A Carrie Retrospective

Something Better

Here on the shoals of nothing
I have lost the power
to be one with my thoughts
my mind drifts without a sure
hand on the tiller and my ideas
seem lost in the doldrums

Pull me up into the glare
of a strange noontide
mottled with brilliance
as the calm surface swells
and recedes with each breath
Gaia takes in her somnolent rest.

Can I find contented stillness
when I know that time and tide
are turning pages of history
reading without learning
lessons taught beyond school
by the sages of experience?

How I long for a breeze
to catch the main and billow
the sheets with a freshened
air blowing us beyond
the treacherous reef beneath
our keel and forward
to something, anything at all.
 
Antique Rose

tea in a porcelain cup
the red rose faded
like the lines there
glimpsed when her cuff
slips and the tea
trembles perilously near
the lip. Her voice shakes

We came back to the place
Papa and I. Our neighbour,
I was surprised to see,
she'd never been taken
so her house was a mish mash
of guardianship.

dreams hang in the air
like the smell of pipe smoke
lingers in the corner
by Opa's chair. Not forgotten,
not by his daughter, even
as she sips tea from a treasure
thought lost, but found
in the keeping of a neighbour

She'd kept this cup safe
for Mama, in case she
wanted it. There were ghosts
to talk about. I went outside.

ashes blow on breezes down streets
where lace once drifted at windows
and kids played with hoops and sticks
rolling down the road. All that's
left to comfort one survivor;
a rose teacup, fading, filled
below the rim lest the shake
of palsy spills on the white cloth.
 
Spring Moon

Morning haze huddles in the hollows
windswept drifts, smooth breasts cleansed
with wash of tides receding with moonset.

Thawing land rebounds, inhaling
as the glacier raises up on his elbows
to kiss his lover's face

Entwined and held close in tender arms
he sighs; reluctant to relinquish
his comfort against her lush heat.

His passing to another night forgotten
with the song of children and spring's
burst of flowers from beneath the quilts.

The land delights with sun's caress all through
the golden summer. Her fruits ripe and juicy
await the autumn's smoke and dusk.

A welcome rests with the passage
of seasons. Her bed strewn with harvest
blooms to please her dark lover

who rises just as Gaia's children go to sleep.
The long night is his to hold her close in slumber
trembling with dreams and fecund promises she rests.

Mists define the hollows as his lover wakes in a warm
release of birth waters to fill the lakes
and land with new life and promise with the sun.
 
Reminding You Of My Love

Don't forget to dream, sweetheart
when all is fading faint.
Deny the numbness creeping
in to seek the sheltered chambers
of your heart.

Let memory wash over thought;
highlights of a day so fine tomorrow,
even though the future, is shaded
by these arms once wrapped around
today's loneliness.

Don't forget to dream
when seeming solitude swallows
welcome quiet, swells forboding
against the wisp of once
upon a time to leave a memory

of the words I ever say out loud.
I love you. Don't forget to dream
sweetheart. I stand here inside
your heart to help battle back
the spears of shadowed cold and keep
these chambers warm.
 
Ephemera

Today I faced a solemn moment
of understanding that such joy
can only be a fleeting instant,
in all the ages of our existence,

All of the important letters,
the learned dissertations,
recorded theses on life, creation
and hallelujah memories pass

in disguise. We think them vital,
distinct to our reality
but instead, like paper cups
and envelopes, the ephemera

of We fades, becoming fuel
for the gas giant to consume
in unimaginable eons to come,
or tomorrow, if we live so long.
 
Fishing

I've got to go to the shore
and watch as eagles swoop
down low to capture fish
at rest in sheltered pools
beneath the rocks studding
the river as it flows from high
to low and near to there
I'll see a deer serenely tending
a speckled fawn until at last
the eagle flies to its aerie
at the top of the tall, scraggly
pine with a trout held tight
in taloned feet so sharp I need
to hold my breath in wonder.
 
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Coffee Break

The murmur slurs the aisles
from the gather at the atoll
where monitors and printers
glow and rattle in the morning;
until the pod moves west
and outside, to hunker in the lee
of the storage shed,
smoke cigarettes and sip
sweet, creamy coffee
and the real business begins.
 
Fourteen More Wasted Lines a Sonnenizio
on one line from Angeline's poem "Fourteen Wasted Lines"

The metronome ticks, air expires
in an aired exhale against her brow
and I cannot beat these airy wings
in air so thin that breath is gasped
only on every other rush of air
sucked through a straw, air rare
here in the atmosphere. Still air
beats through my veins. Air and blood

swirl in a foamy air current, Pink froth
of air bubbles on lips bleeding
artful gushes of windy air your pulse
sings in cooler air against heated
passion in my air-filled chest
and every breath with air is blessed.
 
Provocation

Such a subtle sexuality burns
through your innocent facade.
Like an ingenue, you seem
unaware of how you look to me.
I know the hours of effort spent
to keep your breasts held high
enough to round a glimpse

down open Vs and tantalize
my lips with imagined pebbled
nubs. Nips that send erotic steam
down to aroused flesh, itching
to feel yours spread wet, hot
and full against mine.

You know your exquisite timing
draws attention to your smile,
and that demure tucking in
of your chin, reminds that more
is lower down and lower still,
across the gently mounded
humps of muscle and plump
flesh. Hidden in a damp crevice

a spring awaits the thirsty
traveller, tempted to slake
the burning thirst lust fires
inside mind and mindless
muscle and sinew and swollen
sex organs, pulsing in answer
to your provocation danced
up there upon the stage
 
Even Bobby's Blues Can't Fix This

Feeling good could be defined
as an absence of feeling bad,
so today brings analgesically
induced goodness to those neurons
accustomed to bein numbed with pain.
But there's some scars healing
at a central point of feeling love.
It's not bad insomuch
that this feeling isn't as good
as it was around the time
a hurt heart could be convinced
that everything was all right.
I guess that even when I felt good
living a lie was just as painful as living
the barefaced truth that is today.
 
Provoked

Push against stonewalled
resolve with petulant
shoves against every rock.
Stomp with heavy boots
along the stubborn ridge
to break a misplaced step.

Keep at it -
just as persistent.
Pick along the edge -
just as resistant.
Twist the fibrous strand
until it breaks
and you have provoked
retribution for every
painful wound.
 
Androgynous Machinery

A skeleton of alloys, steel made stainless
supports a superstructure of titanium.
Metal coated with slick plastics, teflon
too brittle for this purpose, this needs
to bend and perform in twisted poses.

Graphite sinews connect lengths
and wrap joints that lift and pull,
pushing in endless motion to power
a pump fuelled by resistance
and sunlight. The beat goes on
in a rhythm not unlike our own pumps.

Science gives us skin cells of undying
health and impermeable softness
to wrap the workings in. Nano bits
flood tubes with everything a body
needs to become a super human.

You are a vision of average appeal,
virtual perfection to the normal
amongst us. No flaws to be seen,
no gaps in knowing, an absence
of a learning curve that satisfies

many but only makes me uncomfortable.
You are my creation, more than a gollum;
you are not magic, not of God. Invention
placed a responding physiology, comparative
deduction determines when you smile

My servant, you are untiring, unsad,
unaware of how people decide if you
should exist or be swallowed
in a recycling machine.
 
Very nice, champagne
Sensual, alluring, and great even tempo
Thank you PP. I struggle with rhythm although I seem to have an intuitive knack for breaking a line in just the right spot to keep you reading through. This is a lovely compliment to my poem.
 
Bending and Flexing Your Form

Drop your pentametre here
on this chair while you comb
the syllables from your hair

and I watch you shimmy
along with the metaphor
and embed you in internal rhyme.

I love your sibilance and the tone
of illustrations on your assonance

bend the meaning and turn
a phrase so that hidden themes
hit the iambic foot of the bed.
 
How To Break A Poem

You say the mechanics
of poetry turns your artistic soul off
of sharing the beauty, the imagery, the echo
back from blank walls of protected feeling.

It is not about being cold
and precise. In this let passion first
go out and seek the chinks in the stucco
plaster, to rip great flakes off and let you in.

Write your heart
onto the page and fill the empty hollows
with words so that they spill over
the edges into a steady roar of emotion.

When you turn
with tears on your cheeks and fall exhausted
against the chair you say you are done
and can do no more, it is enough.

It is never enough.
Return and savour that taste with dispassionate
pen and read, read those tears, begin to cut
at every pause, every breath you stop to take.

Draw marks and lines
then tear it all apart so that reassembly
brings out the mother in your soul
and nurture the infant. Grow the child to adult

More beautiful than pure angst
could ever produce, relish this mellow subtlety
of layers you placed with cold and steady intent
and explain how you ever thought it was enough.
 
Sometimes The Treatment Hurts More

My heart cannot bear another scar
or crease pressed into being
with weight of knowledge that I
do not decide your path. You must
choose and it is not for me to say
live or die. I want life to be the goal
but I don't know how hard
life can be when pain and exhaustion
are constant companions
and tomorrow only promises more.

But wait! I do! I know what it is
to stand at that brink and stare
down the black monster beckoning.
Promises of quiet subsummation
through agonies of not enough air,
of not enough peace, to lose
the now in memories of youthful
strengths and capacities.
I wish we could pretend it doesn't
exist and go on with a quick
and messy death instead of this.

A slow roll down an incline rapidly
increasing in degree so that too soon
the tumble falls to land abruptly
on a surface so hard we break.
I am not all the king's men or horses
but even if I were, I couldn't put you back
together and today, I'm not sure I can
keep me from shattering completely.

So I pray short gasps,
to whomever a non-believer prays
that later will be on time, that I
won't need to face that monster
lurking in the darkness, that you
accept what is necessary
to continue. Until later becomes
yesterday and I can forget
this torture of waiting.
 
Setting Aside The Burden

"This charge is to two
who understand me."
you said.

"One, a disconnected friend
of my youth. Who knew me
before I knew any woman.
Who skied mountains we'd
never thought to sink
through powder on, who
shared women, love,
and minds when we'd lost
our grip on everything. He
gave me back reality.

"The other, the daughter
of my heart who knows me
in a way you do not. She
shares a lifetime with me
and needs to share this
goodbye with a man
she's never met but who I
love nearly as much.She
grounds me in reality.
I want her to take me
and release me to the wind.

"I know you hate to hear
that in this, I will not
share my need to go
with you. I want no sign
of my place left here.
I want no grief at this
farewell. Go celebrate
with our friends. Be you
once more, not the widow
you feel I'm making you."

I said that what comes
after death is solely
for the living.

You said, "Good."
 
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