathers

secure in the knowledge 

that he knew the all and everything

in his mind he made lightening cower

and thunder follow forked treble clefs

but never lived his life as

he meant his life to be

Mr. Majors met Mr. Wiggles

one day among ten million

and peaked curiosity 

circled each,

sniffing

both convinced he

of the vibrant bloom

or thick cocoon

lived the life of 

Calvary

Excerpts from "How Prince Eldridge Got His Own"

I wrote this back in college after reading William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying".  I had never heard of "stream of consciousness" before, and I had to try it.  These are a few of my favorite characters.  The story is of violence, race, and redemption in a small southern town.

Amos Lackey

This morning the sun was as bright as fire.  It seared the sky coming up and burned into the clouds, frying them white and black.  Never had I seen a sun so fine, so perfect, with the colors of temptation and purity roiling and twisting together so that the intensity hurt the eyes.  

Never had I seen a day so hot, so fine.

The dust was beginning to crust up around the bean plants so I took the watering can to them, in accordance to what my Betty instructed.  I always do what Betty instructs because she knows how to work the garden.  Sometimes I'd have to say the Lord himself would come down and take up some of the work of her hands, if He ever did taste anything from that plot.  Her beans are like candy, so sweet and crisp; if you pick just one from the vine and break it in two you can smell the crispness and hear the life the water provides in that one strong snap.

Water provides for us all.  It chases the thoughts of struggle from the mind, it cools the body as it floats from the skin and it distracts from the problems of the farm, from the dryness of earth and of heat.

Here in the middle of summer the dogs pant for a respite from the aching pulse of this devil season.  My babies do too, in their own way; my oldest, James, he lays without a shirt on the field grass in the mornings, soaking in the coolness of the night before, waiting with me for the sun to rise and burn the dew from the leaves.  You can see Will with his head under the pump at any time of day, squinting his eyes shut against the cool flow on his neck and the back of his head, his hand and long arm working at the pump with the smoothness of a heron's wing...pump...pump...pump.   

Keesha sips sun tea with her mama on the porch.  They cut the lemons into slices and float them thick on the brown and amber liquid that sloshes against the sides of our cut glass pitcher.  I know when both are coming back into the kitchen when I hear the clink of ice against glass, and if I listen closely I can hear the crunch of the stinging hard water between teeth, and I smile because I know the feeling of a cold mouth on a hot summer day.

Little Kitty is the anomaly.  She doesn't run to the water, if anything, she runs away from it.  She drags her feet through the dust of our road, she chases the chickens with Red and Temperance, the dogs, until sweat beads up and shines on her face.  I hear myself tell her, over, and over, that the heat will keel her down, but she just likes to look at me with her baby browns and say, "I don't care, Daddy, I like the sun, I do."  And then she runs again.

So when my eyes fell upon Little Kitty dragging only her left foot through the dust of our road behind her like some fallen angel, the brown bag heavy in her hand and her head crooked to one side like it was too heavy to keep up straight, you might want to believe I felt that cold, itching drop of uneasiness trickle up in the back of my throat.  I waited for her to come closer, and sent the dogs up to meet her, and when Red's tail drooped between his legs I knew only the worst must have happened to my Little.

Betty knows I don't stand stock still in the middle of the day for no good reason so she came out of the kitchen, actually leaving the canning jars empty and the boiling pots unattended to stand next to me in the white hot heat of the summer afternoon to whisper in my ear, "What is it?  Amos, what's happened?"

And I was thinking the same thing in my head, what is it?  Amos, what's happened?

And when I saw the white kerchief with the dark red stains I didn't do anything for the space of a moment.  Then what I did finally do is burned into the canvas of my brain like a wicked spell, clear and terrible, a beautiful song not sung in tune.

I turned my back to her and stepped across the field grass to the barn.  I left her there, too selfish and weak to show my own broken heart to the girl, trusting my Betty to comfort and cradle the poor baby in her strong, black, capable arms, leaving my littlest to fight her fight alone and sad in the dusty heat of that fine, red summer day.

Exhale

Writing is an exhalation of the mind.  If breath is held, the heart pounds, the trapped air presses against the larynx and all is panic.  After seconds, minutes, open your mouth and release.  Air escapes with a rush and a joyful hissing; the spasms of the diaphragm cease.  

And as thoughts build in the mind, emotions build in the heart, and passion builds in the spirit, an exhalation is needed to cease the spasms of self expression.  Write, and release the air.  Write, and relax.  Breathe deep, and focus.

Exhale.