"Where's the behind of this tree?" ~~ your three-year old self KILLS me!


I'm gonna think about this one and come back later. Thanks for the morning laugh. I have to share that one!

Baby

I can only imagine that the screaming
was driving them crazy
hours of pacing back and forth
passing the baby from one set of arms to another
rocking and singing
bouncing and tickling
nothing worked
they watched the clock and waited
not so patiently
and at midnight
when my grandfather walked into the house
my mother and her sisters placed me into his arms
their hair (and their nerves) disheveled
clothes wrinkled and covered in spittle
and I nestled into veteran arms
a content and finally quiet baby.

oh how I hated worksheets
at least that’s what I’m told
bored with busy work

I really don’t remember
but my first grade teacher
and my parents recall

the day I decided to fight
back against the insult
of workbook assignments

pulling out the elmer’s
I squirted liberally
pasting pages back to back

now instead of four
I only had two dreaded
worksheet pages to do

How clever I was
I don’t even remember
whether I was punished

but I wish I had some elmer’s
to get me out of the work
I don’t want to do today

TLS, April 2008

I love today's prompt challenge, I could have gone a lot of ways with this one, like the day I was chased by a bull, but instead I decided to use this prompt to write a poem about the day I was adopted.
So here is my prompt challenge for the 19th.

Memories of the Past

The story of my past
that I do not remember,
is the year I turned three
in December..
It was the day I officially
became a Gray,
they send my real mother
away.
I was told this story
as a child,
how my mother
was too wild.
They send her on a bus,
so she could not bother
us.
The adoption became final
on that fateful day,
the day my mother
went away.
They bought her a bus
ticket and sent her to
the beauty parlor,
so I didn't have to live in squalor.
The memory is not very clear,
only what I hear....
of how my mother sold
me for a bus ticket to
Florida.

Into The Night

Safe home, safe neighborhood,
No history of violence or abuse -
At forty-five I’m still afraid.
Can’t sleep with a closet door open,
The door to my room open,
Having an arm or a leg
Hanging casually over the edge of the bed,
But the windows are thrown wide
Almost every night of the year.

Mom told me why, in my twenties.

Family camping and fishing all the time,
A child of three, unafraid
Amidst a clutch of other toddlers
Laughing and chasing bats by starlight
In happy abandon farther from the rest.
Teenage cousin Tommy thinks it’s funny
To hide and wait behind the oak;
Grabbing and scaring the child who
Never saw him before or after.

Sometimes knowing never helps.

The Mysticism of the Murder

I am here on the point above the lake
Where people chanting chants and burning
Incense, are denying this is a wake.
It is, instead, an attempt at earning
Back the favor of The Muse.
They are here to toss flowers from the cliff
To call her back to the ranks of the living.
"We'd throw the strangler, that evil stiff,
But all we have are flowers we are giving,"
Said a shivering acolyte. "We cannot excuse
The evil deed," she said. "But we can try
To bring her back from the dead
Because she really couldn't die.
She is immortal, she must have fled
To sanctuary, where the hues
And sounds are nicer." There! Blues
And reds and yellow blooms
Are floating down to the dirt
Below, symbolic brooms
To sweep and clear the hurt
Away. Dan Blather. Pueblo Eyes News.

Bike Accident

I can't recall much of my childhood,
I've blocked those years from my mind.
What I do know about those days,
are the stories my parents told me.
They said I took my bike one day,
and rode it straight up a steep hill.
But before I reached the very top,
I came back down the hill backwards.
I slammed into a very tall tree,
and split the side of my left foot open.
If you look closely at my foot today,
you will see the tiny white scar.

ON STAGE

Lights dim. The sanctuary came alive
with young children’s murmuring and
scurrying around the makeshift stage.

A voice announced the planned program.
Baton tapped to quiet the excited bunch.
Parents prayed for their own to shush up.

Rows of cherubs lined three or four high.
The smallest youngsters stood in front.
The chords of Jesus Loves Me rang out.

My parents said my hands fidgeted, playing
with the hem of my new frilly dress. At stanzas
end, I had bunched the hem almost to my chest.

Four lives before age six

I recall reaching
For the orange cup.
But don’t remember
How the bleach burned
Going down my throat.

I see the storm door
In my mind’s eye.
But don’t remember
Going through it
arm first.

And I see the pavement
Pass inches below
My nose,
But don’t know how
The car door opened.

And I don’t remember
Falling from the
Second-story balcony.
But still feel the cool grass
Beneath my broken shoulder

Robert, I will never look at a tree the same way again. Very cute. Also, do we have to write about ourselves? I have a great retold memory of my older brother when he was 3 or 4.

Debra Elliot, very touching.

TaunaLen, very clever. Reminds me of the time I spilled Elmers glue all over our carpet. I didn't get in trouble because my sister cleaned it up. But, mine was an accident!!

Will try to post a poem later as I have been sick all day. Will write after a nap.

Robert - Love that little memory. Kids say such great stuff.
I am having a bit of trouble with this one as my brothers and sister all left home by the time I was about 7, and we don't speak. As for friends, I have moved so many times in my life, I've also lost touch with many friends. But, two things come to mind, so I will see what I can come up with.

This has been a great exercise. I've written more in the past 19 days than I have in months. Thanks.

Had plenty of material for this one! Cheers!

The Arts Festival

Oh the fun we had!
At least that’s what she told me.
Two friends, doing the town,
Celebrating life
Cheering to everything
The good, the bad and the ugly.
A feat of this magnitude
Required quite a few toasts
At quite a few places,
But not so much food,
‘Cause we were just so thirsty
From all that talking!
And that is why
When the phone rang the next day
And she asked me how I liked my new shirt
I had to ask, “What new shirt?”
It was a nice surprise though
To find the shopping bag on the couch,
See the shirt for the first/second time,
Smile at the great deal I got.
Of course we had to get together again,
We had to say cheers to the shirt
And cheers to what a great day we had
And cheers to the mix up with the elevator
Because the brick wall I was waiting in front of
never did open its doors for me.

Just two friends, having fun cheering to having fun,
And we still laugh today.

Patti, that is fantastic!!!! Cheers to you and your writing. You make a girl feel like she was there!!!!

this is the second try. I wonder if there are more than two poets posting if the latest one doesn't get kicked out to try later. grrr

Anyway, Robert...I love that three-year-old wit. No wondering how he became the guy who prompts us to evolve from where we came to be who we are now. Very very cool!
Dan - Honest I did not murder my muse...I was just musing about it is all.

and now my latest eruption written under duress in regressive hyponotic therapy yep, you guessed it, administered my muse...

Late Slowpoke (and how she got that way)

My mother always called me
SLOW
She said
Must have been,
You didn’t want to be born
You were late
And then
Your labor clocked in hours
Was thirty-six!
Not easy labor
Not rhythmic
But unbelievably hard and
Screaming labor
The “Why-the-hell-did-I-let-him-do-this-to-me!”
Kind of labor
And worse
They had to push me back up
Tried to be breach
(Always going the wrong way slow - that’s me)
and almost strangled my little self with my own cord
You’d think a middle child
Would give her mother less of a dance birthing her
Than the first baby, but no.
Wise woman in spite of the alcohol,
My mother once said:
“Here disgraced, make the best of it”
and “I’ve been thrown out of better places”
Not that there’s a better place than
your own mother’s womb
but
I’ve often wondered if there’s a reason why
They called me slow in school
Why I was ALWAYS late
Why I always tried to do things my own way
The British have a saying
“Keep on as you mean to go” (hmmmm)
Well I’m here and make no apologies
Stopping to smell the roses, or coffee
Or whatever
Preferring process over goals
However way you slice it
Life’s a great ride even,
Especially as Mom said,
“you’ll be late for your own funeral!”
.

I nearly didn’t do this today at all. I was terrified when I saw the prompt.


Mirror Writing

Mirror mirror on the wall
Why do you keep looking at me like that?
Its alright for you, you can be anyone you like
I have to be me
And it’s just not fair!

But if you place the mirror on the floor
And slide him along with you, he becomes
A magic trapdoor to a new and wondrous land
All you have to do is step through
Like Alice
And everything will we different
Better
And the grown ups will be gone

Writing is a funny thing it can say
So much that everyone else can share
Sometimes it’s a simple thing like
A name
My name
Written in black felt-tip on a coat hanger for school
Written by the other me
The one in the mirror. I know it was him
Because the only way to read it is to hold it up
So he can see.



I’m sorry this is as close as I can get to any detail in my early life. No one knows why I wrote my name in mirror writing. I never did it again. The coat hanger was found a couple of years ago in a house move and I was told about it. I never consciously remember my childhood, most of it is just blackness and the rest is too painful.

Linda Hofke,

Thank you
I had so many to write about, but I wanted to write this one because, this is how I have been feeling lately.
Debra

I Swear You Did It

Groggy
Up from bed
Where is it?
The door
The door opens
and the barn door opens
and it splashes
upon the
tile?
The toilet?
I don't know what I'm doing,
this is the bathroom, right?
Bah
To bed again.

Thank you Heather! Let's see what you got!

Oh! Now I've had to go and write something silly, just to cheer myself up!

Rabbit Hunting

Spot the black Labrador sat quite quiet
And still, awaiting his Master’s word
For he daresn’t pick up any kill
‘Til he’s got the nod.
The farmer sighed and scratched his head
He patted his young son’s back
But not a twitch or sign did he give
To patient old Spot.
The three of them kept staring at
The bloody tangled mess of flesh
And bone that lay there still
But not a word was said
‘Til finally the farmer sighed once more
And to his son did say, with typical Norfolk
Wit: I don’t know Jim lad, we’ll make
A farmer of you yet, if you can learn to shoot rabbits
The way you shoot your foot!

I Have the Picture and Sweater to Prove It

"Stop it, you're hurting
my daddy" they say I cried at
Aunt Dodie, Mom and others
being playful in the snow.
My daddy, tall in his
khaki Air Force slacks
a cap on his head stretched his
long sweatery (with reindeer!)
arm out to hold the
hand of his bundled-up, weeping
toddler daughter.
I must have calmed down, because
he is grinning
and we are both looking gleefully
at Aunty, Mommy ... whomever it
was who put down her snowballs
long enough to
pick up her camera
and capture a "memory."

The Pool

It has been mentioned several times
Throughout my life
That I have failed
Left her to die

Each year the trek was made
Whether want or dismay
Packed into an impossible space
Windows sealed
Smoke billowing into
Tender lungs

Fourteen hours seemed like days
Silent stretches of sandy white
Blistering heat
Eager feet racing towards
The unknown

Our stop was always the same
Some clever name
Depicting scenic wants

Splendor came in the form
Of water clear and blue
Confined by blinding shades of manmade materials

All those miles
To choose an experience
Available anywhere

Habit dictated each day’s events
Carnival rides
Cotton candy
Shirley Temples
Swimming
Sunburns

I’ve been told that on the last day
I failed
Left her to die

Just the two of us
Age three and five
Unattended
In a pool

Truth be told
I never noticed her absence

Alarm set in as clothed adults
Jumped in
Her lifeless body was retrieved from the bottom
Of our summer splendor

Flashing lights
Chaos
Crying

After some time
The uniformed men were able to
Pump her back into
Being
And I was grateful

To this day
I am asked
How I could have missed her
Slipping away
And did I push her
Into the deepest part of
The pool

Sorry that I fell behind on my submissions. I am a nurse and I have been working a lot of overtime. Hopefully I will get caught up this week on the days I've missed. I was getting discouraged and tempted to quit, but I am determined to have 30 poems submitted by the end of this month.

Drinking Drano

Under the sink
In easy reach
Of little hands and a curious mind
Sat a can with colorful writing
That was all too easy to find
"Drano" said the label
Though the name I could not read
With a warning saying to not ingest
But I gave the warning no heed
They say I opened the can up
And drank the contents down
Though I can't remember the odor
Or the taste of the liquid I had found
I don't recall the anguish
I caused my mom and dad
Or the ride to the doctor
To treat the injuries that I had

Night Terrors

When I was a little girl,
One night I awoke
On the kitchen table
Beside the salt and pepper shakers.

My mother tells me
I used to dive bomb
Out of my crib,
That she could not build
High enough walls to cage me.

If anyone nears my eye
With a finger or brush,
I immediately recoil and tear.

My mother tells me I ran
Directly into her extended finger
Around the age of three.
I retell this forgotten story
As my mother stabbed me in the eye.

My father made hamburger
Of my fist as I placed my hand
In greased pan. Sometimes I wake
With heated palms. I would later dream
That my sister was cooking our mother
And our mother was still talking to us.

But the oddest of all memories
Is a white dress hovering
In the linen pantry mirror,
And my mother asking me
Why I was in the closet that night.

Heather - don't know what to say - what a tragedy.

High Jinx

My high school prom
was a night to remember
for everyone else but me.

A pint of vodka
in fifteen minutes,
I guess I must have been thirsty.
Needless to say, the rest of the night
turned out a tad blurry.

Running through fountains;
taking swipes at the crowd
you'd think I was Muhammad Ali.
Bodyguards are what my friends
actually turned out to be.

When the night was done
We'd had our fun,
so off to the restaurant we went.

As they went in to eat,
they laid me in the back seat.
Two doors wide open; glazed eyes
staring at pavement.

The Angel

When I was a little girl
I received a birthday angel.
So proud I was of my little gift
A February sash across her breast,
A violet in her hand, forever smiling
And turning on the spot when wound;
A Happy Birthday song she would play.

I showed my mother this little gift
At which she made a frown and said,
“You broke my angel;
I want you to know,”
She told me with eyes cast over.
“And what is worse is
That you threw mine
Out of anger and spite - -
During a tantrum,
When you were two.”

I did not remember doing this.
I never remembered the act.
I offered to get her a new angel,
But she told me it wasn’t the same.
I told her I was sorry,
But for her that wasn’t the point.

For she knew by telling this story,
A story I’d never forget,
That she would have created
This remorseful regret
Every time I saw my angel
Over an act
I was told
I had done;
But an act
I’ve Never
Remembered.

Water Please

It happened in a restaurant
Chinese I think it was
We were eating with the
Company President's son
I had publicly declared
My absolute intent
To be on my best behavior
With the son of the president
Unfortunately for me
My evil friend was there
He knew just how to rattle
My corporate savoi faire
Throughout the meal he taunted
About topics known to gall
And finally in frustration
I gave a famed signal
Not the one you're thinking of
Though fingers are involved
I put my thumb to my nose
And quick as a wink
The waiter dashed over
And filled all our drinks
Everyone at our table
Laughed themselve silly
And thus I proved that even
With best intents I can't
Be a lady
This story would be better
If I could remember
That hilarious day and time
But perhaps in my embarrasment
It's been deleted from my mind

Sara V,
You made me laugh.. and think of my own kids and grandson
Debra

Wow! I cringed when I saw this prompt, but you all have been posting some really poignant work. My shout out especially to Ginger, MJBarz (goodness!), Patti and Heather.

I had a hard time remembering something that I didn't actually remember, but I came up with this one:

In the '60s

Jack LaLanne came into our living room
on the black and white screen,
a picture of fitness, biceps flexed
to bursting through the tight tee shirt.
Sometimes, he brought out Whitey,
the big dog (white), so I watched,
trying to be a patient girl
with no dog of her own.
I don't remember much of the exercises
a housewife did in that decade,
but my mother says when she tried
to follow along, lie down to sit up
or circle her legs through the bicycle.
I'd see her down on the floor
and I'd start to cry.

Robert, thanks for making me stretch this month.

I certainly hope this fits the prompt

The Fall


I must have been about ten
so long ago, to remember
those details again
I remember climbing the tree
looking out as far as I could see
I know I even went up higher
so fearless, I had to be admired
and that is all,
I don’t remember the fall
just waking in the hospital
a huge cast on my leg
it was broken the doctor said
Mom said no game this weekend
I knew she meant it,
no matter how much I would beg
I would have to get it through my head
that I would laid up in bed
for at least two weeks
all because of that dumb old tree
Now my team would lose the game
but, in reality
the only person I had to blame
was me. . .

©Rodney C. Walmer 4/19/08 Poetry Prompt #19 based a true story of when I was ten, and the
only bone I had broken until I was 49, but that’s another story.

I Seem To Remember

I seem to remember
Not so far in my past
When America was the greatest
And Americans were proud
To be called Americans
Because we were patriotic
And we stood together
Against the odds
And the world
And the naysayers within

I seem to remember
When in our public school
Education was expected
And teachers actually taught
From unbiased textbooks
And acquired knowledge
Not bent by politics
Or personal stupidity
And they cared for their students
And each other

I seem to remember
A day when our military
Was respected by us all
And feared by the enemy
Because they were powerful
And strong
And supported
And victorious in all they did

I seem to remember
When God was our Authority
When the flag was our symbol
And the Bible our guide
A day when we loved each other
And were willing do die for freedom
Because without it, we’re nothing

I seem to remember
The America our forefathers envisioned
Unspoiled, undefeated, and united
Hard-working men and women
With hands together for freedom’s cause
A force to be reckoned with
Unmovable, and unshakable
America at its best

I seem to remember
A once great nation called America
Where has she gone?

4-19-08

Bookbaby

I see myself, looking into my head,
From the story my mother told me.
How I sat in the wooden playpen and turned the pages
Of Mom’s favorite magazine.
I don’t know how it got into my hands
The first time,
But she vows I never tore them once.
Instead, the toddler I was
Gazed at the leaves of those fragile books
Apparently enthralled
And wanting nothing more than to read,
Before I ever knew what the letters spelled.
She said I was reading words at four,
already knew my alphabet.
I guess at that tender age
I assumed everyone knew how to—
Read, that is.
No one is surprised at this playpen anecdote.
Not if they know me.
Books, words, writing—they are as essential to me
As breathing.

The Last Time I Leaned out a Window

It was one of those New York days
when steam rises from the sidewalk.
Warm air, oppressive as a wool blanket,
drifts through the open window.

I hear barking in the courtyard
six floors below. I climb
on the sill, lean out the window,
stare at the snarling dogs.

Large hands pull me back,
turn me over a cotton-clad knee
and, for the first and last time,
spank me.

When I Try to Remember

most of this life,
only a wash of grey paint,
anoints the canvas,
waves of the dark Atlantic
capable of swallowing the world,
turning even the greatest whale
into a gumdrop.


And it seems that I am
only born this moment
with the potential of chipping
away to the graffiti beneath
the monotonous cover-up;
swimming below the sludge,
archeologist of this life,
and perhaps more.

Maria
Jacketti

Friends All Along

My Mami has been telling me
Of the boy that I used to be
I would get up at four A.M.
And watched the stars as they all gleam
Not only that, I'd speak to them
And laugh and cry and talk with them
She never knew why I'd do that
A three year old ask the stars "What?"

And now that I'm a little older
About this anecdote, I wonder
What did I used to ramble about
And go to the window and look out?
I was practicing my making friends
Then why am I so scared of the end
Scared that even then I'll be lonely?
The stars will always be friends to me.

(And yesterday's prompt, because I completely forgot it.)

Disappointing

Erin was just a sad little orphan
Foster home to foster home, an orphan
She couldn't wait to get away from them
Then she met a widowed man. She loved him
He taught Erin everything she would need
Her mind became Eden with not one weed

Against all odds, she became successful
For the old man, she was always thankful
She wanted a test, was he her father?
The letter arrived a few weeks later
Read to herself, with anticipation
She looked up, said "There is no connection"

No one ever talks about a certain memory of me as a child. I'll have to email by brothers and sister or call my parents to get some dirt. Either it is because I am the younger or I was a very behaved (or boring) kid. Anyway, instead I wrote about the memory everyone talks about in my family and in the neighborhood where I grew up. If possible, I will post one about myself at a later time.


A Drive Down Memory Lane

As I wait
I wonder if it drives him crazy
that at each neighborhood picnic
someone mentions the day
he managed to release the handbrake
of the old station wagon
Dad had parked on the hill
outside our house.

Perhaps he wanted to play Speed Racer,
or maybe he was simply unaware
of the result his action would bring.
He certainly couldn't know
the detoured course he travelled,
unable to see beyond the steering wheel
he clutched in his tiny hands,
coasting downward,
off the street,
and in the direction of
Mr. Nieman's tree.

And as he pulls up,
my permit gripped in my hand,
I am eager for my next lesson,
thinking how ironic it is
that my big brother is the one
teaching me to drive,
but I trust he won't steer me wrong.
Afterall, he's been driving
since he was 4.

The Recipe

You tell me
I recite recipes
in my sleep.

Last night
I was out of tomatoes.

You asked
crushed? or chopped?

I replied
get out of the kitched.

Humble Beginnings

What Mom remembers is that
on the day of my birth,
since I was the fourth child,
I came very suddenly and
she barely made it the fourteen miles
to the hospital.
She didn’t have time to
wash up the hand-me-downs so
she had to bring me home in
a tattered sweater.
She always felt bad about that.

Dad remembers that I was born
on the first day of squirrel season,
and he kept falling off a stump
from being so sleepy
from staying up all night.

When my children were born
I tried to tell them more interesting
stories about their births.

Too soon

Just one of those times
when all goes amiss.
From what I've been told,
it happened like this.
I'd just spent a month
confined to my home
and from cabin fever
depressed I had grown.
On my first night out
I decided to drink,
unfortunately
I just didn't think
of the antibiotics
that I had been on
about a week before,
if even that long.
It started just fine,
the first pint or two.
I'd started to forget
what I had been through.
Then all of a sudden,
around pint number four,
I'd turned much more pale
than I'd been before.
I said 'I don't feel well",
though that was quite clear
and obviously
it wasn't just the beer.
I sat for a while
thinking that it might pass.
Returning, of course,
to draining my glass.
But it only got worse
so I went to the phone
in order to call
to get a ride home.
By morning it seemed
that it had gone away.
The illness had passed
and I felt ok,
but I'd learned a lesson
that I'll always recall.
Antibiotics
don't go with alcohol.

I seem to stay a day behind! both are here.
First one is true also - death of 38-year-old after battle with cancer.

Funeral Home Visitation

Chris’ open casket,
paying my respects
-there is no connection-
A roomful of flowers that reminds
me of death
-there is no connection-
Standing in line wondering what to say,
my husband by my side
-there is no connection-
Chris’ young wife weeping,
Greeting, hugging,
-there is no connection-
The years of chemo, stem
cell transplant,
-there is no connection-
Her own widowed mother saying
“A mother never wants this for her child”
-there is no connection-
Chris’ mother, looking brave,
“He fought till the very end”
-there is no connection-
Wondering what we’ll do when we get home,
my denial, over and over
-there is no connection-

--------------------------

Retribution

My forty year old son
reminds me of the time
after supper
I threw the dishes
and broke most every one
because I was angry
at his father
over something
he did/didn’t do
three years before
I divorced him
and the reason
he remembers
after all this time
is because he still
thinks it’s funny
that my only comment
was “At least
they were dirty.”

I'm posting another - not as happy as the first!

Grandpa

There are bits and pieces of memory
Hands groping
Touching a little girl
That was me.
There are bits and pieces
That still today
Torture the woman
That is me.
The bits and pieces
He left behind
Are still mine
Even though he is dead.

my perfect world
ruined.
from center
of the universe
those that once
orbited
my sunny smile
are over there
always with
her
she cries
she demands
everyone
coos
smiles
laughs
at her
even
my grandmother
my best friend
holds her

"Please, gram?"
I ask
"Anything"
she smiles.
"Please gram
put her back
in Mommy's
tummy.

Patty,

bits and pieces.
that repetition is very strong.
thanks,
k

Sooo...I thought about this for a long time & just so you don't all think I'm either dark or funny. This the day I was born. I have no input & for the ONLY time the pain was just mty mothers...

Poem time now...

Day_19_ The day I was born.

The day I was born Blackburn won the cup
They beat Spurs 2-1, it’s in the Almanac
My father stayed at home and washed the net
Curtains which it turned out were held
Together by coal dust

Just like me he never saw the match
But just like me he remembers the result
By half time he had those curtains washed
I had arrived and no match could be lost
He had won; he had a son, 1-0 to DBK

I only wish the rest of my childhood could have been so sweet...

Linda - loved it! That could have been me!
Kimberly - thank you. That's what it really feels like even now, just bits and pieces I've got to deal with.

Hey, Rod how you getting on with the Ash? If you're a country boy I figure either ya do o' ya don't???

At Two

My father sailing in
Japanese deep waters
Had left us
At his parent’s house

Each night my mother
Coming late to bed
Thinking her small girl
Sleeping
My mother sobbed
Stuffed pain into her pillow
For her fear for him
And all whose names
She typed that day
Western Union telegrams
To each family
Abbreviated by this news

My mother says
“You can’t remember
You were only two.”

And yet I think I hear
A family whispering
Words of scripture
Their voices singing prayer
“Care for Sailors
Tossing on blue seas.”
Remember
My mother slipping in
Close enough
I stretch my too short arm
Longing for us all
I think

©Jane Penland Hoover
April 19, 2008

Ice Skating

When I was 3, I’m told, I was so intent
On learning to ice skate that I accosted
Total strangers on the ice skating rink
In Washington Park in Milwaukee,
And asked them to “help me skate,”
Or so my parents say. Incredible now
To think that my parents would allow
Strangers to hold my hand and take me around
The rink, and incredible that strangers did this,
But to me most incredible that I was
So extroverted, something that I don’t think
Made it to my conscious personality.

Lyn Sedwick

Naked in the River

It is one of those things you can't forget.
I remember that I was around twelve
and with some neighbor friends I went to swim,
a nearby brook was an everyday thrill
where here and there was a pool with good depth.
I dove in after all my clothes I left
on a cleaned area of the river bank,
it was like we always did in the past
thinking that everything was cool and safe.

While in the water we saw these two girls,
they were our neighbors and also school friends.

They came to us with some smiles on their faces,
with everything around they were playing...
They said that our clothes were way too dirty
and that someone need to take care of them.
They took all our clothes and left us out there
with nothing but the air to come back home,
the walk towards home was about a mile long
with some green plantain leaves around us as belts.
They left us there naked, with no regrets.

Memories (#19)

It was back in 1954 that
I got my Nobel Prize in Chemistry
which was rather strange because
I knew nothing about Chemistry
and then I received the Nobel
Peace Prize for 1962 and I
can't remember that but I
think that's what my mother
told me but maybe she told me
that Linus Pauling won those
two prizes. I can't really
remember what she told me.

How I Never Met My Father

He knocks uninvited
The father I have never known
And my mother does not invite him
Pass the fortress of her threshold
Tells him to go away
Not even accepting the gifts
He carries to charm me,
His anonymous daughter.

He protests that
He’s my father and he wants
To get to know me now
On my second birthday
But she won’t let him enter
Our home or lives
And, turned away, accuses her
Of being a bitch.

Early Stoic

Missing his own child
the fly-in Doctor played
on the floor with me.

Running his hands over
my shoulders, he turned
to my parents and asked,

“When did she break her
collarbone?” “She never
broke her collarbone,”

came the confused reply.
“Oh, yes she did.” His
confident medical medical

opinion opened their
eyes to my bizarre
slow development – I

didn't roll over, sit up or
start to crawl on time. The
apprehension of rearing

a 'special child' in the Bush
with no real special education
laid to rest. Spurred on by

by sibling rivalry, I barely
beat my younger sister to
her hands and knees, pain

forgotten as I raced to
discover the new and
ambulatory world around me.

I've never faced my childhood nor shall I
But in 19 days I've never seen more honesty
Or bearing of the soul and now I feel guilty
cos I can't do the same, not this time
Not for this prompt. I've moved on
In my life and I cannot go back
For once (and I hope for all) I write and feel
and think for me and the future and looking back
is not for now but whence I came and I pray (in my own way)
that tomorrow Robert Lee gives me the muse that I can use
To tell you who I am...
Although I am am small and not worthy but sometimes
quite funny...
Though I say it myself.

Wow, this was a tough one.

Here is my effort:

Banana Shoes

I am six years old in the picture,
sitting astride a tortoise,
twice my size.
I guess it was a petting zoo
and I am grinning with delight.
My mom says that after she snapped
the picture,
with the old Polaroid camera,
the tortoise caught sight of my yellow
sneakers and thinking it was a tasty
treat, tried to take a bite.
I don’t remember any of this
but the creature’s head was at least
as big as mine,
her mouth much wider
and I guess I should be glad
I still have both feet.

Beth: LOL

"No, Really, I Didn't Think I Could Fly"

Something always told me something
Was extremely wrong with that girl
Never did believe that lie about sisterly love
Even back then she loved me but never liked me
Played with me but always whooped me
Even now I don’t know if it’s just jealousy
Or maybe she just wants to see how far she can push me

But something always told me she wasn’t screwed on right
Sitting at the second story of our great-grandmothers house
Enjoying a beautiful day as great-grandpa harassed the chickens
And great-grandma had a chew and something strong to drink

Looking out the window, laughing and playing
Begging great-grandpa to twist that chicken's neck again
Hiding and giggling
At the woman's menacing scowl
Knowing if she had to get up from her chair
It would be the end of us

Then all of the sudden, I think she lost her mind
Or at least that’s what I hope
But while falling through the air
I could only hope that this was not my end of time

Thank god for great-grandpa hands always so strong
As he scooped me from the air, keeping me from harm
And many times I am thankful that that day is one
My memory forgot
But always leave it up to the family
To always bring it up

Untitled 1001\

He sat there
and watched the cars go by
he was waiting
for what he knew not
just debating
though why
he had forgot. . .

©Rodney C. Walmer 4/19/08 Inspired by nothing in particular. This poem has no title.

OMG... Beth, thank you, todays prompt has tortured me me but now I can go to bed thinking of a 6 tr old wagging her finger at a tortoise and saying: bite me & I'll bite yur scaly ass!! I am crying at the image.Thanks, I needed that.. MWAH!

Iain, that was an interesting poem. So far they have only sent me two of the four cd's I had ordered. Have only listened to the live one so far, it's pretty good stuff. I am surprised I had never heard of them before. I find them very talented artists. I thank you for turning me on to them.

Rod.

On the Bus

Blonde hair, blue eyes
In a sea of brown
She didn't know
She was the minority
She didn't know
It wasn't nice to say
She'd heard it said often
In her three and a half years

She was riding to Grandma's
They were riding to freedom
"Mama, what are all those niggers doin' on the bus?"

Forty years later she heard the story
For the first time
But this time
She knew why.

Rod, the live album is basically the concert I wrote about. Glad you like it, I'm listening to Wishbone IV right now. Its 01:33 here & whisky time!!

This is about a dream I remember clearly. What I did not know was I managed to reach out and scratch my husband’s nose. He had to tell me about that. As the poem title states, the evidence was there.

This is my favorite kind of poem to write—sheer silliness.

The Evidence

I remember the dream quite clearly.
I thought he had loved me so dearly.

He told me I was not exciting,
an equal response inviting.

I said neither was he so hot,
but more than a retort he got.

I do not remember my reaching,
A lesson for him to be teaching.

But soon he did me awaken.
My actions had left him so shaken.

He nose had a streak rather red,
For I had wounded him in bed.

Oh, what would he tell people tomorrow?
It was such embarrassment and sorrow.

Sheryl Kay Oder

Now would be as good a time as any to say although it would be fun to continue this after this month, I cannot continue to do something every day. The poem below, a poetry class exercise I once wrote will explain, I am sure.

In This House

In this house the cobwebs
are creeping out the windows,
to meet the climbing ivy.

Books are piled so high
an avalanche could occur.

The poet, in quiet contemplation,
unaware of impending domestic doom,
sweeps the extra words from the page
cleaning up the meter of his lines.

Sheryl Kay Oder

A Moment in Time

Three years old and riding on a
Subway with my mother. Cane seats worn
And shredding, women complaining of runs
In their nylons which catch on stray strips

They tell me I was a `pincher’ in my
Toddler years and Mom never knew
When it would happen or who the
Victim(s) would be or how they would take it

Mom and I sit in seats facing others, men
All wearing hats and reading newspapers
But then, a group of nuns in full habit sit down
“Who are those funny ladies?” I yell

I had never seen a nun before, and
Demanded an explanation. Impatient with
Mom’s apologies to the women in black and white,
I launch out of my seat, over to the nuns and pinch their knees.

As it comes (free writing in the post box)


We'll be leaving this town in the morning
Tomorrow we'll be able to see...

When I was a baby my mum put scotch in my milk
so I wud shut the fuck up and sleep and it worked

When I was eighteen I drank so much malt whisky
it made me sick, now I can't touch the stuff
But I know what's good and what's not...

Me? I drink rum. Seven year old Cuban with coke
Its the best there is
Watch me join the Circus watch me steal the show
There ain't no easy money, ain't no easy road

Life can be sung in a thousand lyrics, if you like the band
Sometimes you have to write your own
Ten years ago my life changed, not beter, not worse just elsewhere and as it goes, thats good enuff for me

It makes me want to try and understand,
Everybody needs a helping hand
Those that need me may not read this but
thats OK cos they know, they know...

And so do I...

Goodnight sweet prince for thou art but a frog in drag.

Way to cool to be real. And thats(more or less) the truth.

(OK, I've gone back and forth with this. I've written two different poems and then combined them into this one. It still feels unfinished to me, but I think I need to step away from it and work on it more some time down the road.)


Fuzzy Memories

Today I am asked to write a poem about a time in my life
that I can’t remember. A time others remember for me. I
look back and wonder how I am going to do this. I didn’t
grow up with my brothers or sister, and we’re not in touch
now, so there’s no asking them. I’ve moved more times than
I can count, and have left many friends behind, so there’s no
help there either. I sit in front of the computer and think

back to a time many years ago when my parents were still
married, and there was a semblance of family in our house.
There is the story about the time my father was working on
the roof of our garage. He thinks I was about 3. He heard a
noise behind him, turned around and there I was. I obviously
wasn’t scared of heights back then. He was the one scared;
scared that if he said anything, I would be startled and
tumble off the roof. He calmly picked me up and carried me
down the ladder. I have no memory of this. I also have almost

no memory of a night over 15 years later, a night I would rather
forget. My last clear vision of that night is of a second tequila
shot, which should have been my last. I was told later on that I
was chasing the shots with beer before the night was over. I hate
beer. I woke up the next morning in a bed that wasn’t mine,
with someone whose name I couldn’t recall, with vague

memories of laughter when he was too drunk the night before
to do much of anything except pass out. There are fuzzy bits
and pieces of that night floating around in my head, but they
remain distant, feeling more like a dream than the drunken
reality of a hot summer night nearly 20 years ago. Then there
is the hot summer night when I fell in love with the other half

of my soul. He remembers it differently than I do. I remember
long hot kisses and being seduced as we parked near the little
league baseball diamond under a crescent moon. He remembers
long hot kisses and me seducing him instead. Either way, the
moon is the same, and here we are almost 17 years later,
remembering things the way we want to.

Yeah, I know, its mad... I just read it back. But don't worry I am cheerfully insane & hope to remain so..

Concussions

I fell on my head,
twice I am told,
climbing from a crib
and jumping off the fridge.
I believe, I thought
I was Superman.

Some things never change.

Iain,

I felt similiarly when reading this prompt. The memories I can't remember aren't pleasant or humorous or would hurt too many people to share in poetry form. They are not where I am anymore or who I am anymore. But I realized the blessing in this prompt is to realize that life has changed and it is different, and that's good.

Yours have been some of my favorite poems this month- I say cheerfully insane is a great place to be!

PAD Challenge Day 19 Poetic Asides
From Robert Lee Brewer: prompt - you need to write a poem about a moment (or moments) you can't remember yourself that are about yourself.

“Someone else’s story about you that you wouldn’t know to tell” poem, shared by my Mother.
April 19, 2008

"UP ONE MORE TIME"

Clinking silverware against the plates
Swirls of dinner party conversation
Must have sparked her curiosity,
Do not get out of bed
Again!
Four times I told
My tot of three,
Stay in bed!
I went in to check on her
One last time
But I couldn’t get in her bedroom.
The door was closed
And wouldn’t budge open even when I pushed on it.
Not wanting to interrupt the flow
Of conversation in the dining room
I pushed on that darn door until
It opened a snippet, big enough for tiny me
To get in
There, in her pajamas, lying on her blanket,
With her stuffed dog, ‘Gawky’ -- she was too young
To be able to say Doggie --
Right against the crack of the door,
She lay sound asleep
So, I took a photograph,
Because she looked so funny
And I knew someday we would laugh about this.
When I picked her up and put her into her bed,
She never even woke up.
Sally DiUlus sdiulus@cefe.org

Hey, Lori! Thanks for that. I noticed a few people today who have said the same about their early days... maybe a poet thang, I don't know...

I should not say in public but the last piece I posted is perhaps My (for me) best in years... The thing yesterday, the ramble, don't live there any more but used to.. gave me the creeps to read it back.

Thanks agin for the flattery, I like your work too!

In which I am born


Even her doctor said it was indigestion:
No one just became pregnant
for the first time at 38.

The in-laws wondered
why she was keeping it secret
when she did not know herself.

After the little miracle is brought back from the hospital
any friend who does not visit or send congratulations
will never be forgiven.

Needing help with formula, bathing,
She hires a chain-smoking woman
with long red fingernails.

I wonder if I loved her.

crap, ignore the double "medical" opinion, and forgive me my wine induced carelessness....and thanks for all that honesty out there today...it's been a doozey reading some of the poems today (hell, every day!)

a

they have pictures of me
with a green lollipop
almost as big as my head
it's almost the same color
as my eyes, a kind of hazel
and it was sticky. The photo
faded with time (it's been
some fifty years) shows
a big eyed child, wooden
lolly stick clutched in her
hand, green goo around
her mouth and in her hair
and on her pink flannel shirt
She is insufferably cute

I remember the shirt
it must have been a favorite
but no memory of the moment
when my mother must have
told me to smile my green
sticky smile

Last one... I'm off to bed...

OK, so maybe there’s this one thing…

My grandmother to whom I was devoted
Owned a Mink coat which I hated
But she didn’t know better
Not back then
She was poor
And it was her one treasure

And so, Ok! Maybe there’s this one thing
There’s a photo of me
With a monkey, in a store
Big London department store
Maybe Selfridges? Don’t know

Anyway, me, monkey, cute!
I’ve got short pants and an anorak
Blue, quilted. Don’t remember monkey
And the photo is black and white

But that anorak was blue
And the monkey and me were
Both very, very cute
But, and here it comes

I am so appalled that a store kept
Wild animals for such a vain
Marketing gimmick, it sickens me
But it was the sixties and like grandma

They didn’t know any better…

SINGING

A friend of mine and I were talking on the phone,
To another friend of ours so together we were three.
Was quiet for a while I felt like I was alone,
But then I was told I went on a singing spree.

I couldn't believe what I heard didn't think it true,
Never again was I told of such an act again.
It could have happened I suppose although I never knew,
It's been so very long ago I can barely remember when.

Memory Forsaken
(For the Cousin Never Known)

The photo black and white
sepia-stained at the crimped corner,
me laughing, snug on Auntie's hip
a bag of taters and her, not twenty,
bouffant hair, pursed lips and puppy-sad eyes,
evoke dreamy deja-vues of distant toddler-hood
in her mother's house: the creaking staircase;

packing boxes of books - Honey Bunch
and Bobbsey Twins – closet cached
under summer-hot eaves; the cuckoo clock
that magically played the Batman theme;
the sun slanting into the dormered room
each morning; cider-tinged orchards
and shiny buckeyes to collect; chipmunks skittering

over lichen-lacquered stone walls;
the cool dank cellar of glittering glass,
jars of relish and ‘maters hiding half-full bottles
of gin; the scent of sadness creeping round corners
hushed and still; Auntie weeping, always weeping,
for a daughter she will never know,
holding me instead. Holding me.

---
This poem is pretty rough but for me a pretty powerful one. Today's prompt elicited in me two reactions: a desire to remember my grandmother's house and another to reflect on the decision of my now-deceased Aunt to give up a daughter born out of wedlock. This is one of those family secrets that not even her legitimate children know. The two disparate ideas came together when I gazed at a photo propped on my desk of my Aunt holding me on her hip at this time (I was about 14 months old). Even though I have kept this photo by my desk for over a year, for the first time I realized it was taken in my grandmother's kitchen. This will definitely be plumbed more in May.

Beautiful, heart-aching poems today. I am always humbled here by your talent... Peace, Linda

Past and Present

I call my older sister, figuring she’d know.
“Tell me a story about myself I’ve never heard.”
She’s helping her son with homework.
“When you were two and I was ten
I got mad at mom and ran away with you.”
“Why’d you take me?”
“Didn’t want to leave you with them. I liked you.”
She tells her son she’ll help him in a minute.
“So I got some graham crackers and a diaper
and propped you up in the back of the wagon.
Mom knew. I went all the way to the stop sign
and around the corner. Far enough
so mom couldn’t see.”
“Why’d you come back?”
“I realized I couldn’t take care of both of us.
Besides I’d made my point.” She laughs.
In the background I hear her son say,
“I’m getting out the graham crackers.”

Carol Brian

Cigarette Machine

My mother and grandmother loved to tell stories
of my precocity, how I could read as early as three –
or so they claimed. They said they realized this
when I’d go with them to the cigarette machine
and pick out each brand – Winstons, Chesterfield Kings,
Camels, Pall Malls. Maybe it was just pattern recognition –
the Pall Mall package, for example, was almost solid red –
but they claimed it was proof of early genius..

No doubt, I’d even help them get their favorites –
they slipped coins in the slot and I pulled
the glass-knobbed lever that released the package
with a "ker-chunk" to the bottom tray. Maybe I made
faces in the mirror – all cigarette machines had mirrors,
I’m not sure why. They were everywhere – in the diner,
the bus station, the office, the bowling alley. It was cool
and sexy to smoke – the crewcut man with the skinny tie,
the platinum blonde in shirtwaist and pearls, sharing
a cigarette break. Even doctors smoked on TV.

My grandmother died of lung cancer
about eight years ago, a smoker almost to the end.
My mother died not long after. If only I had the power
to see the future then, instead of the power of early reading,
I’d stop their hands before the coins went down
and the Pall Malls or Winstons came out.
Instead, I went on reading like some prodigy.
I never quite lived up to that.

Remember When Jeannie

An Anglo-Saxon trait passed down from
tribe to tribe, now every family honors
the collective memory, the modern scop.

We call ours "Remember When Jeannie."
The stories we forgot to record
in our baby books, she holds in her
steel trap mind.
"Remember when you let Debbie iron your hair?"
She asks if I remember when she first learned to read
and figured out that the sign on my bathroom door
said, "Keep Out! And that means you, stupid!"
She says she sad and cried because I had called her stupid.

No I don't remember, I'm ashamed to say
that so many things I didn't write down
because I thought I'd never forget,
Thank God she didn't .
My babies' first words, the high school
heartbreaks I've long forgotten
that made such an impression
on my sister, nine years younger.

Remember When Jeannie, I hope someone else
is remembering for you.

Vocabulary

I was smaller than most two-year-olds,
no hair but a long wisp at the nape,
dark blue eyes lost in a little face.
The painting was nothing special,
a simple, bland landscape--
one or two trees, a field.
But something about it touched me.
I pointed at it and spoke.
My mother was shocked that I had
even heard the word somewhere,
let alone knew how to say it.
She didn't think anyone would
believe that her toddler spoke
a perfectly intelligible complete sentence:
"Oh, Mom, that is gorgeous!"

April 19, day 19

Taking Out Loud

Many moments I don’t remember,
from deep within my sleep
I’m told I could wake the dead and bring
children to my feet
The children call it crazy, but
all have fallen prey
Even children grown and on their own
I call them too they say
The ones at home do wake with a start
and hurry to my bed
Till the truth of their discovery,
starts the shaking of their heads
Poor old tired Momma is just
dreaming under her spread.

I don't recall
the way the lasso
roped the new TV,
the way the coiled rope
slashed across
the black and white screen.
I don't recall
asking pretty please
if I could lasso
the surly beast
and take it capture
in our game.
I don't recall
the busy reply,
the nod, the 'sure'
you gave me
from the other room.
You came to life
when we ran on past
with TV dragging behind,
A crazy bull
of sparks and light.
I don't recall
the way you screamed
and died a death
of devastation
as the damage was done.
I don't recall
the laughter later,
when you blamed yourself
for the fallen beast,
as it sat a cowboy conquest
upon the darkened curb.

"Worst Poem I've Written in Years"

I once told her
that I loved her;
that she made me feel
naughty and nice things
that I hadn't remembered
ever feeling in many
many years.

But I don't know
whether I told her,
that flouncy, bouncy
tart of a woman
before or after I
tried to kill her
via amusement park rocket;
or if it was I
who said it at all.

Iain, the other cd is titled Argus, the cover blew me away, so I ordered it. Have not listened to it yet though.

Rod.

On a late summer day
Just before the wind whispers autumn
In delicate lace
Pink chiffon
The photo is black and white
So how could I know
Unless having been told
The little girl
In the green grass
Gleeful
Arms spread wide
Grin stretched from cheek to cheek
A white cake
On a crystal pedestal
I have accomplished
Once full year
Of a rich life

My brain is absent today.
Memories come and go but short term loss
well that’s another story;
to know you can’t recall the very thing you were
in the middle of saying, gad.
Your own, tell you what you were suppose
to do that day. Creating an insecurity unfelt
since the first lunch line.
Even the cat feels the need to remind you that
it’s time to eat.

A Playmate

I was just visiting
while my parents had fun.
I didn't want to be there,
so maybe that's why I did it.

An act of rebellion
at such a young age,
which must have been
when I was toddler.

I can imagine myself
stomping my feet
anxious to go home
to my lovely room.

Instead I was stuck here
in this little boy's room
passing the time
with his boring games.

Being the self-absorbed
toddler that I'm sure is the norm,
I picked up a can of powder
with an impish grin on my face.

I decided to create some snow,
or maybe a mess for his parents,
then again maybe it was a sure fire
way for me to finally go home.

I tossed the poder all over
and on top of this little boy's head.
He must have cried for his parents
since they saw my beautiful creation.

I'm told it was all quite a mess
that had them all in giggles.
I feel that wasn' entirely the case
since I never met him again.

This one took me several attempts to get out, but here it is!

Riding the Wind

Maybe it was anger at being replaced
as the baby of the family,
or the fact that my mother was away
for the first time ever,
or because I just didn’t like the neighbor girl.
I’ll never know the reason—
I was only three—
but whatever compelled me
sent me flying out of the village
on my Hot Wheels ® tricycle,
straight to the plant
where my dad was in a meeting.
When the clerk announced
to that room of men,
that some toddler was out front,
screaming for her daddy,
my dad smiled and said,
“Bet you that’s my Sara!”

Sleep-walking

When I was in college
And sleeping in the nude
I decided to get up and go
To class stark naked

My roommate
Stopped me at the door
Led me back to my bed
And for this, she has
My everlasting gratitude!

April 19, 2008
© Michelle H.
(This is a true story!! I’m so thankful she was awake and stopped me – I was completely mortified when I heard about it the next morning!!)

I think I am going to write yesterdays poem and think about todays!
Poem for day 18 using a phrase

Hello, are you out there?
hello, are you out there?

There is no connection

Hello, how are you?
Hello, how are you?

There is no connection

Good bye, I don't want to talk to you!
Good bye, I dont want to talk to you!

You are only and echo in a canyon
You are only and echo in a canyon!

i struggle through
knowing only darkness
but craving light

my lungs cry out
for air
my heart for mother

bright lights
noise and bustle
stun me

but then I breathe
my cry is triumphant
the nurse carries me

mother is crying
i am crying
i must sleep

nurses hold me
feed me
and sing me, halfheartedly, to sleep

who are these crying people
who hold me?
love me?

they don't even know me?
they are taking me home
relieved to have their family.

thank you God
for giving me this family
and making me a part of it.

did you treat my mother half as well?


Oh Gosh...is this pathetic or what?!

Great poems today as usual, sorry I have not said so today, but my mother in law is dying and they are only giving her little time. Next week is her 73rd birthday.
Debra

4/19/08 –

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, my sister was all that was on my mind
Ever where she went I just had to be
Everything that she was I wanted to achieve
On this special we kids went outside to play
It was a bright and shiny happy day
Suddenly this boy made my big sister cry
Mad it made me and so I gave him an angry sigh
I chased this boy up and down the street
With this huge stick much bigger than me
From that day forth everyone knew
Don’t mess with Catherine or you would have to mess with Jenny to.

Day 19 stories from the past!

Once again the mind goes blank
to find a stash of memories
Not that there are none
but who to ask to get the one
the one to make into a poem
A poem to tell the world of something
I might have done when I was young,
or asleep or drunk! Oh my!
I have to phone some one
to dig up the past on me!

This is just a first attempt to stall for time!
I will try to get another one done!

Nightmares I don't remember

You say that
I kick and toss
I grind and sliently scream
I moan and cry
As the pictures run
Through my dreams
Hurt, pain, loss
Chasing, running
Fighting, sinking
And gasp awake!
I see your eyes
Filled with concern
As you wake me from
My nightmare

:hello … goodbye:

an old swing set
with two old friends
hello

feet pressed skyward
reaching to a heaven unknown
goodbye

playtime laughter
gaining heights and holding hands
hello.

fog-lost memories
back pressed soft to solid ground
goodbye.

swings forgotten—
farmhouse distant, left behind
hello …

friends forever—
remembrance in a pendulum swing
… goodbye

It's amazing any of us make it through childhood! Bonnie, Drano?? Mike, the toddler terror! And Robin, your poem is NOT pathetic. It's a great description.
I have a lot of early memories, so it's hard to find something I've been told but don't remember...the only one is kind of silly:

General Hospital

I have emphysema in my foot
and amyocardia in my arm
on my toe there is a cataract
the transfusion caused me harm.

If no one helps me soon, I'll die
you know I've got a rare disease
from the condition in my eye
so someone come and help me please!

It's in my ear
it's in my toe
I mean, it's here
Oh, I don't know!

They tell me that when I was three
I was exposed and caught it all
I caught it all from the TV
watching "General Hospital"!


(Now I get to go back and enter my posts for the previous two days...I admire those of you who post every day on time!)

April 19

Thirty-eight years ago
my father held up five fingers
when asked how many children
he wanted
and my mother
held her hands to her face
in feigned surprise.
In their wedding album
they are standing still
downcast eyes
hands locked.

Today
my sister is 34
I am 36

I would have baked
my parents a cake
to celebrate
but since Daddy
is no longer here

I didn't see the point.

I hope when I awake tomorrow
I will be able to smile
when I think of Daddy
holding me as I took my first steps
or holding my hand
on our way home to see
my newborn baby sister.

Debra, I'm sorry about your mother-in-law.

New Baby

She was two
When they took her
And left her
With her aunt and uncle
While Mommy went to the hospital
To have another baby
She was confused
She was the baby
How could they have
Another baby
Everyone talked
About the new baby
They were all excited
It was a boy.
But she did not understand.
They were abandoning her
Replacing her
With this new baby
And she would have none of it
So
When Mommy finally came home
With this new baby;
She bit him
On his little baby thumb.

Okay so my name is….

I wasn’t there—to remember
but my Albanian family was
at my christening and
my thirteen year old cousin
Basil was made my Godfather.
There was confusion over giving me
a name. My mother who spoke no
English wanted Alexandra
after her father, Alexander.
Some how I got to be Barbara
Go figure it.

Diana, I loved your General Hospital poem. It is good not to be the only one doing a silly poem. So many of the poems are so sad.

I wrote this earlier, but for some reason I didn't post it until now.

An Unremembered Nightmare

They say it was bloody
Mom fainted when the
doctor placed the stitches
on my three year old head
having to shave away the
curls that grew pall mell
uncut until that day

Unknown to me I became
the family klutz
Falling off a cliff at age three
can do that to you.
Slipped on the mud while
taking an outdoor shower
Never knew how far the fall
or why they had a shower
close to the edge of a cliff
We were nude, my cousins
and I, frolicking in the spray.
I know that from pictures.
And they say I backed up
too far and no one could
stop the fall

Pounded into my head
each meeting with the
relatives of the horror
of that moment
Teased about a moment
My every move watched
by the elders as a chance
to poke more fun and
dig the message deeper
into my innocent brain.
You are uncoordinated.

The fall not remembered
but reinstated time after
time for family enjoyment
and though I had no memory
of the event the sensory
memory remained to cripple
my activities and keep me
from jumping into that
creek or going off a cliff
on a dare.

I still bear the scar- a slight
line causing a break in my
hairline, but the real scar
will always be invisible
A barrier caused by an
Unremembered nightmare

The Dog I Never Knew

They tell me I used to have a dog
a black and white cocker spaniel mix
although I don't remember.
What I do remember is the doghouse
and the way it closed around me
when I went inside, the hair on the blanket
and the dusty smell of canine fur.
But the dog? I neither remember
the dog nor his disappearance
though I'm told he was killed
by ground glass fed to him by a burglar.

“No Tears”

You didn’t cry at your grandfather’s funeral
my father told me the other day.
I thought you loved him, that you two were close.
You spent more time with him than I did when I was a kid.
I don’t remember why I said, I do remember the funeral
and although I don’t remember much about it
I do remember that you didn’t cry
and I wondered why.

First Lesson

It has been told: Daddy said,
“Time to put the book back on the shelf,”
which request his baby daughter ignored.
Again he asked, this time calling her name,
and for shame, she ignored it again.
Now, there came a third request
as the little charmer did her best
to avert attention out the window.
She observed, “Bi-r-r-r-d?”
Next came snap of Daddy’s hand
that landed on her ruffled bottom,
and quickly the book was returned
to the shelf where it belonged,
so Daddy knew she understood all along.
Grandpa thought she was too young
for this education.

The viewing I remember, and the funeral;
pieces dropped from a dream sequence,
but memories, not a dream.
The seldom-used front parlor of the farmhouse
lay open at either end, with the good furniture
pushed back, replaced by row after row of
stiff unyielding chairs for the row after row of
stiff unfamiliar faces.
Opiate air encased the room, commingled odors
of floral tributes, incense and candle smoke,
all emanating from the waxy tableau before
the draped west windows.
A Boston fern forest surrounded the casket,
two torchlike candles standing sentry, to guard
grandmother on her anchored death barge.
I remember, too, slipping away as they chanted
the endless prayers of Rosary
to play sliding games on the satin lady's chair
in another room, laughing, until some disembodied hand
reached out, led me back to my mother.
What came before is hearsay,
Another's tales of things that may have happened
as she waited bed-ridden and dying.
I was allowed to stay, when she'd ordered
the other grandchildren away, because,
they said, I made her laugh.
And she was filled with plans for me,
what she'd do when she got up again.
I kept her occupied, though I never learned
what all those plans were.
The funniest thing, they said, was the day
I came to make her better by painting her nails,
fingers and toes, with bright polish and adding
sticky star globs to the bed linens.
Amazing, too, for such a proper, fussy woman
to allow such things; such things I don't remember.
Now I ask why the rites of death reappear so clearly,
while the last days of living are only stories to me.
Perhaps because the living times, the hours and minutes even,
swirl and change so quickly, a kaleidescope altered by a touch,
too swift to catch hold, perpetually floating, carrying us along.
Death, bound up in ritual and ceremony, dams the flow,
forcing us to stop while it binds to memory. Yes,
that must be it. Life flows.
Death has boundaries.
###

Shirley T

Rod, Look for the flying saucer!

Thank you Diane
Debra

Diane,

LOVE General Hospital!

A Sudden Stillness

She told the story until
I felt sure I remembered it
from some space between lifetimes,
my kicks inside her wet womb
before storytime with her first graders.
'Once upon a time' and I lay still,
listening to the tales unfold,
was still again as a baby with croup,
pain carried on the wings of 'once upon'
into the late rainy night.
She was Mnemsyne, divine lover of Zeus;
I was her child-muse, being gifted these sacred
stories, yet to be scribed, my feet motionless,
my heartbeat a mere breath in the wind.

Coma

There are moments
But not often minutes
When I see. It is possible to
Be awake, but
Only with great effort
Or none.
The joy of life
Is incompatible
With the business of being alive.

My cherry tree is about to bloom
It is fully awake
Its only sound is a sigh
Of disappointment as I walk by.

Gratia Karmes 4/19/08

Jenny and the Pine Tree

“We always get a spruce pine
for Christmas,” Mom repeats,
then tells the story of when I,
pre-school-aged and already in trouble
at daycare for biting other bratty kids,
stood in front of the Christmas tree
for a picture with my even-tempered little brother.
I took a step back, and one of those spiny branches
reached out and pinched my neck.
More startled than hurt, I turned around
and bit that horrible little branch,
then yelped and let go when it had the nerve
to poke the roof of my mouth.
Angry, I bit that stupid tree again.

Shannon, I really like the simplicity of your poem.

Carol, I love how you wove past and present together.

DAY 19


Mom was so proud of Rose
Look how responsible
She was
At three

Tears running down her face
A black eye forming
Holding the baby down
So she couldn’t squirm off the bed

Rose was still holding the diaper pin
Unable to manage to get it secure
The baby kicked
Rose howled in pain
But never let go

Mom was so proud of Rose

Here's my submittal for today. It's funny I remember better years ago, but forget last week.

My Tree Fort

I had one in my kid years;
well, more like “we” had one, really;
built by a bunch of kids, variations of me.
It was a real tree fort,
constructed from odd scrapes
of found and “borrowed” wood,
complete with shaky ladder steps
nailed into the side of the tree.
along with a special rope tow
for bringing up supplies.

Before the differences between boys and girls were known,
or cared about, really,
we had this golden rule,
which was strictly observed,
“No Girls Allowed”
a tree fort was sacred
male ground,
no play housing was tolerated.

But,

“Wo-Wo” books were allowed,
because the mysteries of a woman’s breast
caused wonderful stirrings in our bodies,
although we really, I, anyway,
had no idea what all this difference
really meant then.

You know, certain rites of childhood should remain unchanged.
Secret clubs and tree forts are an absolute necessity.
Places where secrets can be shared;
dreams dreamt,
pains from the world of adults
nurtured.
Imagination needs to be given free reign
up in the kingdom of birds and leaves.

Why am I thinking this now?

I was driving passed an old lot,
a fragment of still undeveloped land,
and caught a glimpse
between the leaves of an old tree
of the remnants of an tree fort.

And all those memories came back to me
and I remembered; I remembered.

Sorry...had a gig last night and was too tired to turn the pooter back on to post...here we go...

So They Say

My sister will tell you
I was born tiny and old
wrapped in stories
wrapped in music as
life-giving as my heartbeat
in my father's arms I would
press my cheek to his and hold
out my hand for a dance
war always raged outside
or in the corners
but I was dancing a
dream into being so
I could live

I found this poem this morning when I went to write my Sunday offering check to the church. I left it completely unedited.

--

A Poem Found on Sunday Morning That I Have No Memory of Writing, but Apparently Did Write and In My Checkbook At That

To Tim

You drove away
and very quickly-but-I wanted
to say thank you for
bringing dinner and allowing
me to play-since my boy was
sleeping upstairs and is my biggest responsibility
but-I take the concert very seriously
-I have a sitter and am ready
I’ve memorized the Avanti-
but back to you-you brought
the wine (Bitch 2006) which rocked
us, priests and all, and told me
my sweater didn’t look Minnesota
It seems we may be of a kind
(by the way, you left your broccoli
and potstickers behind) I wouldn’t
mention it, except they look to be from the city.
It seems a pity-in between
carving the T-bone, & priests trying
to find their mothers
that in a year this is the first time
I’ve told you the joke
about Richard Hooker*.

*For full details see my posthumous memoirs.

Bath Water

When I was a child
I told people I remembered
what it was like when I was newborn

No one believed me
but no one could tell me
if I was wrong

I see a small white metal basin
in a dark kitchen
my father’s large hands
hold me like a football
the newness of my skin
leaves him breathless
and afraid

the water is belly warm
and reminds me of my days
swimming inside of her
our heartbeats syncopating

my eyes are closed
my small hands open and close
reaching for and holding on
tiny feet kicking up air

Mom is holding my sister
twenty days past her first birthday
she doesn’t know yet we will save each other
today she is sorry her solo party with Mom and Dad
has come to an end

I am in the basin
and outside floating above them
I can see the soap lathering
on the wash cloth
hear my mother
guiding my father
urging him to be gentle

she is fragile
Mom says
she is tougher than you think
Dad answers

he needs to believe this

my sister laughs
and points above her
she knows I am there
and that I am going to stay

Lady Pequeen’s Arrival

Some fears are inborn
I guess. I am told
that the arrival
of Peggy
in the kitchen,
an eight-week-old
beagle pup,
sent me, a two-year-old
from the floor to
standing on the table
in the blink of an eye.
Maybe I flew,
no one knows, I don’t remember,
but I’m still afraid of
dogs.

"You WILL leave your guns
at home" she told me
hands on her hips.
We lived in Chicago then.
I guess I was 4.
We were walking to Darla's
(I don't kinow her mother's name)
apartment for lunch.
Everybody walked everywhere
in Chicago in the early 50s.

Darla was a girly-girl.
I was not.
I loved Calamity Jane
and Annie Oakley.
I knew every cowboy on
television and the names of
their horses and I never went
anywhere without my
guns and holsters.
Never!

"No cowboy boots today, kiddo and
you WILL take a doll and a doll carriage
and you WILL wear a dress."
The bustle of getting ready
pale blue ruffled dress,
white socks edged with lace,
black mary-janes.
Inspected and approved.
Off to Darla's with
the doll carriage.

Greetings at the door.
Hugs and cheek kisses.
"Oh! How pretty Jane looks!"
My mother so proud.
Two little princesses ready
for a lovely afternoon.
"Go play girls, while
the mommies talk."

Play?
Sure!!
Reaching under
the carriage mattress
doll thrown on the floor
I hold up two
six-shooter cap guns.
"Hey Darla!
Wanna' play guns?"

Long live Princess Cowgirl!

I have a ridiculously good memory, so I couldn't really come up with anything to exactly go along with this prompt...

And I didn't post until today because I was staying over at a friend's last night and had no computer access.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

[Untitled]

My steel-trap memory -
at times it may torture me -
but it has its upsides.

At some family function,
my mother once tried
to tell this tall tale
of an embarassing moment
from my formative years -

something about how
when I was six or seven
I followed a male stranger
all the way through a Southern waterpark
because I thought he was my father -
but she was wrong, and I knew it.

I followed him because I overheard him
telling his wife that he was heading
to the Malibu Pipeline -
the most badass slide around,
the pitch-black fast one
with tiny holes drilled on top
that let little pinpoints of sunlight
into that slippery cool vortex -
and of course, I wanted to go too.

I informed Mom's audience of this,
and she was none too thrilled
that I killed her comedy hour,
but she should've known by then
that I've forgotten nothing
that she can still "remember."

My Life on Drugs

They tell me that I am mean
when I am on drugs.
Not the recreational kind
but the ones that they give
you at the hospital.
I broke my arm and my
friend from out of town
had to drive me to and
from the emergency room.
I don’t know what they
gave me, but I do know
that I don’t remember
a thing after they gave it.
I yelled and screamed
as I gave directions on
how to get back to my
place. Another time, in the
maternity ward, I was
having complications and
they put me on something.
Now, you have to understand
that I am the ham
of the family and so when
my mom went to take
a picture of me, she was
shocked when I said,
with an evil look, lowered
brow and deadly determined
voice, “Don’t take my picture!”
I guess it’s a good thing
I never tried the other
kind of drugs!

I DON’T REMEMBER

I don’t remember the murder
but I do remember the little boy
across the road.
I remember
visiting him after school
his mother pleased to see me
(relieved I would later understand).
He would stop screaming
and banging his head
when he saw me.
Those vacant eyes
following every move I made.
Zooming his cars
along the floor
singing him songs -
and he would stare.

I wonder what he thought of
during those distractions.
And were his screams
because of pain?
Unable to walk
he couldn’t escape,
until one night
so they tell me
his father gave him
an escape
in the form of a gun.

I don’t remember
that part.
All I know was
one day he was there
and then he wasn’t.
It was all in the newspapers.
The father went to jail.
But I don’t know
about that.

Maureen Sexton

So small
my arms and legs had to be
restrained to the hospital crib
to keep the tubs that fed life into me in place

So sick
only medical staff were permitted entry to my room
my parents watching through the window
tethered themselves

So scared
that when I was finally released
I followed my mother, crawling
from room to room
and screamed whenever my father came near me.

Corinne

A day late. Was following everyone yesterday. Resisting, like many of us.

There's some real rawness here on this prompt.

My heart goes out to everyone.

Years ago when the company
was small and still quite
family owned and oriented
my parents worked there
and were called to a meeting
and told they could bring
me along. So I went and at
the fancy dinner on the
first night they served up
our first course of salad
which I hungrily chomped
down. The company president
laughed aloud as he sat next
to me and overheard as I
leaned over to Mom and asked -
"Is this all we get?"

Memories 04-19-08

In my sand box I would play,
happy was I until that day.

I heard it coming round my head,
just don’t move my brother said.

I stood so still bending down,
butt in the air I looked like a clown.

Just don’t move it will go away,
Just don’t move it will not stay.

Older brother should know best,
even though at times he is a pest.

Like a flower, I did seem, with yellow sun suit so bright
Wouldn’t you know it that buzzing bee did alight.

The buzzing stopped, don’t move my brother shouts
I held real still though I had my doubts.

Oh no the pain, the sting, the dance I did
And here I was just a little kid.

Don’t move, what a laugh,
It won’t hurt you, what a laugh.

From then on any buzzing round my head
and I turn and run with great, great dread.

True story!

Strawberry Patch

"Well, hello Terri Lynn"
My great Aunt Helen greeted me affectionately
as I plucked strawberries from her garden;
I rose, scowling, stomping my foot angrily,
"Get out of my strawberry patch!" I'd holler
(Sassy young child I was with an Irish temper
that had been handed down along with my green eyes)
She'd stifle a smile and feign surprise
like she did every time we went through this ritual,
a dance of sorts, a game in which
I was always the winner, my mouth stuffed with strawberries
the juice dripping from my chin and
staining my white blouse.

Years later I was with my Aunt Helen
as she lay dieing in a hospital bed;
She clutched my hand and whispered something;
"I'm sorry Aunt Helen I can't hear you," I said;
She took a breath and tried again as I
placed my ear close to her lips,
"Get out of my strawberry patch," she said,
Her green, tired eyes sparkling slightly
as my own filled with tears
that ran down my cheeks and off of my chin
onto my white blouse,

Company!
Noisy, bedlam,
Obnoxious boy cousins!

Parents worry.
Daughter’s lost!
Searching everywhere;
Frantic!

One last look in the house.
Behind the couch;
There she is, sleeping!

Me – quiet, shy, and
afraid of the loud boys.
Hid in my own living room
and took a nap.

Sibling Rivalry

A newborn
fresh home from the hospital
Cooed over by
an exhausted tho loving mother
an also-exhausted and doting father
and a brother

Unsure about this new-baby business,
he greets his new sister
with a hammer tap
to the head
(OK, so it was a toy hammer)

And sibling love/rivalry
is born

Times Not Forgotten
By Bill Kirk

It’s not that I remember everything, mind you.
But I’m often asked to recall things
Others have long forgotten.
Why is that, I wonder?
Is it a birth order thing?
Do first born siblings just happen
To get all the memories?
Somehow, I doubt it.
There have been a few things
I don’t seem to be able to recall.
But most of the time I’ve found
It’s not so much my not remembering.
Instead, it’s that I may not remember things
From another’s perspective.
Was the dress silk or chenille,
Above the knee or just below,
One bare shoulder or two?
Such details may matter to some
But to me it was just sexy and black
And, boy, could that dress move!
Alas, perhaps good memory is an afflication,
Like knowing too much for my own good
Or remembering things that shouldn’t be repeated—
At least not in polite company.
Perhaps I should conveniently “forget”
A few more things.
Reaching back, I suppose there are some things
I simply can’t remember, at least not consciously.
My mother swears I was speaking German
As well as English at age two,
With our German housekeeper
As my first linguistics tutor.
But to tell the truth, I can’t remember
That far back in either language.
So, I rely on others to tell the stories,
Each time perhaps a bit differently
Than the time before.
And, then, those stories themselves
Become part of the memories
That I just can’t seem to forget.

Throwing up.

"Oh, you remember, don't you?"
My mother, in the early stages of Alzheimer's asks.
She has the ability to inquire about my memory
without a trace of irony.
But I don't remember, I never remember,
so she gets to tell the story again.

The first time you threw up,
well, the first time you threw up
when you were old enough to notice,
you were wearing your new yellow dress
the one your grandmother had bought
from Montgomery Ward, back before
they sold all the Montgomery Wards
and you could still find decent dresses
for young girls in department stores.
Oh you cried and cried and asked me
Why momma why? Why won't the food
I put in my belly stay there?
She laughs to herself.

I smile at her memory because I don't share it.
And it seems to make her happy to tell.
I don't tell her my memories of throwing up.
The first time I learned I could make it happen myself.

Pauly’s

After my sex on the beach
started tasting like kool-aid,
you took control of this memory.

I was nasty, you say, spilled beer,
said some not nice things. I justified
the way you left me alone in the bar

that smelled like piss and had sticky floors,
when I said that you don’t care about me.
And my clothes are wet,

in a mound on the floor. From the midnight
shower you say i took, fully clothed.
Who knows. I remember you laughing.

I remember you finding the vomit
in my hair and on the street funny.
That part, you say, is so not true.

But what do I know, this is your memory.

I was always told
that my thoughts
where always two steps
ahead of my mouth
and sometimes it's hard for
my mouth to keep up.
At age three I was told I
liked to use words more then most.
Yet my words didn't
always come out as I planned.
Like that exchange
I had with my year old
baby sister back when I was three.
I was just learning the fine art
of using a open cup-no more sippy cups
for me. Should be a moment all my own
yet it was not to be.
Along came my sister wanting it
all for her own.
I backed away as she tottered forward
and try to raise my cup high.
Quick enough I wasn't
for in dives her cubby hand.
My mouth opends and out pops words;
such a jumbled mess,
"Get your juice out of my hand."

I Guess I Was A Funny Kid

Mom tells me my baby screams
Were so high pitched she'd have to leave
The bathroom so her ears wouldn't bleed
And hope I didn't drown, it seems
There's still a touch of guilt for her

She notes as well a three year old
Seeing Elton John (who, truth be told)
Was a bit scary in the seventies, so
Couldn't be blamed when that baby, so bold
Cracked her up by asking "Mom, who's that crazy f**ker?"

Rolling eyes and a quirk of a smile
Accompany these stories she tells me
I try to be gracious and fail while
She goes on with more tales of history
That induce laughter or mortification

The blood used to make hers run cold
But with frequency she let it go
Except the broken bottle one, I'm told
I packed with mud to stop the flow
She says I had the right idea, just the wrong application

I was curious, adventurous
Clumsy and cantankerous
What is that hideous smell? Toddler me had to know
Ooh, that's a steep hill! How fast can my tricycle go?
I can too do a backflip without training - don't tell me no!

And none of this did I outgrow
Oh, no
There's plenty more she doesn't know

Of starry skies and tops too short
My husband tells with a leer & a snort
Toilet nicknames & drug-weakened bladders
Friends recall while my self image shatters

Mom and I can play a game for more
Where I point to each scar and she tells the story
Broken teeth, opened veins, scars galore
At least no visions of gates so pearly
Poor Mom can't stop laughing, in spite of the gore
Now I'm now sure how I made it to thirty

The Accident

I think I remember it
while knowing I could not.
At least …
Or could I …
What if …

It's an old joke,
dropped on her head
as a baby.
Explains a lot!
'Her' being me of course.

My mother carrying me
up the stony path
to visit friends,
hurrying a little.
She used to live there.

Her skirt fluttered
round stockinged legs,
the path was steep and narrow –
views I never had,
held in her arms.

I feel as if
I felt the thump,
see myself looking up
at her face white and wide-eyed
filling the sky.

I hear her soft cry.
She is helpless
and I'm on the ground.
My head hurts
and my back.


© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

Trying to catch up with Challenges 19 and 20 from the weekend. Here's my "memory."

"I Climbed"

as a baby,
I was apparently quite the
climber.

"I couldn't take my eyes off of you for a second,"
Grandma tells me now.

I'd climb on the back of the couch,
on top of kitchen counters.

and...at that one moment that her eyes were off of me...
I climbed on top of the television set.

"How you got up there I still don't know,"
Grandma told me just last week.

(and,
I wonder now,
how
did I get this irrational fear of heights?)

Golf Swing Revisited

They say I drew blood
But all I could feel was panic
That I had somehow killed him
That brother who took me to a field
To introduce me to the game
And so I laid down the weapon
That iron stem, lethal bulb
Called a driver
And ran for my mother
Before 911
She assured me that he would live
That I would live
But I have always
Feared the game
And clench each time
The memory ball rests on the tee.

everyone should have a daily homework assignment that they enjoy - this is it for me! (though i usually forget to go back and check further comments...)

Catback Ride

So it sounds cruel but she LOOKED big enough!
To hold my weight, but wait! -
If I don't sit all the way and if I hold her whiskers
She can carry little me - I'm only one,
It seemed like fun!
But just for me, it seemed
She screamed and hissed!
My mom was mad, but I think poor Nirvana was madder...

Coincidentally, my mother also has a similar story about a cat that she doesn't remember, but her mom's family used to tell all the time:

Hug Fest

Lynn, you're holding the cat too tightly now
"But I love it!"
A country yard where my mother sat and didn't know
She hugged a kitty so tightly, and didn't let it go
Immortalized on black and white film
My mom and the cat
She hugged the life out of

Aunt’s Wedding

My first thirst
to drink the wine of belonging
was caught on film.
Amid gay roar and laughter
in the church hall
I toddled toward a
metal pitcher, held low-
it’s guardian engaged in some
flirtatious chat-
placed my chubby, two-year-old hands
on the cool, water-beaded vessel
tipped it toward my waiting throat.
Even at two, I searched,
I couldn’t get enough.


April 21, 2008
Jacquie Wareham

That darn cat
or something a bit more blue
that was my excuse
or so I've been told
Yelling out in anger
at being shut out
Lock me out of the garage
eh Grandma?
Take that!
And when confronted
That darn cat
took the fall

What Bugs!!!

I jolted upright
Off my pillow
Eyes wide open
Gaping at the ceiling

THERE ARE BUGS
ALL OVER THE CEILING
Oh My God, Oh My God
Kill Them, Kill Them

Scott bolted out of bed
“What!!! Where!!!”
As he brushed at his clothes
And protectively
Scrunched His shoulders
To Protect his neck

He pleaded with me
To point out
the infestation.
Without a word,
I closed my eyes
And fell back
Against my pillow
Into a restful sleep

Scott, who is now
My Ex-husband
Stayed awake the rest
Of the night
With the covers pulled up
To his chin
Nervously twitching
As he watched the bare
ceiling

When it feels like family members use memories
as emotional blackmail telling the story often
I vaguely remember being five years old
trying to retrieve a helium balloon
the story goes that I started with a stepstool
then climbed a ladder leaning against a tree
when the balloon was a speck in the atmosphere
I asked my father to catch hold of the string
and cried when he told me he couldn't do the impossible
making him admit he couldn't always give me what I want

MEMORY

Like a dog chasing her tail,
it tries to capture a face,
a place, a moment.
it obsesses, whirls around,
here, a mistake, a failure
and worries it, gnaws on it
conjures up forgotten names,
dates once important,
missed opportunities.
disturbs your sleep with
‘could-a, would-a, should-a.

And yet, it paints pictures,
freeze-frames of the past:
tennis championship,
whites ringed with sweat;
the stomach flutter after
a lover’s first kiss;
climbing Camel’s Hump
with Dad that Vermont summer;
first solo flight in a Cessna 150.

Illuminates all that’s lost but never forgotten.

Peggy Verdi How Memory behaves PAD 14

The Power of Association

The flames of fever were lapping at my body
My mother was frantic and yelled at my grandma
Come to visit at the hottest time of year

And I have red measles and am out of my head
Only I thought it was the juicy red watermelon
That made me throw up all over
Grandma's patent leather shoes and made her mad

My Mom didn't give a damn and reached
For a bottle of alcohol to sponge me off
The fever breaks and spots are everywhere
I feel as prickly as the red horsehair sofa
I am lying on since all the beds are in use
By company

My Mom is worried about me, turning
The sofa to face the wall so I won't fall on the floor

I was so traumatized, I never ate
Watermelon again until I was in my thirties

The power of association

The Hurt in My Brother's eyes

My brother kept pestering me as brothers do,
Making me madder and madder.

I kept telling him to stop but he wouldn’t..
So, I picked it up off the bed and hit him over the
Head with it, breaking it smack in two.

We both stood there, motionless, staring at it in horror.
As I saw the hurt look on his face I wanted to run and not look
Back, my brother’s new guitar he loved more than anything
lay broken, wires going everywhere.

I wished I could take back the last few minutes,
But I couldn’t, there was nothing I could do to
Undo the damage I had done.

Truck Meets House

Crunch!
“What was that?”
Looking in my rearview mirror I can see
just exactly what the crunch was.
There in all its splintered splendor
hung the support post for the carport.
Dangling, swaying like
a weeping willow branch in the wind.
Tears form, anxiety generates, fear resonates
until laughter builds. That all consuming,
belly jiggling, gut-wrenching, tear flowing laughter.
“Oh my God! I am in so much trouble!”
Embarrassed, fear-filled conversation took
place in my head as I plan on what to tell
my fiance’. More laughter erupts as
friends hear of my dilemma. No sympathy
displayed for my predicament.
The phone rings waiting for him to pick
up the line. An eternity passes as I wait.
Finally, “How much do you love me?”
A long silent pause fills the air.
“Why? What did you do?”
Tears flowing, laughter threatening to erupt,
fear encompassing my throat threatening
to keep the words from spilling forth.
“I knocked down the carport with my truck.”
Another long silent pause.
Waiting, silence, waiting some more.
Speak, say something, anything.
Then it came, like a locomotive racing
down the train tracks. Power building until
finally giving it a voice.
Bursting forth in a loud rumble that
had to be heard around the world………
he laughed……….and laughed………..
and laughed…..until……”I’ll have to call you back.”
He had to hang up he was laughing so hard.

Now…...I’m not allowed to back into the driveway.

COUSIN BOBBY

He was always into something that he shouldn't have been
He was always scheming and coaxing us to do things
that were sure to get us in trouble
He was slick enough to detail the plan
and leave us with the dirty work so our hands
would be caught in the midst of trouble
as he hid in the corner and laughed
I guess one day he went to far
I had enough of his conniving and annoying ways
He had pushed me to my limit!
Tap danced on my last nerve!
So, I stormed in the kitchen to get my weapon
of choice to teach him a lesson once and for all!
The loaf of bread I decided to use as a bat over his back
busted and all pieces flew out across the living room floor
While I got a hand to the backside
He picked up the pieces ever so sweetly, red with laughter
While I was red with anger and rage
vowing secretly that I would still get him back one day!

"Boy Crazy"

They say I was boy crazy
At an early age.
When I was three,
I locked myself in
Ethel's bathroom. I
Wouldn't come out
For her, my grandma,
Or my own mother.
Then Ethel's son Mike
Knocked on the door
And said, "It's Mike.
Come on out because
I want to hold you."
I opened the door
And flew into his arms.
I have been boy crazy
Ever since.

P.S. Ethel is a friend of my grandma's.

(Day 19 post)

Boo

I loved it so much the first time
that I kept doing it, they say.
I’d wait around a corner,
wait for some soul to come my way.
Then jump out,
cry, Boo!
and scare the person to death.
I scared my siblings,
to my delight;
I startled my parents,
I giggled and laughed,
even scared myself once or twice, they say.
Dad nicknamed me Boo.
I was six years old.

For years “boo” echoed through the house.
Boo, get this for me.
I didn’t do it; Boo did.
Hey, Boo, where are you?
Boo, have you cleaned up your room yet?
Damn it, Boo, what did you do?!
Boo, phone. Get the phone, Boo.

That was my name
until I was almost twenty.
I remember:
then my father,
thinking Boo would no longer do
for a lovely young woman,
stopped using my nickname.
Consciously stopped.
I no longer waited around the corner,
I no longer scared my siblings,
I no longer frightened my parents,
I was no longer a little girl.
He never again called me Boo.
I wish he hadn’t stopped.

My First Interview from my Boss’ Perspective

She says she’ll be reliable and hard working every day
We think she’ll be the lighthouse in our bay
She says she’ll work 100 percent
And enjoys being a team player
We think she’ll be the sour cream in our 7-layer
She says she lives to write and even loves to edit
For that, we’ll have to give her lots of credit
We think she’ll be the seatbelt on our roller coaster
We think she’ll be our bagel in the toaster
She’ll be the morning cup of coffee
The happy hour beer
The creative umph we need around here
She’ll be the donut when our copy is flat
If we’re her baseball, she’ll be our bat
She’ll be the backspace key when we’re going in the wrong direction
She’ll be in the first row, first seat in our cheering section
We must be crazy if we don’t hire her soon
When every day feels like Monday she’ll be our Friday afternoon

"a night of lost memories"
A day of fun in the sun and to much to drink. I was lying on the sand feeling a little sic, just trying to sober up. My friends were comfronting me and trying to make me come around. They dunked me in the water and was playing around. I wanted to be left alone and said my ass and they did it. Where did all this sand came from and how did it get there,was that a beer sign I saw, everyone knows but me.

A New Sister

When the small bundle
arrived in my mother's
arms I was not concerned.
When she cried and wailed
and my mother gave her breast
there was nothing to fear.
When she was laid in the
bassinet to sleep
I watched in fascination.
But
When they told me she was
staying, I said,
NO
She can go home now....
Take her back to the hospital.

What You Said About My Tricycle

I gave it to Will
You say I gave it to Bill
I didn’t.

I wanted him to have it
You said no, there we agree.
You said we had to go get it back.

At four, I felt
What it means to be
Mortified.
We walked uphill
Heard the whip-poor-wills
In the dry leaves beside the road
I knew they were
Singing my song.

We got there and you say
You asked his mother
For the tricycle back.
No, you made me ask Will
To give it back. Not Bill.
Not you.

I know that pain is
Not all in my imagination.
For you, an inconvenience
A need to have
Your investment
Saved for your
Own relative, not
Some boy you
Didn’t really know.

We moved away
For years, I suffered
Thinking how Will
Felt, how I felt
How our connection
Was broken
For financial reasons
No reason at all.

Crackers, sandwhiches,
a water bottle parade,
It seems on this day
everyone is my slave.
All eyes are on me,
Watching carefully,
Catering my every whim.
Dogs bark loudly
into my now angry face,
So I curse them
with every single
word that I can think of
that would bring them
disgrace.
I sit by myself on the back
porch, until I need them,
I am to be left alone.
I close my heavy eyes
for a second or more,
and when I open them
I look around,
I'm not sure where I am.

True or Not?

They say one day I used a pen
to stab my dad, but oh! Why then
do I have no recollection?
There's no real explanation.

My brother made it up, I think.
He says I was on the brink
of 'crazy mass destruction!'
that I could barely function.

To confirm, there's no one left.
We are all alone, bereft.
And so I hold my ground and say
there is no conceivable way!

Bed Rest

That winter I was three
I woke in hospital
an empty room
except for me,
no pillow
can't breathe,
strange food, like
green grapes in milk.
Mother was not there,
she wouldn't just leave me there,
Would she? Would she?
Weeks and weeks
of bed-rest and soldiers
marching on my counterpane
I did not remember
what I might have done
to send me to my room
for so long.
Christmas eve,
Santa and Mrs. Claus
came to visit me.
I was not surprised.
Something good had to come of it.

Carol A. Stephen

Gardener Snake and my 4 year old self

I don't remember all of this
the glass jar
or the little stick
leaning up tight to the top

I don't remember him, mostly
and what I do I think is
just imagination of a memory
she told me

He was green
red eyed and small
traveled in on the muff
of my dog
a gardener
snake she said
and a baby at that
mother might be missing
him
but I wasn't sure about that.

I could keep him
or let him go
it was my choice
as I stared at that glass
my little gardner
snake
mine.

but he had a mom
maybe a sister or two
and sure as I am
writing to you
I walked out to the pile of wood
little 4 year old hands
released him
as I was sure that I should

every day for a week
I stared out into the yard
to see if I could see
wondering if
he was staring back
and missing me.

Better late than never I guess. I am trying to catch up!


Scars without memory

There are some that I still carry,
white lakes or slivers festooned
in the pink flesh of my skin
like tattoos of consequence,
the souvenirs of lessons learned
or never learned,

such as the one underneath
my right eye,
the postcard from myself
at the age of ten months
visiting the sharp corner
of a polished top coffee table,
head first.

That me loved
trying out his new legs,
that me had never seen
the color of his own blood
dribbling down
his chin and spackling
the white carpet
like impressionist art,
becoming so numb to the pain
that he slapped the wound
again and again
for the sheer joy
of hearing his mother scream.

Others go deeper,
beneath the surface
of what the world
is allowed to see,
and etched into the sediment
and limestone rock
of my heart
and foundation
like ancient cave drawings.

Bring the torchlight closer
and you can see the image
of a boy,
wrapped in the elation
of the promise
of seeing his father,
eyes glossy with delight,
bright blue and wild
as he packs his suitcase,
the light slowly fading
from the sky
and from his eyes
as he sits waiting,
legs hanging from the porch,
head propped in his hands,
listening to the locusts wings
whirring their welcome of the night
and the slow death of naivety.

That boy was nearly lost
before he was lost
to the truth of breaking,
when he was only two
and he disappeared
through a crowd of legs
and strangers’ shoes
at some party in the city.
He wasn’t in the house,
he wasn’t hiding
in or under any of the cars,
he was three houses down
in one of the neighbors’ yards,
talking to some old man
beside a swimming pool.
His mother collapsed crying,
cradling him in her arms,
thanking whatever form of god
that she found him
only 25 minutes gone
and not 30,
because she knew
how much that boy
loved the water.

Tiny Tots With Their Mouths All Aglow

Sometime after
I hand-picked
cigarette butts
from the family
ashtray
and waddled
small
with other
tiny neighborhood
friends
right into an open
apartment
and threw
all the tenants
moved-in
kitchen accessories
into a steep pine
tree --
but before
I cut my six-
year-old lower
lip with scissors
somehow while clipping
out valentines -- I
watched a lot
of television
commercials and I
went to church

and during
the children's
sermon
one quiet
and god-fearing
Sunday, I looked
to the very back
for my grand-
mother and yelled
before the holy
ghost and every
Methodist
in Medway, Ohio:
"OB Tampons, Grandma!"

This isn’t exactly what was asked for, but this is what came out. It took me a few days to write, this was so hard for me, (I was horrified when I saw this prompt!) but what I came up with surprised me.

A good part of my childhood (if you can call it that) was spent in and out of hospital waiting rooms. At each hospital you had to be 16 years old to go to the floor where my mother was, so I didn’t see a lot of her. Before I was 12, I’d been to every major hospital on the eastern seaboard, including some in Central America.
Certain they were being comforting or helpful, all the adults around me (except my father, thank goodness) always tried to tell me how I felt or what I thought instead of actually listening. This poem is about that first day when she had to go to the hospital and what I would have liked to say to all of them...



I Remember

“You don’t remember that,”
some say to me.
“You were too young. There’s no way you could remember.”

But I do.
Clear as day.
The dark room.

“It’s not possible,”
some say to me.
“Okay, what time was it? What day?”

I don’t know
but I remember
clear as day
the curtains drawn.

“You were so young,”
some say to me.
“Are you sure it’s a memory or just what you’ve been told?”

I am sure
and I remember
clear as day
the upright pillows
and large bed.

“You weren’t old enough,”
some say to me.
“You weren’t there, in the hospital to see. There’s no way you would know.”

But I remember
clear as day
before the hospitals
my Dad standing
looking so sad.

“Well, where was I?”
Some say to me,
“How come I don’t remember? I’m older than you.”

I don’t know.
But I remember
clear as day
the garbage can
by the bed
where Mom laid
with curtains drawn
and Dad stood
in the darkness
to see if
she’d get sick.
And I sat
on the floor
in the hallway
of our house.
She saw me
watching very close
and very scared.
She looked worried
and so sad.
I was six
and I remember
that first day
of the end
and my Mom
did not know
to say goodbye.

It does not matter what
some say to me.

Clear as day
I remember
her.

I am blown away by everyone here. Some funny, some very sad, all incredibly amazing.

Yoli

Little Choice


When I grew up,
I got brave enough
to ask Dad, why always,
“Because I said so?”

Now eloquent,
I argued that given
a real reason, I might
have complied

instead of feeling
pushed around.

When I grew up,
Dad thought I might
Be old enough
to understand.

“Once, I gave you
a choice: if you hit
your brother, you must
go to your room

immediately, Young Lady,
and stay there.

You hit your brother,
went directly to your room
and ‘Because I said so,’
became the norm.”

Hiding Space
Newspaper in hand
unable to read it
but having the desire to
long before I was three
so I found a quiet space
in the corner by the 'fridge
that offered me the solitude
to pretend that I could.

Deja vu

My grandmother pushed me
in my stroller
along the bank of the mighty Niagara River
where the rushing water cascades
over the Bridal Veil.
My mother and father
strolled behind,
holding hands,
sharing a laugh.
I don't remember
if I laughed too.
I don't remember if I was awed
by the beauty of the great Niagara Falls.
But my mother reminisces,
and in my mind's eye
I see the picture.
I don't remember sharing that moment
with my grandmother,
But, years later
when I pushed my graddaughter
in her stroller
along the bank of the mighty Niagara River
where the rushing water cascades
over the Bridal Veil,
there was that feeling of already seen;
Deja vu.

Toilet Humor

All my childhood memories
from before I had memories
are about pee.
Or poop.
Or something equally embarrassing.
There’s no story
about how I saved a boy from a burning house
or composed a sonata at age 3
(both not true, but try!)
or even an echoing of my own memories
of watching caterpillars shimmy hairily up a tree
and wishing I could ride the couch the movers carried out
and noting a young man with a hairy chest wearing a necklace
and thinking, I didn’t know men could wear jewelry.
There’s only the tawdry recitation:
you peed on purple carpet in the furniture store,
through layers of clothing, diaper, and stroller,
and we hightailed it out from under the gaze
of the unamused saleswoman
when our attempts to block her view didn’t work.
You wanted to pee in the woods
like your brother and cousins
and kept whining,
Where’s the girl tree? Where’s the girl tree?
You humiliated your uncle Karl
when he bravely at age 19
took you to see Bambi,
and you called out from the stall in the men’s room,
Karl, wipe my bottom,
and he had to decide whether he heard your tiny girl voice.
Of course, my brother’s poo story trumps mine,
a baby grunting in a pancake house,
and before they could pay the check,
it boiled up, cascading over the neck of the onesie,
oozing out the cuffs at the sleeves and the feet,
covering the booth in brown.
And my parents ran,
baby held out before them like toxic waste
or a bomb about to explode,
until they got to the parking lot --
and then laughed and laughed and laughed.
Those are the stories of my family,
poo and pee,
embarrassment and laughter.

Bumblebee


dear little bumblebee
sitting on the fence
so fat and round
so soft as I pet
everyone else was so sweet
there on the farm
why did you bite me
you made me cry
and now I have to sleep

TK Kietero

When I was in
a coma
after that attack
at the winter solstice
on headquarters

they gave me
round the clock nurses
often they were naked
or so I’m told
sometimes they

would lie next to me
apply stimulation
to my private
(not to them)
protuberances

this was not on the charts
understandably
they’d cover up
but circumstances
call for unorthodox

measures and I
might not have
made it through the night
without mouth to mouth
respiration

Birthmother

I can’t remember it, of course
But I can picture it
When I can bear to
“I relinquish all rights to this child”
As she hands me over.
She was sobbing, she tells me
I believe her.
I was screaming my six week old head off
She tells me
I believe her.

S. E. Ingraham

I'd ask Grandpa to tell me the
story every time I saw him
and he'd laugh till his eyes
glistened with tears.

Brother and I were ten months
apart. Everyone thought we were twins.
We were always together, like peas
in a pod he'd say.

Brother threw stones at the mower
as Grandpa mowed the grass one day.
Grandpa threatened him with a paddling
and brother kept throwing.

Grandpa stopped the mower and brother
got his backside spanked. Brother
didn't cry but I screamed from the
pain of it all. I stammered in my
high pitched squeal, "I'm gonna tell
he Momma on you!"

I loved watching Grandpa as he told
the story, he'd go back to a time
he cherished and I got to see him
laugh till he cried.

Memories That I Don't Remember

I don't remember being called
'Buddha' due to my baby belly
flopping over my baby legs

I don't remember standing
in my crib, calling my
grandpa 'Ah-ho!'

I don't know if I truly
remember being terrified
of ET in the theater
but the squeamish-ness
at the sight of that
long-headed alien remains...


-Justin M. Howe

Nine Lives

We were visiting my great grandfather
in his hotel in Chicago. I know we visited
again when I was older because I remember
he showed me his wooden leg, and told me
stories about Finny and Goldy, the goldfish
that swam in the pool down in the lobby.
I don’t remember this visit as I was just
an infant but I’ve heard this tale so often,
how my mother laid me on the bed in his room
and turned her back for just for a moment
while she looked for my bottle, or my diaper,
or my stuffed bear, and when she turned back
I was teetering on the sill of the open window,
five stories up, waving my arms and laughing.

Night Monopoly

One night, on the campgrounds,
I started shouting in my sleep,
"YOU LANDED ON MY PROPERTY!
YOU OWE ME $250! GIMME MY $250!"
The next day
My mom said,
"You were playing Monopoly in
Your sleep. I could hear you shouting."

Ben said, "I could hear you from my tent."
I found it quite funny
Mr. Magic Ben coulda cast a SPELL
To keep my monotones OUT!

Day 19

A Bit About Me

I don't remember a phrase that I used
to call my dad to dinner.
My mom used to tell me from time to time
as a smile spread across her face.
After she had prepared dinner
for all of us to eat
she would ask me to call
to my dad that it was time
to “Come for Supper.”
She would listen as I called into the next room,
“Numma Puppa. Dad!”

Wrong Car

Once when I was a child
my parents took me to get candy.
They waited for me,
as I entered the store,
their eyes transfixed
to the door.
But when I came out
of the candy store,
my eyes were looking at the floor.
And when I got in
the car next to theirs,
my parents could laugh no more.

A question of royalty

I am a princess,
my mother, a queen;
she says that's not true,
but what does she mean?

"No castle for us"
she says with a sigh.
But I know in my heart
I live in the sky.

"We can't possibly be"
but I'm not convinced
I'm planning a future
awaiting a prince.

She scolds, "Don't do that"
as I nod to her regally
I'm too little to know
that there's no chance, legally

for a title for me,
though I wish with much fervor
for a present even Santa Claus
could never deliver.

I am a princess,
my mother, a queen
in a fantasy world
where little girls dream.

Unaware

Once asleep
unaware
of your touch,
luscious lips
sweeping my body,
loving, tender, sweet,
showing you care.
But, I am
unaware.

Not Afraid

They still tease me
about how I afraid I was
of the trees, felled
across the earthen path
Robbers! they laugh
Your cousin told you
there were robbers
in the woods
They claim my face
resembled the color
of fresh snow
But
I know they are lying
because
I was never afraid!

Of Things I Can No Longer Remember
The house I grew up at was unfortunately torn down by the new owners at the drop of a hat
I spent the best days of my life there, at least the days I can no longer remember
I had been torn from my house one warm day in September
Why oh why can I no longer remember my former life
The moment I moved I was left with a feeling of strife
My new town, my new life was not what I wanted to be
My parents had much difficulty with this, they couldn't see
Why oh why I was so angry about moving
Now I can remember my second home although I wish I could not
Why oh why was this the house my parents bought.

Is there a stranger here or is this me?I have felt some awful pain in my knee I am running and from what I can't say. My heart hurts so I stop and pray. There is soon fog and I can't see I yell and scream and yet I hear no sound. Have I been lost or am I found? I am unable to remember..what was that sound? I turn and run yet again to find there is only a dead end. I am stuck, locked in, alone. There is a shadow I see. Only what could it be? I turn and hide my face in my hands, only to find the shadow was me.