Thankful for the Chance

This morning during our church service, I had the delightful opportunity to read the following poem that I wrote. Read it aloud if you'd like to hear the meter and alliteration.

The Fullness of Forgiveness

At dying day, the shining sun cast final rays of light

Through lengths of linen gently falling ‘round the young girl’s waist

Creating there a silhouette of Mary’s thickened form

Distinctly seen as months had passed since Gabri’l spoke her name

The maiden now was swollen with the breadth and bulk of Grace

Made manifest within a womb untainted by a man

Betrothed Joseph, being just, decided how to act

Until an angel quelled his fear and charged him with a task

“Not Mary, no!” wept those who loved the highly favored one

Recalling what it seemed the scrolls directed them to do

While others snickered, pleased to utter scriptures to themselves

Reminding them of their upright and honored ways of life

They thought to reach for rocks as hard as any blameless heart

Despising Flesh'd Salvation that was forming in their midst



 

From the Formerly Prognosticating Laundress

I used to think God’s will

Was an interminable laundry day

With all of us scrubbing

At dripping and twisted white linens

Until our knuckles bled

As we squinted at the towering blue sky

And the sun’s ferocious beams

Swallowed most of our vision,

As we wondered how to throw

Those cloths up over the stratospheric drying line.

Used to.

Now I’m not sure what it is

But my hands bleed for reasons other than frantic scouring,

My neck no longer aching with the strain of divination,

And I trust that whatever it is

Will be eye-level when He wills it there

As the cloths ripple in a light breeze or rip in a gale

And music paints each of my days.

On Speaking to God Honestly and Expectantly

Crude Communication

Decades of prayers

Have risen to endless blue

Like ill-formed smoke signals

From this fire of me

They have not

Cooled and unclamped my fists,

Have not spent my soul 

To tranquil piety

Rather,

I breathe out acrid, clinging words,

Tasting blood and bile

Wondering fitfully

How beauty will be woven this time

Penitence

I repented today

With a silent act of minor motions,

Mundane to any onlooker--

But internally I was prostrate,

Agreeing with God

That I am covetous,

Indignant that others thrive

Where I have dwindled.



Despising the person

That Envy twists me into,

I joined the celebration of another,

Repenting as I will again and again

Because Jealousy is a wily grappler

Who trips and pins, gorging on Pride

Of which I have a glutton's larder*.











*larder=pantry

An Ode to Benadryl

This is one of my poems with which I am most pleased. The rhyming pattern was really difficult to work with, so it took a lot of effort. I wrote it a couple of years ago and I'm not sure why I'm posting it tonight of all nights.

Let me explain the strange subject matter: I often suffer from insomnia, so when I discovered that Benadryl can help with that, my nights were revolutionized.

Benadryl (aka diphenhydramine) is a very beautiful thing, thus I chose to celebrate it in the following manner:

An Ode to Benadryl
or
The Pursuit of a Minor Death of Consciousness



A serotonin dearth will drive
Me stumbling off to raid a hive
Of plastic placed above the sink.
Its swarm is silent, still and pink.

The dissolution of the dose
Prescribed could leave me comatose.
I’ll halve the ration prudently
To clinch my round trip ticketry.

The subway token vial yawns
Above my palm. A new night dawns
As to my hand, the beauties fall.
I pinch just one, but cherish all.

Beloved diphenhydramine!
You tiny, legal, potent bean!
Lethean drops solidified,
Safe opiates, freshly descried.

A slip of matter, barely sensed
Between my thumb and finger, tensed.
Though dryly dropped, it plumbs my throat.
I board the bus, embark the boat.

The pill is popped, the plea is prayed.
I’m biding now to be conveyed
To where one third of life is meant
To be in unawareness spent.

In faith, I sprawl out, prone again
As drowsing syrup dribbles in.
The thickened ooze coats my inside.
Thus slowly, starts the carpet ride.

With faculties in dull retreat
My smile is stupid and replete.
I hum a selfish lullaby.
The monkeys chatter as we fly.

An undulating, gentle sway
Grows stronger as my musings fray.
The thousand summoned servants lift
My litter high…I cross the rift.

A little practical advice if you're thinking this news about diphenhydramine is an answer to your sleep deprived prayers: The full dose (two pills) will likely knock you out for way longer than you want, so just take one pill or even half of one. Also, drink plenty of water with it since it's an antihistamine. (You don't want to wake up from your nice long sleep with a urinary tract infection, now do you?) Oh, one last thing, if you're one of those "I use TylenolPM to help me sleep" types, switch over to my stuff 'cause your stuff is nothing more than Tylenol with diphenhydramine added to it and a bottle of generic Benadryl is way cheaper than a measly 20 pack of TylenolPM.

This isn't a fail-safe method to get to sleep. When I was in Romania for nine days, I took the whole dose every night and I was still too keyed up to conk out. Still, for the most part, diphenhydramine is my very good friend.

Family Tree

It has always fascinated me that for any of us to be here today, every single one of our ancestors had to be conceived exactly when they were. This is my take on that fact:



Family Tree

An egg that burst forth from its berth
Had docked with patience till
Its personal predestined pop-
A mittelschmertzic spill-
Then met the very salmon that
Swam up the stream and won
The convoluted river race
Which millions had begun

When only once this act occurs
“A miracle!” some say
But much precision was required
For me to be today-
Each couples’ copulative act
Conveniently transpired
Exactly when it must have done
For me to have been sired--
The wonder then is magnified
Thus exponentially
That all the random jointures could
Have somehow fashioned me

The slurry of the elements
Concocted by the glands
Was the exact mélange required
Of all those “greats” and “grands”

Had just one headache been declared
By a reluctant dame
The chromosomes o’er centuries
Would not have paired the same

Each man possessed a sack of seeds
And tool with which to sow--
Each woman’s furrow fertile was
With room for fruit to grow--
Some may have loved each other well
Though others lusted just--

I breathe because they seized the day
Before they fell to dust





BTW, "mittelschmirtz" is the pain that a woman can feel at the moment of ovulation (and yes, such an odd word is obviously German).

Just a Touch of Housecleaning

Yesterday as I was dusting my bedroom, I was inspired. (No, not inspired to dust every other room in my house. *Ahem*) The following is the result:

Dust


Rays illuminate
The remnants and residue
Of kingdoms, which shift

In air, adrift on
Inhabited space, a dry
mist, till they settle

On this day's matter.
Redolent of musty Man
Is material

Unmeshed that will rise,
Then succumb to its scant weight
And sully a cloth.

Okay, that's out of my system. I wonder what I'll come up with if I go scrub the toilets...

One Haiku

I'm going to subject you all to another poem, but this is just a little, tiny one.

Conceptions and Death

Present, I was, at
Some souls' packaging, but at
Nary a sloughing

You have to love the simplicity of a haiku.

A Poetic Purging

Alright. I'm finally doing it.

This last week I posted a bunch of my poems on an online poetry site since no poetry journals will publish them. (What? Me...bitter? No, no. Certainly not.)

Therefore, I am posting them here, too. I figure it's a safeguard for me to publish them online in two different places.

I realize that most of you have little or no interest in poetry. (Actually, I often don't like reading other people's stuff, either. Isn't that horribly self centered of me?) So, please just bear with me and pass over the subsequent poems like any other moldy cheese. :)

Okay, here we go...

A Glimpse at the Possible

A Glimpse at the Possible


He stopped offensive spiders from dancing-
Squashing their clockworks into bitter juice--
Such smears on walls and floors gave me no pause

But a statue, I was, at a mallet
Arching through his universe at a rat

This was not Alice’s birded croquet
(The reality of pests is darker)

His target had trespassed, pilfered kibble,
Awoken us with squeaks, scratches and thumps--
Damage to wiring was unknown, but feared

The rodent’s eviction was imminent-
By death or by capture, we would quit it

Our traps collected no creature’s carcass-
Our wall pounding just bruised our futile fists-
Poisons placed like a molester’s candies
Brought not ruin to the marauding sprite

Our deliverance was its bludgeoning-
Our gangly champion, a son, aged ten

As some brutish bile was loosed in his blood-
An ancient switch flipped--the berserk occurred--
His synapses fired a cacophony-
Savage voices urging in a new tongue--
Wild blows were meted out by meatless arms

The furry vermin twitched its last spasm

The boy who eats spinach at my command
Insisted that death inhabit the corpse

In motherly arms, even Vikings cooed--



When Tobias was 10, we had a rat living in our walls and garage. It was destroying things and we were determined to kill it. The successful attempt involved Jeff stunning it by shooting it with a paintball gun and then Tobias hammering it with a croquet mallet. (Don't tell your PETA friends.) I watched this horrific display from outside, through the garage window. I just remember seeing my cute little boy turn into a crazed killing machine, wildly swinging a game's mallet down on a furry bit of vermin. It astounded me that he could become such a primal creature right before my eyes. Anyway, now that you are all completely disturbed by my family...

A Mole's Removal

A Mole’s Removal

The nub of pinky fingertip
Proportion earned its end.
Its obscene jutting out from flesh,
Our senses, did offend.
A merciful syringe of drug
By Doctor’s hand dispensed
Desensitized the evictee
Though muscles all were tensed.
Then pinched between phalanges two
And pulled out awkwardly
With hacks and sawings, scalpel dealt,
Was felled the fleshy tree.
A liquid, red contingent rushed
To well up in the void.
To keep those troops within their bounds
A bandage was employed.
The bit of ugly tissue was
Precisely exorcized
And ostracized from components
Of which Jeff is comprised.


December 3, 2007




Years ago, Jeff had a huge mole removed from his back and I watched the entire disgusting process. He still has a big scar that he'll show you if you give him 50 cents. (Just kidding.)

Hemicorpectomy

Hemicorpectomy

The amputation of a half-
Historically wooed-
Enacts a full dismemberment

As is sought solitude--
Content no longer with the pledge
Told when one once was wed-

Omit each other legally--
Flee to a frigid bed--

Dull hacksaws drip with vital gore
Insisting one be two--
Void’s wanted where a lover was-
Obituaric view--
Removal of a living mass
Can not be precise--
Excision’s cutlery is lax



November 14, 2008



Do you see the hidden message? By the way, "hemicorpectomy" means to cut a body in half.

The Insomniac-Poetess

Lying in bed, turning and tossing, is one of my least favorite hobbies, and yet, I seem to partake in it quite regularly. Thus you see before you tonight's (this morning's?) post.

I started to write this poem on our trip to Oregon and finished it a few days after we returned home. It is about how Time is simply a measurement of the Earth's rotation on its axis and its progress around the sun. Therefore, would Time cease if the Earth stopped in its movements?

Each instance of the Earth's parade
About its maypole sun
Officiates a year's demise--
Declares four seasons done

A year is meted out oblong
And into twelfths is sliced--
The portions thus produced are months
Which into weeks are diced

A week sequesters seven days
Of hours, twenty four
Which julienned with sharper tools
Make sixty segments more

Each minute's divvied sixty times
Into tidy seconds--
Today spins into yesterday
As tomorrow beckons

All lives are measured constantly
And shorter ever found--
Each period unrolls outstretched-
A skein of yarn unwound

If cosmic brakes applied could halt
The planet's pirouette
Or stop the sphere's race 'round the sun
To tick would clocks forget?

(Arrrgh...I'm still not tired.)

I've Been Memed!

April memed me. Apparently that means that she has chosen me to record here on my blog 7 fairly unknown facts about me. I really enjoyed the random things she wrote about herself, so if you want to read them, just go to the comment section of my last post and click on the blue "April says" and then click on where it says "Learning". That will take you to her blog.

So the other "rules" of meming are that you have to post these rules, record your 7 weird and or unknown facts about yourself on your own blog, "tag" others at the end of your post and alert your newly memed friends by e-mail or leaving a comment on their blog.

Here we go:

1. I hate all-you-can-eat-buffets. I have some pretty strong convictions, two of which collide head-on at buffets. A) I am a firm believer in getting as much for my money as I can. I mean, why not (as long as it's legal and moral)? B) I'm disturbed by the tendency toward gluttony that I see in myself and others. A and B can not coexist peacefully in my heart and mind, especially while I'm munching on my fourth chicken strip.

2. When I was about 15 years old, my mom bought me a pair of Guess overalls. I liked the overalls themselves, but I immediately went about cutting off any trace that showed that they were Guess brand. Why? I'm not sure how to put it into words, but I know it's genetic because Delaney told me about a year ago that she would no longer wear the hand-me-down Roxy shirts that she got from her cousin. Her explanation was, "Popular girls wear Roxy shirts, Mom, and I don't want to be popular." As funny as that sounded coming out of a nine-year-old's mouth, I did understand. (I hope the social rebelliousness of myself and my daughter hasn't offended any of you Guess or Roxy fashionistas.)

3. Do I dare include this next one? It's really embarassing, but it's pretty funny so here goes...my first real kiss was a very stressful experience. You see, before I handed a lot of money over to an electrolysist and allowed her to torture my upper lip (until tears ran down my face), I had enough hair there to make 14 year old boys envious. Anyway, my date with a boy whom we shall refer to as Nick (not his real name) took place before my date with the electrolysist. We were out in the bright sunlight on a walk in the wilderness near my childhood home. He leaned forward to kiss me which was absolutely thrilling to a 14-year-old-me, but all I could think was, "Does he wonder if he's actually kissing a dude?"

4. Daily I read a British newspaper online. What can I say? I'm an anglophile. If I'm really comfortable in your presence, then I might lapse into a fake British accent, unless you're British yourself, of course, because then you'd know how poorly done my accent is.

5. A bit of vanity...I really enjoy having green eyes. It doesn't seem like a lot of people have genuinely green eyes, so I feel unusual. I don't, however, enjoy the crow's feet that surround my eyes, nor care much for the nose between my eyes.



6. One of the most common topics of my poems is death. (No, I don't paint my fingernails black.) I'm not morbid, simply realistic. I find it fascinating that we are all granted these bodies and live on earth for varying lengths of time during different time periods on various continents with our own set of circumstances. Here's my latest one:

Each soul untethered exits life
Through diverse means to death--
Each moment moves the masses on
To a conclusive breath--
The sundry ways to oust a ghost
One can't enumerate
For there's no dearth of death on Earth-
With which all consummate

Through drownings, riots, crashing cars
Are new cadavers born--
In horrid wars, vitalities
From mortals' shells are torn--
By leaden slugs a soul's dislodged-
By cancer crowded out--
By lack of air, a spirit's loosed-
By thirst unslaked from drought--
Through malformations in the womb
Such little ghosts are made
While entropy undoes the old
Who sometimes simply fade

A life may jar out with a jolt
From trauma bluntly dealt--
The coups de grace of lucky ones
Are quick and never felt--
Extremes of heat create a husk-
Conversely, so can cold--
Many lonesome deaths play out
With details left untold--
A painless passage can occur-
A pleasant ferry ride-
More often, though, the shucking shocks
The one whom Life denied

The unwrapped essences of us
The Judgment Hall will fill
Since each physique's fragility
Defies the fiercest will--
And once the lease is not renewed-
One ceases to infest
Their corporeal figure here--

We're all a body's guest

July 19, 2008

7. I never vomited even once in my life until I was pregnant. In fact, the first time it happened, I had no idea what was going on. I felt kind of gross and I started salivating like mad. I leaned over the bathroom sink to spit out the excess spit and...voila! It happened. I looked and thought, "Is that my breakfast? Hey, I think I just threw up!"

Okay, so now I pick those to be memed by me. Eenie meenie minie mo...I tag Kindra (before JoAnna gets a chance to do so), Leann, FrankandLela, Raymond (although he's a bit busy trekking across the African frontier right now), KorenandConor, Micky and Andrea (although I don't think she has a blog, so she'll have to be a good sport and commit her meming on the comment section of my blog). Actually, I'm really into this, so if any of you want to be memed then consider yourself memed and let me know where to read your answers.