Random
Stacks of baskets
And the clacking
Of trains
On their tracks
Once well-loved
Dolls
Made of decades
Old rags
I am sad
For a moment
That I travel
This life loving
All manner
Of thises and thats
Without knowing
Whose hands
Spent time crafting
These traps
And then
When I am through
I so rarely
Look back
-me
Painting by Tom Mc Nemar
Cinder blocks
Placed evenly
But painted over
Porous pieces
And rough cut
Edges smoothed
By layers slick
Enough and quickly
Sealed interior
Whitewash
-me
picture taken by me
Oh
But how
It stings when
All of your strength
Must be poured into that space
Inside where heaving tears might spill
So that those pulling empty places
Are for a moment filled with grit
And sheer force of concrete will
As you face a flying world
With a wide dry smile
While in the corner
Of your eyes
Oh but how
It stings
-me
Painting: 1960’s Airport by Paul Mitchell
I sat with death
And dying
As I cried
For quite awhile
My sobs
Were lost for
Living
Stillness hard
To reconcile
– me
Today I wear a bracelet
Which is eighteen years old
I wear it this day every year
For living moments that it holds
It was made for us in gratitude
For being there and holding up
The families of those we lost too soon
That horrid day in Washington
Crafted by hand in all three colors
They once were bright without a mark
Each year the colors fade a bit
And the beads become more scarred
At first I made an effort
To keep it quite pristine
But after many years I realize
Value is not in keeping clean
The dirt and scratches simply show
Eighteen years of life we’ve lived
We’re not defined by cracks and aging
But by what of ourselves we give
Dear bracelet, you’ll be on my wrist
On this day every year
Until one of us lets go that thread
Life well worn out for those not here
-me
I repost this every year on this day, it’s not the best poem technically…but that doesn’t really matter today.
A picture of the bracelet made, and given to me, by a volunteer at the Pentagon days after September 11, 2001 to thank those of us who escorted families to view the site where their loved ones died that horrific day. I am proud to have stood there with them, to have wept with them, to have heard stories about their loved ones, to have been present, available. It is one of my saddest, but proudest, days in the military.
Like an incessant itch
On the back of my neck
From a tag cut too rough
But sewn into the seam
Of my new softest sweater
So too is my need
To move way too quick
And not feel all these things
-me
painting: Sweater Painting by Jantina Peperkamp
I count the skulls that stare at me
With polished slack-jawed reverie
Twenty two and neatly stacked, I
Think they know I’m looking back
I still myself while bronze keys chime
They have no hands and yet mark time
The upturned hornet feels it too, she
Fights to stand to spite she’s through
I wait as endings e’re show up
Sip strangeness cooling in my cup, peace
Lily blooms but leaves curl brown
I feel the reaching, weathered shroud
and grin
-me
Painting: Focus in Chaos, by Another-Scarlet-Lily, on Deviantart.com
Caution color winks
Wild at me yet I persist
This drive unyielding
-me
You say you crave my crazy
If it is kept quite regulated
A bit of stable instability
Sin-heavy sighs but suffocated
You say you want my passion
Constrained till you are cool and ready
Rationed irrationality
The feel of free fall all while steady
You say you need me softer
And finally we find the truth
Your safety is birthed from settling
Trading once wild me for under-roof
-me
This is an edit and a repost from a couple of years ago.
I want to write
But the words have been taken
By a clever she-cat named
My disconnection
Carried off by their nape
All quite dead-limp but safe
She guards till they’re full grown
For all our protection
-me
Photograph taken in NYC in 1925
sometimesihatemycat 