Saturday poem

The Sunblock Gang

Saturday, March 7, 2015

9:53 AM

I don't know why I tried to hang

For all those years with the sunblock gang.

Shunning daylight out of habit.

My tanning oil turning rancid in the medicine cabinet.

I gave up sleep so we could play

Always up at dawn for work either way.

Seems stupid now, as I've been told

We never really had much in common anyway.

I filled their cave with innumerable goods,

Fixed supper for the worms and the elves.

Just like Anne, look what happened to her.

Imagining the last the bright routes.

I got some pills to help with that.

It wasn't enough. I don't live there anymore.

My house is made of windows now

No vampires come for tea

I miss the blood red wine we drank.

I don't think they miss me.

A Sunday Night

The day has melted into this blur of movement

Circling around the building

Life demands me in small gestures.

Her shoes in the middle of the floor

The quiet niggling songs of faraway things are

Fighting with the hum of the refrigerator,

The rattling of radiators, the shuddering

 of rigid pipes inside the walls of this old house.

Trash goes out tonight, weather permitting

I take the plastic waterbottles to the curb

Break the melting ice from the bin, thankful

For this small grace - take the detritus of

my selfishness away from this place.

I used to imagine my next life, bright and

Free, when I was young and wedded to a

Vision of what I thought my life had to be.

I'm working up some stuff to read at the next MAC Poetry night.  

Any feedback you feel like giving is appreciated.  

Song of Myself

Excerpt from the 1855 edition

Trippers and askers surround me,

People I meet….the effect upon me of my early life….the ward and city I live in…of the nation,

The latest news…. Discoveries, inventions, societies…. Authors old and new,

My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks - or of myself…. Or ill-doing…. Or loss or lack of money….or depressions or exaltations,

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,

Looks with its sidecurved head, curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it.

I believe in you my soul…. The other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me in the grass….loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want…. Not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning;

You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,

And reached till you felt my head, and reached till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of earth;

And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers…. And the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love.

The Journey

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

I've been in the new apartment for almost a month now.  The details of this great change are difficult and personal, and it's all too complicated to share with anyone right now.  Suffice to say that Edgehill House isn't my home anymore, and I'm trying to build something different, something that better serves the person I am now.  

Please join me here, in my Sanctuary, as I explore this next chapter of my life.