Minisode 37 – Shower Grapes and Poetry

Day 1: Half a Meatloaf
When they come
They’ll leave the microphones
On the front stoop
And they’ll surprise me with
Half a meatloaf
A small token of their love
For a daughter they cannot hug

They’ll retreat to the parking lot
Keeping their eyes on their
Care package until
I open the door
Wave from 50 feet away
And yell “I love you”
Down the hall.

I miss hugs, and smiles
Holding hands
A reassuring bump of elbows
Or a rocking laugh that
Brings two torsos together.
Day 3.

Day 5: The Hangover
Getting older is the worst
My head aches an empty
Sort of ache behind my eyes
And my stomach betrayed me
This morning

For the first time ever

I like to keep my lunch
Where it belongs but the
Neighbors upstairs are bowling
And I think they’re using my head as a ball
Because the room is spinning
And I’m standing still
Headless

Day 11: Lazy Saturday
A bumble bee just flew
into the window of my office.
He backed up and charged again
before flying away.

In the next room,
my love sings at the top
of his lungs
and the tiny tiger yowls.

It’s as if he has not been fed
in twelve long years.
I sit click-clacking my way
through endless piles of work

as the panther begins yet
another lap around the house.
The afternoon is thick like honey
and I see the bee’s confusion.

Today, despite the small joys
of a lazy Saturday,
I wish I could buzz like that bee
and fly away into the world.

Day 12: The Rhino
Being alone makes it very easy
to fall into my own head.
I’m doing what I always do
when I get near a big decision.

The panic chases me down
like a rhino in the savannas of Africa.
I have never been there –
who knows if I will ever go –

but I imagine the heat and
the wide open spaces and
the horns running at me and
my throat closes up

with tears that will not fall –
though they will fall for everything else.
I feel the ants crawling under my skin
and the French music playing in my head

is vibrating my bones
and shaking out the spiders.
I wish I could shake the
termites out of my brain.

I am alone.
It’s a bad day.
Today, the rhino wins
as I surrender.

Seed
The grass is always greener?
Not to I, the Blackwood tree.
I sit in grey and stare at grey
and grey glares back at me.

It started deep below us,
the Grey, no bigger than a kernel
and it spreads like ink on wet parchment
to spoil the symbol of life’s eternal.

It bubbled at the surface,
a pregnant pause filling the air,
then up the bass it creeps and crawled
to leave my body dead and bare.

Spiderwebbed and vast
my thicket trembled softly.
There was nothing we could do
To survive and be rid of folly.

We sat there ever so patient
and shed our leaves in sorrow.
There was nothing we could do but wait
For the dawning of tomorrow.

Presently the stream is still.
What once was Prussian blue
is grey and cracked and still and grey.
I think the clouds feel stuck too.

Bad Practice
From where does my sorrow appear?
Plucked from vile recipes,
I give no pause for cheer.

I chafe under investigative analogy.
Be fair, be there, be helpful.
Fog is the cost of living carefree.

I try to sleep every night.
I argue with my pillow.
Morning brings snotty egg whites.

Intentional extinguishing.
I choke on animosity.
I wish she would stop visiting.