Leave the closet doors open
Like a trap to entice monsters
To come out and play.
I live here for the moment,
In this moment
I would crouch and snarfle
Like something from behind
Those creaky sliding doors
But soon I go elsewhere
To find new temporary closets;
These ones are to be bulldozed.
Do not be surprised
To see me fifing by moonlight
Leading silvery shadows of your
Childhood nightmares;
Snouts and antennae and bulbous eyes
Across shoulders of roads
And dew laden fields.
Closets are bottomless, backless
Like the prom dresses that hang there.
Posts Tagged ‘Child’
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A Dream on My Couch
Posted: September 29, 1996 in PoetryTags: Ant, Child, Cigarette, Dreams, Ferns, Friends, Garden, Light, Lightning, Mountains, Orange, Rain, Silver, Smoke, Window
In a dream that plucked me
From the couch that I slept on,
I walked, ant sized, through the growth
In my garden,
Shaking nasturtium stems
To feel the dewdrops like rain,
And climbing mountains
And ferns
Like a child with no friends.
Reminiscing like a fool,
These dreams torment like reminders;
Gleans of silver behind the tarnish,
Cigarette smoke fanned out the window.
When waking I walk
Through the garden I planted,
I can hear, I can see, I can smell
But not understand
Like I was able to way back when
In the gloaming of orange street lights,
Summer solstice and heat lightning.
Used to have a bunch of questions;
Now I accept no answers
Except my own generalizations
And assumptions.
People only answer why
From children who ask
And then they lie.
They don’t know themselves.
Growing up and becoming an adult
Is learning the art of fast talk.
It is the difference between fooling
And being fooled.
I used to wonder what it was like
Until I found myself answering more questions
Than I asked.
This is Not an Option
Posted: June 5, 1995 in PoetryTags: Believe, Child, Dream, Heart, Hope, Mind, Truth, Wing
Go now and learn;
The process never ends.
Go now and teach;
This is not an option.
You are the realization
Of the hopes and dreams of your parents
As they were theirs.
This is the way it has always been;
This is the way it shall be again.
To the children you will be perfect,
And you shall fall from grace.
You will be crucified for believing in yourself.
You will be denounced for telling the truth.
You will be taken to the temple
And tempted, seduced, and pressured.
Let your minds be your own,
Let your hearts be winged;
Lead your lives,
Don’t let your lives be led.
Pine Tree
Posted: April 3, 1995 in PoetryTags: Ant, Boy, Cat, Child, Clouds, Crow, Fly, Life, Monkey, Mother, Sky, Storm, Tree, Wind
I climbed up as far as my courage
And strength would take me
One day in the life of a monkey-boy;
Those branches were spaced
With a long-armed youth in mind –
A kind encouragement
Beckoning boys to the heavens,
That grandfather pine tree still stood
As of the date of this writing,
And it still looks as tall.
Things change as I grow older –
Hey, I thought it might have grown smaller
Like my free time, but
I’ll bet the wind still waves
The top of that tree back and forth
Enough to make a mother faint.
It seemed like yards, side to side,
The crow’s nest on a stormy ship
Clinging to the sparse branches,
Inadvertently gluing myself to the trunk
With pine sap and a boy’s luck,
Feeling the tickle of the ever-curious ants
That make freeways in the channels
Of such an old tree’s bark.
I think climbing tall things
Is conquering the world to a child.
I remember my parent’s roof,
Paved with pink pumice,
Once all stones,
Then weather beaten gravel,
Looking like a picnic blanket –
Something you could almost fall into
And just sink in,
Like a cat for a headrest.
From that altitude, the clouds were nearby:
I was pretty much one with the sky.
I wondered if I believed enough
On the way down,
Could I fly?
George
Posted: February 18, 1995 in PoetryTags: Angel, Ape, Child, Closet, Dark, Eden, Feather, Man, Sad, Seagull, Space, Wings
Sometimes I wish I could
Feel all four walls in the dark
From where I sit on this
Thinly carpeted floor –
Again, like a closet,
A most comfortable space
For one sad and lonely
Anthropomorphic ape.
One or two trips to the sunlight
Have sunburned him into
The hypocrisy he despised:
Loss of childhood and
Less of curiosity
Leaves George a more shallow man
And less of a wondrous angel.
Now he collects seagull feathers
For his bedside table
To remind him of
The wingspan he once had
In Eden.
Santa Claus
Posted: November 10, 1993 in PoetryTags: Alcohol, Child, Devil, Dreams, Imagination, Knife, Magic, Night, Promise, Road, Santa Claus, Sleep, Song, Wine, Women
Between the Devil and the deep blue sea
there is me and a bottle of Smirnoff™ Vodka
destined to drown me in Davy Jones’ Locker.
The pursuit of happiness, wine, women, and song
goes on like the road that never ends, so long
that it sends itself laughing away ‘till you’re lost
lonely and livid at the stupid kid
that let himself grow up into this;
I learned to eat, sleep, work hard, and miss
being young, strong, and full of inspiration,
dreams, songs, and wise magickal imaginations.
My thoughts were real, my dreams weren’t fantastic.
They were attainable goals – feats of magick.
People had done it and I was going to do it,
going under, ‘round, over, or right through it.
Twenty-two and going under in a different way;
the ocean is grey and the Devil is calling –
bastard chased me through nightmares
every night of my life and the knives
that I cut with shine bright like a promise
that I have chosen unwisely; I’m falling.
Surprising? Dreams don’t come true
and you can trace the cause back to
when you stopped believing in Santa Claus.
A Poem on a Note on the Fridge
Posted: November 6, 1993 in PoetryTags: Beach, Cat, Child, Joy, Love, Sand
I forget the joy of writing
then reading what I’ve written,
curling like a kitten play-fighting
with the same gentle hands
that stroke poems from the sand
of the beaches that I walk on
when I haven’t forgotten
that I love to be alone sometimes
with my simple childish rhymes.
Wading Through the Cattails
Posted: November 6, 1993 in PoetryTags: Car, Cat, Child, Dark, Dream, Frog, Girl, Gold, Happy, Imagination, lilypad, Love, Memories, Money, Moon, Night, Platinum, Sex, White, Wife
I went to find my childhood
buried in the morass of my memory;
discarded in a moment of adolescence
trying to be an adult
before I knew what that was about.
So me and a shovel and a dream
go wading through the cattails and the frogs,
looking under lilypads and scouring the undersides of logs;
hopes waxing and waning with the flux of a dark moon
laying with my arms behind my head
in a dark room.
There was a little gold-gilded crown
once made of paper. . .
I thought I had drowned my youth
in a premature effort to be a man,
coated with cars, money, girls, sex, and truth,
white picket fences and two and one half kids,
a loving wife and instant happiness.
Ah, but so many can’t and so many others won’t
dig up the countryside grave of their little one,
content to weep and dream with a withered imagination,
or they chase ghosts of happiness in platinum nightdresses
taped to the part of the elephant they can still feel.
I Want So Much to Believe
Posted: September 9, 1993 in PoetryTags: Believe, Child, Fail, Happy, Heart, Love
I want so much to believe
in love that can be touched
and felt: something I need
to glue together all my heart.
each time I fall into that trap,
the sweetened chute of love,
some part of me can hear the snap
of metal jaws that slowly close and lock.
each time I fail another relationship,
a chisel chips another piece of meat,
a child steals another boardgame piece,
another chance for happiness thrown out
my throne of belief is whittled away,
the arms and legs are all but kindling now
and who would want such damaged merchandise
but in a lonely corner of an attic in your house.
Dear Mom,
I was so stoned the other night
that I was at awe with the world
like when I was a child
light and airy, care-free
and drug-free.
It’s just the weight of responsibility
that turns me to substance,
matter rather than mind –
a little more of the Kind
can sometimes give me back my pleasures:
the realities of the memories
I’ve dried and kept as treasures
from a time when my world was bigger.
Searching Still 4 Childhood
Posted: January 26, 1993 in PoetryTags: Boy, Child, Frog, Imagination, Monster, Spider, Story, Trees
a boy with a stick
thinks it’s a fishing pole
and can catch fish in a puddle.
this same boy
wields that stick
as a keen cutlass
fighting his monsters.
in childhood, a boy
finds a swing as a jet plane,
a few trees as a forest,
a soccer ball as a championship game,
a jungle gym as a spaceship,
a frog or a spider a best friend,
a good story as a previous lifetime.
my imagination
used to make what I had
into treasures,
and now my treasures are memories of my imagination,
and all I have.
Untitled Poem #143
Posted: January 21, 1993 in PoetryTags: Child, Circle, Magic, Mirror, Ocean, Sky, Untitled, Wind
sometimes it all comes full circle:
a beautiful sky that you can’t see the end of
in any direction; even the ocean
mirrors me in its watery face.
I believe in it all now, the magic
of the things nobody sees,
of the things children tell us;
the wind remembering who I am.
fears I have are like children;
crowding around me, beneath me,
tugging on my arms and clothes,
pleading with me to kneel down to them,
or to pick one darling up
so they can be closer to whisper
their candies into my ears
through their flushed smiling faces.
Further Thoughts of Nathaniel Bishop
Posted: December 17, 1992 in PoetryTags: Bishop, Blood, Book, Child, Mind, Soul, Star
My dearest Ursula is just the kind
To wilfully abandon all her soul
To satiate my Master’s guessless mind
And pour her fiery blood into my bowl
Of copper wrought from star-flung metal
Which rests upon the altar ‘neath my books.
This pact of ours is something left to settle:
A child? If only it won’t have my looks!
A Bishop heir! You’ll lose the Langsford end
And you’ll be mine, or more correct, you’ll see
That you to great Agatha I might send
And you she’ll give to Him That Should Not Be.
To Bishop, yea, the fateful book was sent,
We need results from an experiment…
the child:
he, long ago, was the dam-builder,
creator of landscapes in mud
and clay
with the courage to play
a God or an Emperor
to the hilt,
thinking plastic men had lives
to give and eyes
to see the wonders he had made,
the horrors of the floods
that would inundate
and kill
thousands of these men
buried under silt –
tons to them.
beyond the door of sleep
lies Hypnos, drenched in sand.
it is snowing autumn leaves
and the smoke from his pipe hangs like frost,
a fog which curls to shut my eyes like a child’s.
A single red mitten
Lay upon the new fallen snow
Freezing.
Without the inner warmth
Of a radiant child’s hand
Lonely.
So I rescued the glove
And off to the lost and found it goes
Recovered.
A little girl inquires
And receives her lost red glove
Reunited.
Seadreamer
Posted: March 11, 1987 in PoetryTags: Captain, Child, Dream, Green, Hero, Imagination, Lightning, Love, Maiden, Ocean, Sea, Ship, Sky, Tears, Water
A little kid sits in a corner with a dunce cap on his head
He’s being punished for something someone else has done and said.
A single tear runs down his cheek, yet he still shows no emotion
For his mind has carried him away to a deep blue boundless ocean.
A captain and his trusty ship, he sails with imagination
Outside the world is stark and harsh as compared with his creation.
By wondrous people in wondrous ports, he’s beckoned to the shore
But landing his ship realizes a goal, and his fantasy will be no more.
So he sails along, taunted by faces that he has never seen
Past vibrant cities, rural towns, and verdant hills of green.
Impassive at the prow, wind in his hair, and sea salt on his tongue
His is the story of a Seadreamer, a tale of a hero unsung.
Stoicly standing, resisting temptation present in every stream
The captain knows the fragile state of his precious dream.
Also in this world is a pretty maid who can never touch the sea.
A similar fate as the captain has vice versa curses she.
Gleaming water, teasing depths, voices within the surf.
But as the captain, the maid is strong, and strives to show her worth.
The Seadreamer sailed across the sea until it met the sky
And there on lonely island was the young maid, rather shy.
Yet Cupid’s arrows impaled them both and turned their hearts to love
Blind inspiration struck each one like lightning from above.
The captain turned his ship to shore and the maid ran down to meet him
In their haste they each forgot they’d end each others dreams.
But love overcomes all obstacles, for now and ever more
The maiden’s foot touched the ocean as the captain’s hit the shore.
Though their dreams were disrupted, it came to no great harm,
For the captain sitting in the corner awoke with the maiden in his arms.
What is it like
To be a piece of French toast
A half a club sandwich
Or a grade B roast
Sitting on the plate
With someone looking down
A bit of parsley for a brain
An orange peel for a crown
As scrambled eggs
Or a hamburger bun
Waiting to see
Of what end they’ll become
A fat lady or a kid
Or a man with ready cash
Or the ultimate rejection:
To be thrown in the trash.
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