Last Trip

If I had known
the trip to the hospital
was the last time
you would ever be outside
I would not have rushed
you through the rain.



Prompt: Last _____

There are many firsts, and many lasts. The lasts are the most poignant of moments, because they creep upon you with the least expectation and, often, the lasts come after a long period of wishing they would end. I think of the times woken by my hungry infant and wishing this breast feeding to be over, the diapers changed, the long drive finished, the dissertation done, then, it is done. It is over. And once it is over, yu wish to be back with it.

The slow death of my father felt like a climb through a cairn-marked mountain trail. But on this journey, the stone markers were lasts: the last time to mow the lawn, drive to the store, eat solid food, sleep through the night, drink coffee, drink Scotch, sleep beside my mother, read a book, speak, stand in your garden, feel the rain.

I drove my father the hour to Chapel Hill for his cancer treatment many, many times. It seemed it would never end. And then, it did, and I would give anything to drive him there again.

Remember the lasts; treat every moment as if it were.

Peace, Linda

Summer

Orange smudges
your distant horizon
the end of your world:
waves collide with sky,
churn orange into
some kind of molten lava
or a Creamsicle savored
later when the sand
burns our undersoles.




Today's prompt: horror

I tried. Really, I did. My horror-writing friends know I've wanted to stretch in this direction. But... I couldn't get it up, despite blasting Bodysnatchers (Radiohead, In Rainbows) at full volume all afternoon between errands. I tried to get myself into a dark place, a gory place, but... the sun was shining too brightly, the vast amount of coffee drunk all morning, the late breakfast of feta omelette and more coffee, the fabulous yard sales (including this gorgeous Native American terracotta and black slip vase by Armanda Rodriguez for two bucks but might be worth --> THIS and books, of course, including oodles of YA stuff), and the long walk, the roasted asparagus and hamburgers on the grill, and the glass (or two) of homemade traminer-reisling, I mean... I just thought of summer all day. Horror-ible. I know. Whatever.

At least I'm happy.

Peace, Linda

Memoir

The cartography
of me – glimmerings buried
between words conjured.






Prompt: autobiography

Peace, Linda

Spooning

Silver spoon
feed me
sweet
nadas


Silver moon
spoon me
sweet
somethings


Peace, Linda

Free Treat - Colum McCann

Hear this master of arguably the best book on 911 strut his stuff. Let the Great World Spin is the best novel I've read in months. Thanks to THE MILLIONS for the heads up.


Enjoy, and read this book if you haven't already. Peace, Linda

Until I Had to Sing

Seems you hugged this corner
for years, bedraggled head dipped
over your guitar, a beat-up job you hugged,
a child. Your sweet soulful song filled

my ears, made my fingers thump
frets on my thigh, a beat contrary to
your tapping feet. Your eyes twitched to
the slung open case, nervous-like,
to slim bills tumbled in coffee-stained velvet.

Every few songs you scooped the coins
into jean pockets, a swift, measured stroke.

I perched on the stone wall nursing
my smoke, watching other passersby
toss a quarter, or not. Later, at home,

I pulled out my Fender, unplugged and
strummed, thinking of you, notes spinning,
where you slept after your gig.

Never threw a buck your way.
Not once all those years.

Didn’t know the sweet sound of coins
thudding in a can, not until
I had to sing for my bed.


***

Prompt: Until _____

Not sure where this idea came from.


Peace, Linda

One City Block

Bundles of plastic blue, paper brown,
huddle at their feet,
so many children;
three women share hats, sweaters, cigs.

Spittle flumes from a man
astride a moped, four inches from her toe;
nice Italian leather.

The flag inches over the square,
glass glints between concrete pavers
in front of the post-office.
A tuft of dandelions bursts
past used works.

Wallet waving, a man chortles
a lithium-deprived laugh,
begs coins from the suited
dude proselytizing pamphlets;
no takers.

A short block.
***
The prompt of two photos did not inspire, but the short walk from the metro to my office did: all along the west Lex Market folks hustle their drugs, their bodies, their boosted goods. Homeless congregate, hoping for spare change. Patients from the methadone clinic down the street stumble along the sidewalk with glazed eyes. Lots of sadness along this derelict stretch.

Treat yourself to this witty flash COMPUTER EDUCATION by fellow Harbinger, fictionaut, blogger, friend John Wiswell over at Every Day Fiction. Good stuff.

Boston cream pie. Wasy. Corned beef and hash. Glenfiddich, two fingers, neat. Coffee dark with sweet-n-low. Sunrise on Ocracoke Sound. Watching Survivor with mom. Mowing the lawn. Playing with grandkids.

Just a few of your very favorite things. Happy Birthday, Daddy... we miss you...


Peace, Linda

Rumi's Lament

Night thrums, cicada
song, your breath sweet luxury;
once, its ruby-throated
presence rattled my swaddled
life; now I slumber once more.


***

Today's prompt (TMI) did not inspire, but a reference to Rumi, the great Sufi prophet and seer, did. Rumi believed that we go through figurative cycles of sleep and awakening, and then return to sleep. That is, we become inurred to what once tantalized and intrigued, what drew us to another. The taking for granted. Here, I play with the tanka form, a 31-syllable five line poem. In the East, tanka is written as a single line; in the west, the form follows a 5-7-5-7-7 structure.

Peace, Linda

Apron Strings

Cutting rhubarb in the rain,
the mottled leaves thick with mud
and slugs, I wonder if these plants,
robust now, will stand another
season in this shaded corner.

If not, next spring my husband
will surprise me bearing rhizomes,
and plant them so my garden
will be as my mother’s, and
her mother’s and, perhaps, all
our mothers’ before.

I’ll slice the stalks into chunks
for pie, mine has strawberries,
though she says berries ruins
the rhubarb; she makes sauce
and eats from the pot, still warm,
spoon clanking against the sides,
a smile trespassing her face.

Tendering these stalks, making the pie,
heralds me a holder of apron
strings, honoring our history
unmarked with words or trophies, and
thus, all the more important.

I wonder how my daughter
will grow her rhubarb.


***

Prompt: history


Peace, Linda

Partly Revealed

If I look close enough
in the mirror
I see softly trampled lines
leading from my eyes,
so many tired circuits
relaying books read,
poems written,
tears shed.

Closer still, lines
surround my lips,
carved canyons of past belly
laughs, false and true,
of smiles held for you,
child’s play, day lilies
before they spend themselves
in sweltering summer sun.

If I dropped my robe,
I could touch the crescent
scar under the clavicle,
left from dog’s teeth;
the roughened skin
that failed to take
after the burn ran us
from the farm; the
indent, too small to see
by the aureole but
certain to touch, souvenir
of the biopsy; or the cleft
beneath where once
I linked to my own mother,
where son, then daughter
bellowed forth.

The mirror tells all;
these things I witness,
map of my life, meager, full.

I wonder - do you see my same history?



***

Prompt: Partly ________



Peace, Linda

Unction

I.
The sun burns a hole
through blue sky,
waves churn grey-cold, a wintry coffin.

By the time we gather one mile
past the ramp, the sky mirrors
sky. Mother sighs.

Time.

II.
We clutch handfuls of you
not fine as dust but
chunks, stubborn bone
like you, refusing to burn to essence.

III.
The wind lifts you,
sifts you fine between our fingers;
you want to leave.

With hands lent-like
we walk our paths,
children and grandchildren,
protecting our hearts,
full of you.

The wind shifts, you
loosen between fingers,
waft to the dunes,
contrary as always.

The grey sea swallows you.

IV.
Salt spray on our cheeks,
hearts to burst, we scatter
you, a final wish.
But you sneak behind
a rogue gentle wave,
covering shoes and pant hems.

You always hated when we cried.

V.
We leave milepost 33.
The sun burns holes again.
The light pains us.

VI.
I’m not sure why I favor
forgotten detritus from
God’s great tumbler: the cracked
scallop, the lusterless
oyster, the conch which
sounds a half-sea.

Perhaps because without you
I am broken upon a foreign shore.


***

Prompt: water

I imagined scattering my father's ashes in The Blues Are Running. This is how it really happened...

Peace, Linda

Ferry Crossings

April heralds daffodils, asparagus, soft rains, and daily poems. Yup. It IS National Poetry Month. I'll pen a poem every day, and post it here. Today I took the ferry to Ocracoke. The sun warmed my face, the birds followed in our wake, and a poem, one of loneliness, took root, reminding me as well of a scene in my first novel. My #fridayflash and NaPoWriMo offerings...


Into the Fire

I escape to my room, lost without my laptop. A new wooden chair, legs intact, sits under the desk. The feet scrape against the floor. I pull forward an empty notebook, uncap the red felt tip, try to focus.

Why won’t I take this goddamn pill?

I stare at the blank page. Thin blue lines blend with the white expanse, transmogrify to a clear, solid blue that reminds me of summer, the day Phoebe and I escaped the hellish Cambridge heat and drove to the ocean. I’d never been to the Cape, which surprised Phoebe; she thought everyone went to Cape Cod when they wanted to go the beach.

“New Englanders are so funny, so provincial about things like Cape Cod,” I remember telling her, laughing. “We New Yorkers go to Long Island, the Hamptons.”

We drove two hours south to Falmouth, U2 blaring from the metallic-sounding tape deck, wind blasting through rolled-down windows. Phoebe chattered with excitement. We cleared the bridge easily; it was Tuesday, the weekend trippers had already come and gone. Our intent was to cool off, eat steamers and lobsters, drive home that night to get to work the next day, but on a whim we boarded the mid-afternoon ferry to Nantucket.

I remember a singular instant: Phoebe standing at the front of the boat, face turned toward the sun, hair swirling in the wind. Seagulls squawked, dive-bombing for fish churned up by the boat’s engine. The perfect cerulean sky framed her golden splendor, her happiness, and in that second which seemed to last so long at the time but now is lost forever, I was overcome with love. She didn’t see me, but I went to her, wrapped my arms around her, kissed the back of her neck. Whispered my love to her. She smiled and said she loved me, too. It was the first time we said it: we loved each other.

The page pales, the memory slithers away. Why won’t I take this pill? I try to remember discussions with Bruce, in group, but my mind scatters, a million thoughts flying swirly-whirly like maple seedlings in a spring breeze, ephemeral and elusive.

It occurs to me being crazy is kind of like being high. In both, I’m out of control, unable to make decisions. To fully function. I use when I’m in pain, when denial doesn’t work, when I want to relinquish responsibility. Which makes me wonder: am I wallowing in this particular bout of insanity to avoid the crap I need to address in my current reality?

My problems feel insurmountable, but what are they? Exactly? When I try to itemize them in my head, they overwhelm me with their number and their magnitude. I scratch them out: the man I’ve called Dad all my life tried to kill me; I don’t know who my real father is; my mother had a stroke and might never talk again, she might even die; Phoebe left, but I still love her, though I don’t know why. Oh, and I want to kill myself. These are the biggies, but others add to my growing manifest: my body and mind are shot to hell; I’m unlikely to graduate this spring, most assuredly not summa cum laude; I’m in tremendous debt; I fantasize about getting high; how do I live with this insanity lurking like the boogey man, waiting to jump me without warning?

A long, daunting list. Makes my head pound. Where do I even begin? Oh Jesus. Panic blooms from the constant speck festering in my heart. My hands tremble, the words not legible. I drop the pen. The frying pan or the fire: this is my choice.


(Excerpted from Brighter than Bright, a scene where a suicidal Ben agonizes whether to take medication that robs him of feeling but which might save him from himself.)

#

Crossing Ocracoke Sound

Cormorants dive-bomb,
skimming up blues and other
chum churned in the ferry’s wake.

Ahead, the island where
we slept amidst sea oats
singing at higher pitch

than the gulls’ keen,
were we licked butter
and more from the others’

fingers, sweet crab claws.
One hunger sated we
walked into sky coral

colored, sure of night
and the next... now,
though, the engine thrums

deep through my soles,
constant with the sea,
your pulse, a memory.


Peace, Linda