Miraquill
On the ward
Something pretending to be light
drizzles down, yellowly -- but
It is not the illumination we seek
to study the cave we are
lost in.
They feed us three times a day
and we meet in the day room
( think Cosy meets Crazy)
for lessons on pretending to be
sane. White gauze wraps several
wrists and a man who says he is
in for a competency evaluation
so the DA can proceed to his trial
for murder --or not.
This is no snake pit. There is no
Nurse Ratchet. But still there is an
actual black line you cannot cross
to the locked door. You have been
captured by the sane and they are
changing you every night with their
meds. Stilling the voices within.
Who will you be by the last day?
©litlover63
litlover63
-
-
bury me
with soft things
With unblushing pretty things
the charm of the small, preciously
finite, say, one perfect seashell,
curled like a baby's toes.
bury me with things of great value
and no meaning so that a panel
of soon to be dead white men
may convene a solemn, shuffling, coughing
assembly to deconstruct these things
to rust and dust more cunningly,
with hidden flaws and cruel mazes.
but I will stop my ears for
I am long time buried with my
soft and pretty things.
if you should someday come
and find me, bring sweets.
©litlover63 -
litlover63
143w
Imagine?
Sometimes I imagine
giving the world's psychiatrists
a great big hug and while I'm in close,
stabbing them in the hearts
37 times with one of their pretentious
glass letter openers and burying them
in their faux Japanese meditation gardens.
Always wth love in my heart.
And rainbows and butterflies.
And fluffy bunny tails.
If I didn't get by with it
I could always write "poetry"
in prison to spread good cheer
to my fellow inmates
who don't want it
and would make short work
of me, probably with very little
love in their hearts so they'll
burn in Hell forever, but this will give me
no pleasure in my final moments.
Maybe a bunny or two.
©litlover63 -
Home Movies
This is the part
Where we embark
- the inciting incident--
that started it all,
the misstep we took
and did not see.
And this is the scene
Where the scales are ripped,
ungently,from our eyes
and we see where we went
wrong.
Here is the finale
Where we pine
For the blindness,
As the unkind Light
Breaks our hearts.
©litlover63 -
small print
after the pain
has washed you clean
run toward Eden
rejoicing
you have just survived
God.
©litlover63 -
Beware: What you are about to Read is Not Fiction
Later in life, we enacted a volatile
tableau, circling each other, knives drawn,
no hurtful thing left unsaid.
( but when I was a child she packed bananas and chocolate muffins
and we watched the sun come up another day for being strong for me
protecting me from him)
She won the battles in her life by being the angriest
person in the room; tried to spank me when I was 18.
She threw a rice pot at me when I was 47.
( but when I was little I slept in her bed and she invented stories for me or
stayed up late to watch the old movies she loved or look at the scrapbooks
she tried to hang on to from one coast to the other looking for help for my
father)
When she was dying she told me I was a good daughter.
I cling to that now and like an alchemist work try to
separate the base metal of gratitude from the gold of
Love.
She deserves that much from me.
©litlover63 -
Asides
Wrinkles dimples warts
and all hooded eyes should be
ashamed
More beautiful eyes ( without their
hoods) and more beautiful faces
are just a scalpel serum cream away.
( Can their be beauty? Where I
have not been?) Deliver
yourself to me. ( My summer house
needs a new pool and my clients
have ceased to be for ME.).
By the way, spider venom
Is the coming thing don't
tell anyone
©litlover63 -
And now for a Change of Pace
Today,
my heart I thought
impervious,
quivered and sang
like a tuning fork struck
lightly against a glass.
Tomorrow,
I will hear your voice
for the final time
and my heart,the same heart
as yesterday, will bolt
for the back door.
Love is too much for me.
©litlover63 -
Last Seen
waiting on the corner
for a bus.
A large white car
screeched to a halt
and disgorged three burly polar bears.
'You are the poet' they growled
and not waiting for an answer,
threw me in the back seat.
Meekly, I said, 'I'm not a very good poet,
really, 'I stink.'
You'll do, they said.
And I did. For four months or so
I wrote my bad poems
during the day and they
collected them at night.
Finally, they said, 'You have given voice
to the plight of our people.
You may go.'
'Wouldn't you rather have a good poet
for such an important cause,' I asked.
'No,' they answered. 'If the poems are
too good, who will believe they were written
by polar bears?'
They set me back at the bus stop
and drove away. And that
is why I have not posted
for so long.
©litlover63 -
Some Observations from the Oubliette
I was born, no fuss, no muss.
They had to make me cry.
In school I flew under the radar.
All this time, I have kept my head down,
missing a score of eclipses.
But you can't be too careful, they say.
When Life came out to play,
I collected coats at the door
and went forth and back with
party fare. I passed notes
from the boys I liked to the
girls that were not me.
Now, night and day, I fade away
my only hope that my soul may
finally, actually, come to Be.
©litlover63
