Poetic Confusion

Once again I scribble with pen

To make sense of our dysfunctional relationship.

You come and go at a whim

I thought this act finally ended.

You say I left?

Not true!

I have always needed you to guide me home.

Yes, sometimes I ignore your plea to feed the hunger of words unknown.

Today you chill my bones,

Warm up my tongue

To speak so I may be found.

But the doors of my car where I hear you in this song

Lock

Jam

Stick

It is so cold outside.

You whisper for me to stay.

I wonder if you mean it.

The windows fog as I realize I am in a precarious position--

Poetry, just kiss me.

Days Past

(This was written quite awhile ago. I revised a few lines.)

He slowly kissed her perked lips

As his hungry hand climbed up her thigh

Lustful moans for her and

Pleas not to be returned to reality

Were released from his chest.

Hovering between temptation and actuality,

She watched as the clock’s hands turned

The sun began its descent, her desire for his

Delicious lips increased

Time’s limit pushed farther back.

If only the hourglass would cease to sift and

We remained in this moment of melody—

He sang in her ear as his passion grabbed her close,

Heat overtaking her entirety like the wail of Coltrane’s sax.

Soon after they departed, hearts filled with lost time

Unable to live life truly relaxed

Since exposed to his musical mixture of blues and jazz,

She spent days between then and now to build

Immunity to his harmony

Riding her mind of his symphony

Until he stepped on stage again

This time exposed to his songs

Daily.

One day after work she invited him up to her place,

Together they shared thoughts about music, politics, and race

He stretched his arm across the couch nervously contemplating his endeavor

Abruptly jumping up

Unaware of how to

Slow down the pulse moving like danger.

She touched his skin, he slowly moved in

This just can’t end, she breathed in him.

Three days pass.

Their conversation went as smooth as Roy Ayers’ voice,

So her hopeful heart naïve to unexpected sores

Shared her magnetism to their fever,

To the tranquility of his being.

Silence loomed

Until he released a sigh of disillusionment:

I can’t…Her and I have a history and…

Words penetrate painfully

Causing the stage she had designed

The light inside her eye to

Vanish

Leaving only the desirous wails of the horn section

Echoing throughout the tunnel of

Love’s whirlwind swept her up

Dropped her outside the Friday night venue

To find a ticket in

To find a ticket in

She still has yet to find a ticket in

Sadness

Evaporates from her lips

As she sits listening

To little droplets carrying rhythm—

Rhythm that orchestrates her heart

To beat at unaccustomed paces

Rhythm that makes Cupid’s strums of

Melodic marriage understood

Rhythm that makes truth believable

Rhythm that conquers the hourglass

Rhythm that hibernates in her bones

In her thoughts

In her soul

She cannot stop feeling the rhythm

Wishing it was close like those days past.

The Consequence of Unrequited Love

I dreamt of you the other day.

Now I can’t rid my mind’s eye of your face.

It’s not that you were the one who got away.

You are the one who chose not to stay.

A lifetime later you still remain

Deep in my heart, the memories don’t seem to fade.

Sorrowful tears trigger my shame

Of a past when my soul lost its way.

Then I remember the love that was made,

And I wonder how you have aged.

And if we met, would things be the same?

These imaginary moments float away
As events of married life and children distract my brain.

It's odd how we have walked parallel lives.
Do you remember how our coincidental encounters
Became more purposeful over time?
Once acquaintances, then friends, then lovers
Was our end always your endeavor?

Answer me!
This is my last plea
For help out of Wonderment
Where the ache of letting go diminishes quickly,
Where I can reclaim my dignity.

Here again, I see you in the flesh.

This connection never ceases to end.

The echo of loss rumbles through my chest.

Spinning my psyche into unrest.

My questions of the past are muted.

It takes days to recover from this disturbance.

Had I known the consequence of unrequited love...

Giant's Hands (2003)

"The one person who will never leave us

Whom we will never lose is ourselves."*

These words of my muse breeze the tip of my bottom lip

As I anxiously search for my scattered regrets

Slashed out by a giant's hands
No one can know of these secret plans
But the giant does not heed my plea for sympathy

No, he took Cupid's arrow bent it over his knee
Glared in delight at the serrated edge and stabbed consistently
His eyes rolled back
And his toes curled up in ecstasy
Stealing my security

"The one person who will never leave us
Whom we will never lose is ourselves."

I could have run away like so many other days
When I refused to face life
But this time, I took the knife from his clutched hand
And split apart my strife
Put an end to all the misery
Of what others say is to be
Finally I can breathe
And the giant has empathy
Yea, he feels for me

Gives me back my regrets
Gives me back my regrets
Gives me back my regrets

On the condition that I will never forget:
"The one person who will never leave us
Whom we will never lose is ourself."
*bell hooks (2002) Communion: The Female Search for Love

Walk Into the Sunlight

The sky is falling

She loudly proclaims

Everyone listens

And runs away

Faces hide afraid of the sky

Debris might harm us

“Don’t go outside,”

She warns, “Don’t go outside”

Nothing changes

Still is the night

People begin to creep into daylight

Letting go of their initial fright

A breath of fresh air does everyone right

This woman returns with her frantic voice

Pounding on doors with a forceful might

Warning the city dwellers of

The rising tide

“The water won’t recede this time,

So run and hide.

Run and hide.”

When asked why her warnings never come true

She sits there crying distorting her view

Of the glorious sunrise coloring the moon

Some walk away, others join her mood.

But this community never feels true.

If only she believed in her own life

She might release her bags

And walk into the sunlight.

Walk into the sunlight, my sad friend

Walk into the sunlight

And begin again

Happiness in the Present

Fiction is tantalizing
My senses
As I recount a past
Misdirected.
Genre of fantasy,
Romance, drama
As if I walk between
The pages of a contemporary
Bronte novel.
It is natural
To rewrite history
In the silent solitude
Of one's day
As children nap
And the trees outside tap
On the window pane.
It is in the glee
Of playful children
I return to happiness
In the present.

Lunch Duty

(I wrote this my second year of teaching, ten years ago. I was teaching in a large urban high school at the time MCAS, the Massachusetts state test, became high-stakes. As I work with undergraduates interested in becoming teachers, I am reminded of my energy and desire to improve the system. With the recent rhetoric regarding teachers' incompetence and the need for more rigorous accountability, I am reminded of this poem and a few others I wrote during this time as a new teacher. I still think it is applicable today as teachers and students are demanded to conform to the status quo. While students deserve good schools, teachers deserve the opportunity to provide this good school. If teachers lack control over their situation and are denied the support to improve themselves and their classrooms, then their morale and their engagement will continue to decline, thus perpetuating low student engagement, performance, and achievement. I view myself as a professional who worked diligently to become a better teacher for the benefit of my students. I consider myself a fairly successful and effective teacher, but I had to spend much time combating the suffocating high-stakes culture.)

As I stand on sore, achy feet
On mud colored carpet, enclosed
By yellow walls
Of high school students conversing and
Stuffing all the starch provided
By the school
Down their long, thin, thick, bony necks,
I sometimes catch the
Unpleasant glimpse of a young girl
Gaunt, looking at the caloric count
Of a diet soda, while chatting with friends
Who sit in subtle discomfort.

As I look upon the faces of youth,
I begin to miss my once idealistic state of mind
When life seemed tough,
But I had time to define a way out.

Faded eyes is not what I intended to find
As I stand here listening
To young men abuse young women and
The women laugh in frozen submission
To their place in the circle.
Some slap him. Others screech obscenities.
The young men laugh in frozen submission
To their place in the circle.

Unfulfilled eyes is not what I intended to find
Attempting to entertain students with state
Mandated writing as yawns of bored conformity
Create uncertainty of the possibility
That I have little idea how to manipulate
The system to entertain gracefully and
Remain favorable in the eyes of the State.

I begin to miss my idealistic reactions to
Infractions on humankind. Water
Embraces my right eye as I peruse
The area making sure all follow the cardinal,
Cafeteria rule:
Four bodies to a table
And
Throw out your trash.