frost on sunlit grass
a pocket of mist, no geese
–autumn finally
Author: crow
I'm a writer and a dabbler. I live in Southern California.
Post 20151119
I’m going to say thank you to Doug at his terrific blog Elusive Trope for nominating me for the Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge.
How the challenge works: I nominate three others to also embrace this challenge and, on three consecutive days, to provide a quote along with your take on it. As far as I can see, that take can be a post (like this one will be), or a poem, or a photo. Hey, how about a song, or spoken word?
Here are my nominations:
Optional Poetry
Poet Rummager
Linton’s Legacy
And now, the quote. As a warning, it’s a little heavy.
—–
Men are what their mothers made them.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
My mother died last year, three days after Christmas, and today is her birthday. We were very close when I was growing up. My father was, for many years, out of the picture except on weekends, and she was the literal center of my world. The older I got, she told me that I would grow up and leave her, and I swore, I promised that I would always take care of her. She had a tremendous fear of being left alone. If she had one defining characteristic, it was that.
Of course, I did grow up and got married, and moved out. Even before that, the older I got, the more complicated my relationship with her became. She loved secrets and kept some real whoppers from me, some which I will never ever get to the bottom of now that she’s gone.
Her mother died of Alzheimer’s. She was terrified that she would develop it too, and since she was already a bit scatterbrained even when she was younger, was convinced that it would claim her. Ultimately, it did take her. She was 80 when she died. And I was not there for her or with her.
We’d had a parting of the ways some fifteen years prior. And without being specific–even thought the principal players are now dead–she made a choice that I disagreed with, and didn’t want my young family involved with. So I made a choice that separated us. And though we kept in touch by phone, I never saw her more than a handful of times years before she began forgetting the names of my children.
There’s a pretty good chance I’ll develop Alzheimer’s. Maybe it’s karma for being a bad son, or just seriously fucked up genetics.
Are men what their mothers make them? I don’t know. I was her last child, her baby. I got more than my share of attention. My mother loved me. I loved my mother. But I felt like I couldn’t have her in my life. And the guilt of it sometimes crushes me.
Poem 20151119
so much ice
i hadn’t thought
with the polar caps melting
and the imminent doom
of rising sea levels
that there was still a place
in the world for so much ice
or that i would be trapped
beneath it
breathing is one thing
when you feel like there’s
something warm in the air
you want in your lungs
but altogether different
when the air is brittle
and razor-edged
Poem 20151118
the doses of radiation are safe
they say
and they run for the safety
of a lead-lined room
you lay on your back
arms over your head
and the magnets spiral
and spin around your guts
looking for the grain of sand
your body wants to turn into
a pearl
but you’re no oyster
Poem 20151117
the birds exercise their right
to be silent today
avoiding the feeders
and the yard in general
like an apocalypse
en media res
and i didn’t get the memo
the sky is so blue
what kind of blue
what word to replace blue
such a simple set of four letters
but none of the synonyms appeal
it’s blue blue blue
it’s clean-clear, almost white
it’s blue like a transparent
layer of skin that can be peeled back
revealing a host of sword-wielding angels
but are there any other kind?
even angels of mercy carry scalpels
in their tongues
and their words cut away the dead weight
the dying weight
paring you down so that you can fly
like them with hollow bones
silent mouths
you have the right to remain–
Poem 20151116
the only advice–
take care where you put your feet
since the path behind disappears
and the path ahead is covered
by stones and darkness
Poem 20151115b
my skin hot from the shower
i find what you left
on the counter
and when i am done
my hands smell of lemons
i will smell of lemons
for hours
days
the rest of my life
Poem 20151115
the moon is a crescent
a lopsided smile
that the clouds roll over
a diaphanous film
that hardly diminishes
its light
you ask then for protection
and i wonder
from what?
but then i remember the kind
of world we live in
i feel like i can’t even protect
the worms that we scoop off the sidewalk
after a rain and we toss them
back wriggling into the grass
so they won’t be stepped on
but nothing is stopping the birds
but maybe it’s enough to get them
back on the grass
and maybe the smile from the moon
isn’t a pasted on cheshire grin
Poem 20151114
during a conversation overhead in line at the supermarket
where the speaker is telling the checker that she is beautiful
and she is just urging him to swipe his credit card
i wonder about how you feel when i tell you
you are beautiful and you are not even ringing up my groceries
when i say it do you wish that didn’t because you don’t believe it
not that you disbelieve that i think it but you doubt that factuality of it
and sometimes i think you say thanks while you shake your head
like you are urging me to swipe my credit card and get on with it
Poem 20151113
fingers move across
the keys–but there on the screen
the lovers’ hands touch
Words and Feathers 