Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Dusk in the Suburbs

Dusk
Winter
Wednesday
Cold overcast
Suburban home
Up a knoll
Bike laying in driveway
Inside lights are on
Mom cooking
One child in front of the TV
The other doing homework
Dad on his way
It is cozy in the house
It is warm in the house
There is a sadness in the house
Children sigh at the middle of a school year
There are pressures to being young and expected to do well
Too soon
Mom is bored with being a housewife with so many little things to do
All day
Everyday
Chores that bore her
The trivia of living and only fun on weekends
If then
Not like when her and husband were young
They have responsibilities now
Also known as children
She loves/resents her children and all the love they give and all the love they demand
Dad pulls into driveway curses at the bike sprawled there
He is overworked and underpaid and has to worry about bills and making his wife happy
And the children
He has to be a good role model and a loving father and tend to their needs and care
He has to care about so much now so much of it isn't him caring for others is hard
He misses college and fun and parties and booze and different girls and buddies
Oh the freedom is gone now
Mom pecks dad on the cheek it is nothing and everything
He loosens his tie as mom checks the roast in the oven
Twenty minutes until dinner is ready
Sister wants to watch one more show dad says okay but that's it
Brother is nearly done with his homework -- already!
Later he'll start to watch the basketball game with dad before nodding off
Everyone is healthy
Today
Tomorrow who knows
It starts to rain so dad calls the dog and lets it in the kitchen and the cat hisses
Dinner conversation is pleasant
Barely
They are inching along in their lives the children are content enough but the adults are dying
Very slowly
Bed time awaits
A reprieve for everyone

Monday, April 20, 2015

No Wear Man

Mystic mindless
On roads not paved
Careening towards emotional
Brake lights out
Crash inevitable
Ride still so wonderful
Complete with psychedelic kisses
And
The desperate drippings
Of loves promise
Hallelujah all the way
Swerve swerve drop and bucket
I hit the guardrail
And am tempted to revel in this fantasy
Of a long forgotten journey
To no where (know where)

Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

I ride the bus
Bowels in a bunch
No relief
Someone yakking on cell phone
Elderly with toddlers
High school kids too loud
Driver grumpy
Backpacks swinging in the aisle
Passengers staring at their phones
Angry man in back cusses
Bus jerks driver barks
My intestines howl
Finally my stop
File off walk to subway
Will be different but same
The daily grind

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

I Call the Name Ecstatic

Life is the pain of my doubt
It is the agony of my awkward timing
Life is the raging anger of my weariness
I am afflicted by the twists of revolving symptoms
Masochistic tremblings of confusion
Solutions abound and perplex and confound
The vagaries of pernicious loneliness competes with trauma unrevealed
And I am taking stock of illusions unknown and destinies unsettled
I call the name ecstatic as I wonder what is to be done
Words never fail they persist and so I struggle
But happily 

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Whispers

I feel that cold December morning and see its clouds
I bask in the watery clouds of a March late afternoon
I simmer in the hot August afternoon
I dance in the warm May breeze
I listen to the leaves flutter in October
And still I am melancholy
Because all these days live in my memory
Crowded and alone among the detritus of ugly thoughts
Sighs and cries and whispered beginnings vie for my time
As I wish for relief from purloined anxiety
There is nothing from nothing
But everything alive
Somewhere there is a chilly November night
Somewhere else a rainy April at noon
There is water and beer and tea and milk
And always the flow of mud
How does it happen that minds grasp so desperately
And find so much more than they bargain for?
Like snow and rain and heat and wind and
People long dead
Rough seas