Wasn’t I just here
Dragging the hose to the top of this hill
When Mom wasn’t looking, on the phone
Eroding the soil to catch it
At the bottom with a friend, shovels, and a dam
Before it floods my parent’s bedroom?
Wasn’t I just here, throwing a party
Snapped sprinkler heads and underage drinking?
Wasn’t I just here planting this sapling
That towers above me – does she remember
Me saving her from my chores of cleanup?
Wasn’t I just here, parking the Monte Carlo
One tire up on the curb
And staggering into the house on drugs?
Wasn’t I just on my way to the Nickels
To fuck around with high school experiments:
How much Jim Beam can I drink
Before I drown or forget whose breasts I am holding?
Wasn’t I just around the corner
Cursing up a storm just to roll those words?
Wasn’t I drinking Cisco just the other night
And shooting pool with the MH Posse?
I thought I was just down at Nobes
Throwing stolen pallets off the cliff
And leaping through the fire with my Mickeys.
Could have sworn I was just at Nati’s
While my parents told our favorite waitress
That they were so proud of Kyle and I.
Wasn’t I the one who broke Mom’s last wind chime,
And threw my Dad against the breezeway wall
When he tried to stop me from running away again?
Didn’t I just lie to Dad about
Doing all my chores but I didn’t coil the hose?
Wasn’t that just me and Gary
Doing stupid hazardous tricks of that stolen launch ramp?
Wasn’t that me the other day
Looking down from the top of the pine tree
At my hysterical mother telling me to come down
And powerless to do anything about it?
Didn’t I just steal my first Penthouse
From the neighbor’s garage
And see Venus, Venus, Venus
In three color pictorals?
Don’t I get my $5 allowance now, Dad?
I want to go buy Lemonheads at Delta Drug.
Didn’t I just have those army men
And Matchbox Cars
That Dad keeps digging out of the backyard?
I swear that I just read the pain
In Jared’s poetry and thought that I could do that.
Wasn’t I just hammering my drum set
In the garage to “We Built This City”?
Where are Samwise and Frodo;
They were around
Just a second ago.
And I thought I saw Grandma and Grandpa
Last weekend for miniature golf;
How come Grandpa always won?
Wasn’t I just here with Karen, with Laura,
With Dawn, with someone else?
Wasn’t I just here?
Posts Tagged ‘Mother’
Wasn’t I Just Here?
Posted: May 9, 2002 in PoetryTags: Alcohol, Breast, Car, Dawn, Drum, Father, Friend, Frodo, Gary, Grandma, Grandpa, Jared, Karen, Kyle, Laura, Man, Mission Hills, Monte Carlo, Mother, Nickels, Nobes, Penthouse, Samwise, Tree, Venus
Bye Kittnz
Posted: February 12, 2002 in PoetryTags: Anastasia, Atari, Cat, Dawn, Hobbes, Kalvin, Mother
Ahh! Hear that sound?
Of cellophane tearing across
That keeps happening –
It’s the unbridled loss
Of my four furry ones:
Hobbes Goldenfoot,
Kalvin Screamerchops.
Anastasia Saunterbutt,
And that wily Mogwai.
These four I raised
Now collected by Dawn
To occupy her house
While she’s always gone.
Locked in the basement
When her mom comes by
Too bad you can’t come with me
So I have to say goodbye.
One time I found
That I loved the warmth
Excavated by nesting:
Burrowing so far
Into a pile of pillows,
A weight of blankets,
The I left the world behind.
These were the laps
Of my imaginary mothers;
They were the arms
Of my dream-lovers.
Safe and tight
Inside a womb of covers,
Tented fabric and
Down-stuffed sandbags
Kept me secluded
From the shellshock of
Existing.
Thee Angelkitten
Posted: December 19, 1995 in PoetryTags: Angel, Angelkitten, Cat, Cleopatra, Eye, Halo, Honey, Mother, Mykelti, Sleep, Spirit, Tree, Wind, Wings
A purring song of liquid honey Angelkitten,
Burnished golden metallic wings,
Diamond-bright dinky halo and
Those kitten-soft feet to mommy-paw
Your eyes shut at sleepytime,
Hunting your hair,
As the wind from the waves of her home,
Corner-of-your-eye cat-quick paranoid spirit
Of Cleopatra Mykelti kittenator flatulator,
Calling-cards framing those other cats,
Wrestling with an orange and brown Afgan
Slim but phat tunnel-runner big-eyed kitten.
Lovin’ the palm tree, kisses for mommy silly
Rabbit treat-begging troublemaking kitten.
Heart of gold trusting Egyptian princess kitten.
Brave Cleo-kitten.
The Angelkitten.
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?
I ran across the street
with a golden-haired girl
to watch the grunion run.
She’d never seen it before —
I’d never touched one,
always too scared —
but for her I wrapped one in seaweed,
careful not to touch its skin,
and I returned it
to my Mom,
the ocean.
here
comes
another
shoddy
birthday
to
remind
me
of
one
woman
who,
weeping
on
the
24th
of
September,
will
never
know
the
son
she
gave
away.
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.
The Decay of a Cartoon
Posted: July 28, 1993 in PoetryTags: Blood, Bluejay, Fear, Flesh, Mother, Story, Tree, World
The poet sojourns
to the real world,
concerned with education and finances,
too busy with real matters
to watch his own walk
like a bluejay on a telephone line
assuming it is his,
too bust to enjoy
the glances at his jester clashed clothing
and his odd squatting posture,
recounting endless stories
of dubious origin.
The decay of a cartoon
into another weary act of flesh and blood
is done through weight,
self-inflicted,
burdens of soggy peat responsibility
and the yokes of limiting your own strength.
I fell from 20 feet up, from a tree branch
and I landed on my head;
when I should have been dead,
(I was 10)
I walked into the house
to bandage my gashes
so that Mom wouldn’t worry about me.
I tell myself I can’t do that now
because my weight has quadrupled
from all of these woes I balance on my nose
trying to smile around them
everyday at other people,
and their circus tricks;
jugglers and mimes and tightrope walkers,
sometimes the fear of falling shows as plain as day.
It’s getting heavier and higher and
we’re all being thrown more things to juggle.
So if I fell from that tree
would I end up worrying so much on the way down
that I’d break my neck?
Or could I bounce like the balls I juggle?
After “The Origin of Nunivak Island”, a Nunivak Eskimo Myth
Posted: November 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Knife, Mother, Sky, Spirit, Wolf, Woman
I
my knife is bone.
I break in half
my knife of bone.
each half I place
into my mouth;
they’re just like fangs
with which I have
become a wolf.
II
to a weeping spirit woman
saddened by the sky,
I make you cut your hand
and then you break your knife.
III
mother wolf.
I am Adopted
Posted: November 14, 1992 in PoetryTags: Blood, Bones, Mother, Mountains, Ocean, Rain, Rock, Stars, Stones, Water, Wood
Adpoted, I adopt my own ideas
About who my real parents really are.
My mother; ocean and spring rain; the dew
On grass stems sparkling, a field of stars:
All water, blood that courses past my eyes.
My father – rocks and wood and muddy bones,
The mountains laid behind and raised before,
All sturdy piles of softly mortared stones.
A Dream of a Ship
Posted: November 9, 1992 in PoetryTags: Believe, Bones, Dream, Eye, Magic, Mother, Night, Ocean, Rock, Ship, Sky, Stars, Tears, Water
I sag into my bonds,
bound to this wooden chair
with water from my eyes
six inches deep on the floor.
I feel all alone on a ship
gently rocking, back and forth,
water rolling, sighing
from bulkhead to bulkhead.
my head is down
and my hair is in my face but
if I was to look up,
my pupils would birth stars;
they would burn their way to the sky.
my hands are tied with
my own intestines, wetly coiled;
every movement
wrenches my stomach
in dizzy circles, hollow
like an airplane ride.
the chair holds me up,
gives me something to be tied to,
roots me to the deck; an anchor.
my mind hurts from
holding these stars,
squeezing my eyes shut and bearing
the sting of gas
leaking through my eyelids.
sails snap in my ears;
I grow a mast for a spine,
grasping handfuls of air
through canvas fingers.
I grow old and feel my hull
rotting as it surges
through these black waters.
I grow very tired from dreaming
of the sound of surf
on rocks, a shore.
tired from creating all this magic
for no one to see.
below, I flash open my eyes
and stand forth from the chair,
wet bracelets hanging
from my pale chafed wrists,
and I climb slowly to the salt air
of the deck of my ship.
I balance on the railings,
ignoring the spray of rain and sea,
and the call of oblivion
in the depths of the ocean,
my mother. finding strength
after strength after strength and
whittling them into kindling,
like so much driftwood.
teetering on the edge of falling
from the railing into myself
forever, I like being here:
I am myself — I have nothing but me
and my starry eyes and
my wonderful rotting ship,
intestines around my hands
and an emptiness in my stomach.
there are no more tears to cry
in the hold of the ship
for the toys I have lost
when I was younger,
refusing to grow up,
to grow old.
nothing can destroy
my beliefs; without them,
I go. I would let all the stars
that I have created
stream to the skies,
shrieking for me,
for what will become of me,
a bag of bones, a sack of skin.
I remember my stars;
they will remember me,
whispering my name
through the nighttime.
My Mother in the Ocean
Posted: November 5, 1992 in PoetryTags: Beach, Blood, Moon, Mother, Ocean, Salt, Sand, Sea, Sky, Tide, Water, Woman
it is something, standing by the sea,
feeling my heart and my blood
fashioned rudely out of ocean-salt
and the milk of beach-foam.
I feel the pull of the moon
on the tide standing here,
examining the sky
in the sheen of the wet sand,
in the surface of the water.
I smell the wet sexuality
of my ever moving mother;
a lover of immense strength;
hypnotic, the woman with depths
for her eyes, skin wet and fluid,
salty hips and buttocks and breasts,
cheeks and lips and thighs
in the flexing of waves and
in the rolling of the water, the foam.
Cat Hide
Posted: September 7, 1992 in PoetryTags: Cat, Closet, Dark, Eye, Father, Imagination, Moon, Mother, Night, Sleep, Tree
I am the prickle
which makes your mother start
and cover your eyes
as if you, being young
don’t know the fear of the closet.
I am the voice that whispers
through the crack;
all that’s left when
the door is shut tight,
caressing you with words
from a green foot-long tongue,
slithering out from the darker dark.
I am the clothes that hang
from all the hangers,
swaying in the imaginary breeze
of a hanging tree in the moonlight,
the one they told you about at camp.
I am the nightmare
created by frustrated imaginations
living in the people
who inhabit your house.
I frighten your strong father
and terrify your poor mother
– this alone scares you.
I am the noise
so slightly out of place,
that each of you lies awake,
debating whether to see what it was
or go back to an uneasy sleep.
I leave your closet doors
open just a little
for you to find in the morning.
The Most Beautiful Man in Town
Posted: July 24, 1992 in PoetryTags: Clouds, Crucifix, Dragonfly, Frog, Lizard, Man, Mother, Tadpoles, Wine
I am the most beautiful man
on this road,
my bottle of red wine
wetting my lips
through the lizard-trod dust.
My spit places octopi
in the tiny gravel
splayed like fingers
or clouds.
Sometimes I weave back
and forth between the ruts
in the road,
carrying my bottle of red wine
before me like a crucifix,
amazed at the hundreds of lizards.
La Cascada sings to me
with the beauty of
a lost flute,
with the conversation
of it’s motherly water falling;
with its brood of half-made tadpoles.
I bless her with a mouthful
of my crimson wine,
baptizing each new frog,
each new dragonfly
wriggling in half-formed majesty.
I am the most beautiful man
on this road,
waking to wine and muscle,
surprised from the deadening
of young-adulthood.
I am the most beautiful King of Fate,
the Prince of La Cascada,
the Champion of Frogs and
the fool of red wine.
Light Blues
Posted: February 5, 1991 in PoetryTags: Blood, Blue, Eye, Father, Green, Light, Mother, Orange, Red, Yellow
I don’t care for white light any more.
call me vapid scumbag; call me gromore.
I have red and green and blue and yellow
lights; to read by, an orange fellow,
friendly to the eyes and each is good
to set a certain kind of mood.
red for temper, salt and blood
yellow to dapple, caress, and flood
blue is patience, like being underwater
green is crayon, like a mother or father.
clutching vainly at
the relentless grains of time;
the youth that still holds to his mother’s skirts
– afraid of the world –
who constantly skins his knees.
old. I’m growing old,
and I’m beginning to like the idea
that I’ve only recently come to accept.
I’m giving up my desperate search
for a way to slow the tramp of the feet
of the incessantly marching days.
now I’m looking for more ways
to enjoy these blessed moments
that I’m alive.
but if I am to grow old, then let me grow
olde with and E,
gracefully
and happily.
I watch the sweep of the tide
rolling in, smoothing thick paint
with a tender hand.
the breeze plays with my hair
as a mother absentmindedly tousles a child’s’.
the call of the ocean is overwhelmingly bright,
shining with promises
of bubbles and filtered sunlight.
sparkling as a wedding train,
the sun leaves a warm trail
upon the surface of the immense sea
and across the skin of my eyelids.
the mighty majestic tolling
of the winter tide,
salt hanging mistily in the sky
as far as I can see.
I am content
beyond the scope of my senses;
my imagination is happy.
Dawn
Posted: April 7, 1987 in PoetryTags: Clouds, Dawn, Earth, Grass, Grey, Life, Light, Mother, Pearl, World
The first misty light of dawn
Caresses the edge of the world
And turns grey clouds to pearl
It wakens a peaceful fawn.
Rosy pink shafts of sun
Curve around a sleeping earth
Dancing in their endless mirth
Frolicking and having fun.
Dodging between blades of grass
Hues and colors, shades and tints
Sage, tulip, sequoia, and mint
Pine, oak, sassafras.
The deer stands on shaky legs
Lacking her mother’s natural grace
Yet having the same innocent face
Life can be filled with sweetened dregs.
The sun peeks out in its smiling way
As living creatures begin to wake
Even though another siesta they’ll take
Later on in the day.
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