My waffle iron is an old man
who groans as he bestows
dried parcels and dark stories
from breakfasts long ago.
My waffle iron is an old man,
whose joints creak and shake
and every lifting of his head
is another threat of break.
My waffle iron is an old man
though my children leap with vim
and run and dance along their way;
He can’t keep up with them.
I should always
occasionally
write a poem on death
While mirth still dances in
my gut
and laughter kisses me
I should form a stanza or two
Of death riding in on
A pale horse to reap
So when the fellow offers me a ride
those waiting on foot
can read the crumbs left behind,
and say ‘she knew it all the time.’
Sorrow used to come at me
With a sharp drawn in its hand
And stab and swing and sever
And I was naught to understand.
Then it knocked upon my door,
But I scarce would let it in
Until it crept off in the dark
It’s blade to whet again.
Now we meet as strangers,
Who recognize the other’s face
But can’t remember if in a dream,
Or in this wicked place
We once fought as enemies
Dealing mortal blows;
Sorrow’s, to teach me misery,
And mine, to cease to know.
From the miles,
Across the sea
Of asphalt and tire
And melancholy memory
I remember you;
Nights we grieved,
And laughed, and hoped,
And, as one, believed.
Does the magnificent butterfly
Shedding her chrysalis
Shed also tears -to cry
Or reminisce
Of caterpillar feet,
Big lazy days,
Big leaves to eat,
Simpler, unsightlier ways?
Or does the pain
Of breaking free
Erase the stain
Of all that used to be?
Your self steps in your way,
unseen to you, you trip again.
You’ll pull yourself up,
brush off your sin
and continue on your stray.
You hold dear
all the right ideals,
but sideways,
with all the wrong ideas
fixed askew.
You crave worship,
so you can tithe a tenth
to the Most Holy,
like spiritual rent
or dues.
The coffee pot sputters me awake.
My children color while their waffles bake-
The younger one loves what the older one makes
So as a show of admiration she takes it
and runs away. They call me, the judge, to break
the disagreement. Pleading their case so I will slake
their thirst for justice, and I agree and forsake
My kitchen station- My mistake.
I restore peace then return for the sake
Of waffles burning, big black flakes
Into the trash- everything brakes.
We sit with what remains. We partake
Together.
And when these perfect days are over,
How will they ever be replaced
With anything but ache?
I pluck the star from swirling deeps
The burn, the flameless fire creeps
like an epitaph unsung
across my lips, along my tongue
Scouring, devouring, I swallow it
down my gullet to my hollow bits
There, the swimming fever roils,
my pulse screams in my ears and boils
all the quiet, saner thoughts to death
With light and fire on my breath
I exhale and beg for rest, beg for time,
to digest the star I ate as mine
And when these tremors still, all slaked,
when I am well, when I awake,
I will gaze back to the sky
and wonder which star next to try.
I want to write all all day.
Instead, I pull myself free
sideways, out of the riptide
that would release me
into an ocean of words,
images, ideas; the vast
wilds and winds of Wonder
wherein each poem is cast,
and forms, and floats,
and gets washed back.
Over the bridge I thought I burned;
Has this trip home been decades late?
Yet I remember every turn,
And every smell, and every taste.
Memories scattered by the road
As wild poppies on the highway,
Past each new bend an old bloom grows;
And not one has died away.
Following the flow of paint and tar;
Headway through the pain and loss.
Sorrow never stretched so far,
Nor was a greater ocean crossed.
I pursue my childish apparition
And the smell of salt in the air-
Have I forgotten my root system?
I am from somewhere.
I reach the end of land,
The end of me, the end of running
Chanting waves on cluttered sand
Sing the forgotten into forthcoming.
All these years of mourning
A land that never died.
A sudden break in storming;
Nothing is lost. We are alive.
Staring into the waves and wind,
Until the sea stares into me.
I remember who I’ve been,
And who I may still be.
