Memoir-- Ku

Memoir writer scans
back through an old volume as
history unfolds.

Memories expose
misspent youth searching for love
craving acceptance.

I find new meaning
looking back through life’s mirror
growing sharper scales.

I know who I am
other people don’t define
what my ideals are.

Cementing footprints
leaving my mark on the world
a poet lived here.

Shattered Dreams --ABCDarian

At eight, I knew everything.
Brazen and snot nosed, I came home that semester with C’s.
Carefully, I blocked out the pain of her con.
Daring my parents to reason what had happened to their bright child.
Evaluations were usually the first sign.
Fragments of memory would resurface
Giving birth to a full fledged rebel.
Hell bent on doing things my way, I had once sought refuge there.
I had been resourceful and hunted for ways to make extra cash.
Jean or Aunt Jean as she asked to be called was a neighbor.
Kind or so my parents thought, she paid me to dust her furniture.
Letting me earn extra money, slowly gaining my trust.
My new best friend gave me the combination to her shed, don’t tell, it’s our secret.
Now and then she would invite me to sleep over cementing our friendship.
Often naive to the rules of her sick game, I was a willing
Puppet performing in her show.
Quiet and trusting, I played by all her rules.
Right up to when she tricked me into telling her new best friend the secret combination.
Sly as an alley cat, she deceived both of us, the older girl still ignorant to her adult games.
Threatened and treated like dirt, she let me know she was done with me.
Unable to stop or predict the outcome, I ran home like a scared kitten.
Vile vampire seducing the blood out of my veins, wiping out whole blocks of time
Wasted--- on a wanton dyke, stolen moments exposing and fondling my childhood away.
X-rated nights, christened upon a lewd altar decorated with shame, repeatedly
Yielded at a vulnerable age that should have been better protected
Zeroing in on splintered glass, scored in sullied eyes.

The Tillson Gang

There was Harry, Woody, Ziffel, Rider,
my cousin Ralph, Gary, Pez,
Laura, Char, Arlene
Judy and Cindy, Big Ed’s sisters,
Duh-wane my boyfriend whose name was really
Wayne, a cute blonde guy I soon dropped and
Big Ed,
they were all part of the Tillson gang
a group of kids that I hung out with.


We would meet up on Gary's porch
next to the corner store
skip school together
sign each other’s excuses
have keg parties
check out the local cemetery and
usually end up at Rider’s house.

Rider’s Mom, a savvy nurse
would buy massive amounts of wonder bread
and humongous jars
of peanut butter and jelly for us kids.
Rider’s brother Kenny--not a member
was this gross dork
who got straight A’s and
wore thick glasses with tape on the nosepiece.
Just to torment us he would
pick the buggers out of his nose
big juicy green ones and
then stick them in his mouth

Eeeewwww! KENNNYYY ugh!

We would often go there for lunch
after smoking a doobie and then go
down into Riders basement and listen to
Led Zepplin, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath.
Stoned on some primo Mexican
lulled by the heavy metal and the black lights
we would while away the hours and
then later grab a ride in Harry’s bug
back to Rosendale, sometimes
we'd try to fit everyone in squeezing
bodies into every square inch, the all time
record was fifteen.
The award
however
went to
Char who was so small
she could fit into the
compartment behind the back seat.

Occasionally the local fuzz would catch me

walking home after 7:00 p.m. and take me
to Kallops Corner and drop me off with a warning.
Far enough down the road that the old man
couldn’t see
far enough away-- from reality.

Just Dance, cherita

Use at least two of the following words to write a poem

Lazy, torpid, effort, fake, tsunami, forest, taro, shyly, lemon, sorry,
discipline, marmoset, fandango, slope, grape

It took disciplined effort

to teach the fandango

aware of his torpid demeanor

Trapped in a cage

dodging tiny mounds of

fake grape marmoset droppings.

Lazy-cinquain

Lazy

monkey crossing

try washing your hair and

combing out that marmoset tail

you clown.

Diamond Head Trail-Cinquain

Proceed

into tunnel

Don’t forget your flashlights

grasp right side railing gradual

incline.

I Have Enough

Five
should be
six, seven
eight, nine, ten- more
eleven, twelve-eh
thirteen, fourteen-gulping
umm-fifteen, ahh- sixteen- then
seventeen, eighteen and let’s see
Yes- here’s Nineteen, and TWENTY DOLLARS
GOOD ----- I have enough for today’s Workshop.

Hawaii Five O- APB, Cherita

We gonna issue one APB, so try listen up.

Missing muses seen heading towards
Kailua Beach Park. Da kine names be Moose and Mercedes.

We got one tip dat dey
stay betting on da white horses.
Approach wit one shaka brah.

Dysfunctional

Funny how family can be so different

He-- solitary
monarch brooding on yesterdays news.
She--a painted lady asleep in her cocoon- her delicate wings surviving
his brutal blast
dreaming in her closed off space.

Waiting for first light, for the siren blast warning of impending disaster
The full report unclear
He sets a plan in motion
doomed from the get go.

Their offspring--forever upsetting the cart
in the thick of things
testing
the emotional bonds.
Vexed by the uncertain nature
of the day
locked
somewhere between insanity and reason.

Metamorphosis-Haiku

Painted lady lies
safely in her warm cocoon
butterfly wings furled.

Papilio xuthus--Asian Swallowtail

Transformation

Almost
nine months
along
and
no belly bump
no thumping from within
no indigestion
from weird concoctions
scarfed at midnight

Just

smiling
exposing some
new
teeth
sharpened
and
glistening
in the moonlight
howling
back at the wind.

Zeus, my brave dog
watching me,
taking it all in
waiting--
 for
my
transformation.

Ahooooooooooo!

Winter's Final Breath-Naani

Solitary brooding wolf

howling his icy breath

still visible

on the horizon.

Tsunami

 

Tsunami alert

readiness kits are prepared

vigilant focus.

Kolea

Golden plover stares
eyes focus on tiny speck
home in on dinner.

Daily Art and Photography

Hemorrhoid Hilda

I'm dedicating this to my Doctor--Susan thanks for the inspiration****

She is not cancerous
just a
pain in the ass.

A stuffed vein
screaming for
an extra glass of water
that should
cut out the
ice cream
and red meat--
red wine
cut back on
the
brie--
groan,
chocolate.
Add more leafy green
assorted bits of orange
and yellow
to her day.
Allowing
her
to cool down
have fewer flare-ups.
Soothed
by another
woman
named hazel
who
comes
highly
recommended.

Weather Forecast

Stubborn
slant
across
wide
forehead
interests
curious
bystanders.

forecast
predicts
intermittent
periods
of
rain
and
shine.

Clearing
to be
followed
by a
some
growth
spurts
and a
couple
phases
of
hormonal
flux
gradually
descending
into
tolerable
and
intolerable
bouts
of
suffering
eventually
coming
full
circle
learning
then
forgetting
about
weather.

I Came to Hear

I came to hear -- the last train whistle leaving Berlin,

escaping to the West-- the only sane noise

left in a young girls ears, blocking out the bombs,

wiping them clean from her memory.

I came to hear-- the growl of empty

stomachs churning from too many days

of gobbling raw potatoes stolen from the farmer’s field.

Bald headed mothers and children—classified undernourished C.

I came to see --the hopeful stare of a mother with five children

who vainly searched for her husband--

drafted and missing.

I came to smell the horror-- of a child

exhumed a month after he died, wrapped in nothing but a blanket,

reburied by his brothers-- tormented with lit cigarettes and cold steel.

I came to learn-- the truth of a young couple and their infant daughter

who immigrated to a new country

glistening with opportunity,

unschooled in the language,

having only their youth and wellbeing.

I came to know-- a young girl

who helped her parents learn the slang and the dialect,

who lived in the railroad apartment on the second floor,

of an old brownstone in Manhattan, where she learned to hate vegetables

and climb fire escapes.

The one with the crooked bangs

and the stubborn smile

who waited and held on tight,

and never forgot

what her Mother told her

about the horror

of war

evil men,

and shame.

A story passed down

piecing together fractured lives,

seizing-- stolen moments,

storing up-- the laughter

and the tears.

I came to hear.