Mystery Guest
I don’t remember
the womb at all.
But, once I left,
it was never used again.
My father’s face
remains anonymous.
And my three older sisters
were never young on my watch.
I’m sure I spent much time
at the teat, or in the cot,
but the details escape me.
I was too young to be an author,
so nothing was written down.
The past began
when I had two legs to stand on,
a speaking voice,
and a curiosity
that wouldn’t leave me alone.
Surrounded by my elders,
I shrunk into silence.
But, by myself,
I was the loudest one in the room.
I played with toys
long ago discarded.
And hung out with
other neighbourhood boys,
not a one of whom
I ever knew as a man.
I was schooled.
I worked.
I found romance.
And a pen and blank paper.
Poetry befriended my feelings.
It was as simple as that.
I travelled.
I married.
I moved overseas.
My only hint is that
I’m here in the room with you.
So tell me.
Who am I?
This Language Poetry
It’s all about language. Many years ago, as a child,
based on nothing more than the gurgling sounds
my throat concocted, I began to make sense.
Why, I’ll never know. Did I really wish to
communicate, or was it just that the noises
of these larger people sounded better?
I could have met them halfway. A cow
might have remained a moo forever. My
father could have Dada chiselled on his tombstone.
But language can’t leave well enough alone.
The thing and the name must fit exactly.
The sentence has to parse. A noun pronounced
incorrectly is not a noun. And it didn’t
even stop there. Read it and write it
or you go to bed without your supper.
And, in this case, you are your bed.
Your supper is life. It clubbed me with
metaphor, allegory, at such as young age.
Language was unavoidable. It was on the radio,
the TV. It was all over the newspaper.
It even invaded the comics. Those damn
speech balloons. I never left the house
without one. And here I am, years later,
in language world, my tongue, my eyes, even
my thoughts are conquered. And, just in case,
I’m never more than five feet from a dictionary.
You have my word.
Tupelo
Air’s like a wig
that’s fallen off my head,
been sucked in by my mouth and nostrils.
It’s as sweaty out as fat Elvis.
The sun’s bite is harsh,
and its hot whip flails windlessly.
I’m here because a man ought to be in Mississippi
one time in his life.
It’s the poorest state.
It’s the unhealthiest state.
And I’m strolling the main street
like I’m doing penance,
on a day that’s so July
it could be where the month got its name from.
The people I pass by
are too busy wiping their brows
to acknowledge me.
Even the cop doesn’t look my way.
He’s shaking his shirt collar to make a breeze.
The homeless look no different than the ones with homes.
The dogs play dead in doorways.
Kids in the park play in slow motion.
I stop at a diner,
eat ham and eggs under a fan.
The waitress pours coffee like she’s sleepwalking.
The customers mutter to each other,
but not even my keen ear can make out any conversation.
Outside again, the temperature blasts my face.
I struggle back to the motel.
The pool plays chlorine siren but I didn’t bring my trunks.
I just flop onto the bed, turn up the air conditioner
until it rattles like an old Cessna engine.
This one room is the closest I can get
to not being in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Nature Boys
Some boys have trapped
fireflies in a jar,
pretending they’re lanterns.
Another watches a caterpillar
roam up and down his palm,
before he slips it into his pocket.
A few more capture tadpoles
in bowls of dirty water.
They are amazed at
how these creatures continue
to be what they are,
until they starve or suffocate.
There are boys
who intercede, interfere
with life,
as if it somehow
adds insight into their own.
Like, don’t be captured.
Or, if you are,
don’t expect your captor
to understand what
you need to survive.
And, barring a miraculous escape,
die.
The Tree and the Window
This tree has dug itself in over a century.
You look out the window in back,
see it spread wide through, grave-to-grave,
give thanks—though sad is its memory.
Your head on the sill,
the chair where it has always been;
the heart you carry inside helps lift it
beyond the suffering bones of your body.
Leaf by leaf, regenerating
trunk circles, rounding off another year;
a tree of its own volition,
not connected to any other.
There is the trunk she was buried in,
unafraid of the heights it can reach;
a tree in the shape
of what a woman once did for you.
"СВЯЗАННОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ" POEMS BY CAROLYN CHILTON CASAS: Paradox, The Real Me, I Am»
изображение: Pixabay
