Defense
That little boy
in the shiny blue suit
couldn’t defend himself
from the much larger man,
so he built a wall inside, instead,
and sits quietly behind it,
hoping the monster
will pass.
/ / /
18 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 18
Category: Family
April 16, 9:30 PM
For S and H and L and H
On the radio, the Red Sox are
coming back against the Guardians.
I traveled in time today, talking to the people
of Wednesday and Thursday and Friday,
all while playing music
for the people of today.
I kissed the person I love in the morning,
hugged more people I love in the evening.
Times pass, memories fade.
The crack of the bat, the taste of chai.
/ / /
16 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 16
When We Come To It
The road had been there since at least the 1830s,
if the cornerstone on the red farmhouse was right.
At some point it had been diverted up the hill,
rendering the little concrete bridge obsolete.
The boy had moved there in the 80s, into a log home
on what had been a vacant bit of hillside.
He found the bridge one day while exploring past the pond.
When he found the bridge, he found the creek.
It led back into acres of forest, all the way to the 4-H camp.
He followed the twisting water into the trees,
the sun’s rays reaching, but only just.
A few years later he brought a city kid out there.
The kid jumped out onto a tree limb hanging
over the water; the limb sprang up and tossed the kid
several feet. He was surprised but not hurt,
so neither of them mentioned it when they got back.
The boy had many adventures among the trees:
daring escapes and forest battles and wilderness hikes.
Even when somebody bought the plot of land next door,
he still snuck into the forest and followed the water.
Sometimes in the summer he could hear the PA system
from the 4-H camp, calling the campers to lunch or dinner.
Eventually he grew up and stopped visiting the bridge
and the creek and the forest. Then the house was sold.
The new owners changed the color.
/ / /
4 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 45 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentHappy Birthday
It wasn’t all bad.
There were lots of nice moments.
Eventually, though,
the negative outweighed the positive.
Love shouldn’t be conditional.
At least not a mother’s love.
I was not always blameless,
but I was always your son.
I went to therapy.
I took my meds.
I meditated.
I tried.
You grew, too, in some ways,
but not in any that required introspection.
You were swept up in a cycle
started generations before.
I’m typing this alone in my apartment,
left by the person about whom
we had our final fight,
but my son is on his way to visit me,
so maybe the cycle is broken.
/ / /
3 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 44 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentAncestry
To go down into the mine
again and again,
searching for one more seam,
one more rich vein.
To walk the dark tunnels
deeper and deeper,
until daylight fades behind
like a rumor.
To hear the trickling water
drip and drip,
making the way treacherous,
slick, unforgiving.
To chip away at the walls,
harder and harder,
until the dust
defies breathing.
To return to the surface,
levels and levels,
clutching a meager find,
holding it up to the light.
/ / /
27 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 37 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentBut I Am Your Child
My father never looked for me.
In more than 30 years he never wrote,
never called, never
showed up outside my school
or at my job,
never spotted me through a fence
playing with my sons at the park.
It’s been four years and my parents
are clearly content
to let this silence stretch
into permanence,
to hold on to the other child
and pretend she was the first
and only.
/ / /
24 August 3023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 34 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Contingency
I had a plan.
For if it happened again.
A late-night,
tiptoe-to-the-kitchen,
find-the-right-drawer,
then-back-upstairs plan.
I came up with it as a kid,
never expecting to need it
as a middle-aged man.
But there I was in the kitchen
with his rage-trembling body.
I went for the drawer
but she stepped between us
so I ran for the car
and drove away.
/ / /
20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 30 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Worth It
for John
The scar on my left knee
is from crashing a BMX bike
I was only riding to be your dad.
/ / /
17 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 27 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentTreasure Chest
for Bernie
I cradled you in my arms as the anesthetist
held the tiny mask over your face.
Your soft eyelids lowered.
You were cooing as I handed you to the doctor.
It was the gentlest sound I’d ever heard.
Parting from it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
He took you through the double doors.
I returned on shaky legs to the waiting room.
/ / /
15 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 25 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a Comment
Eventualities
We talked about what would happen
when one of them dies.
“All The Things You Are” is playing.
I have closed the curtains.
Anyway when one of them dies.
Is what we talked about.
By the way that song is over.
The neighbor is mowing again.
The thing is, see, when one of them dies.
I don’t know the name of this next song.
Perhaps I should have another iced tea.
There will come a day when it’s over.
We talked about this.
/ / /
10 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 20 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
I got into Star Trek
but he was already gone
claimed by age & the ocean
/ / /
7 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 17 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentPetruchio
We were all supposed to meet back in 2019, but
it didn’t work out and then a lot of other things
didn’t work out and then the part of “we”
that was me and somebody else turned into “I,”
but then we finally met anyway (most of us)
and cooked steaks and potatoes and corn
and watched a play and it was worth the wait.
/ / /
6 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 16 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a Commentanother normal family
on vacation / behind the boys
a sperm whale’s skeleton
/ / /
6 August 2023
Shenandoah National Park
This is poem 15 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Nurture
He was so small.
I threw him onto the bed, then
remembered the smack
of a fist against my jaw.
I looked at my own hands,
horrified.
/ / /
4 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 14 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentIn The Driveway In The Tucson Foothills There Were
a series of stones arranged in a semicircle
eight or so chairs, in two groups,
with white ribbon to create an aisle
eight or so people, most of whom were related
to one or the other of the celebrants,
plus Dave and Priscilla
some low cacti, which would come into play
after the ceremony when the bride
stepped out of the stone semicircle
and straight into the sharp spines
a CD boombox, probably the groom’s,
playing a Nat King Cole Trio CD,
definitely the groom’s
a justice of the peace in a dark suit,
with glasses and a mustache, who
turned out to take only cash,
causing the best man to ask the groom’s
grandfather if he had any on him,
which, thankfully, he did
two young people who barely knew
what they were doing, who could not see
that it wouldn’t last, who stood in the
semicircle of stones and hoped
that would be enough
/ / /
3 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 13 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a Comment