The Thirties
The thirties
I don’t exist yet
Grass grows
A girl eats strawberry ice cream
Someone listens to Schumann
(mad, ruined
Schumann)
I don’t exist yet
How fortunate
I can hear everything
– Adam Zagajewski
Posts Tagged ‘mom’
The Thirties
July 16th, 2010
Firsts
July 2nd, 2010Firsts
Mom told me when I was 4 months old
that our hearts are wild things,
which wouldn’t be mapped or known.
It was her first lie, my first act of forgiving.
I could hear through her breasts
her heartbeat quicken when I cried
and simplify while I slept.
I was her Earth and sky.
Nackt
May 10th, 2010Nackt
The sidewalk’s shattered soda bottle:
now puzzled glass, once interlocked,
even further once, the give
that pharaohs built on top with sphinx
and pyramid. The crystalline
reinvents some myth of light.
And half a mouse with Wednesday’s garbage.
The flies fly figure 8′s above it.
Headless and thoughtless, it has the ocean
among the bristling fur and skin.
Once named because it looked like muscle,
the cup now holds and holds and holds.
The geology of a chicken bone:
strata of bite marks from boy then dog
then the feet of too many roaches
who whisper together as if for love
all layered on top of each other.
Alone is nothing. A banana peel
cures into a nautilus
colored Sun and Earth and all between.
The night I learned I was invincible
Mom and Dad were fragile in their bed.
Who knew these small and beautiful things?
for April 8
April 19th, 2010an imm
igrant boy
reads out
loud to his mot
her (and all
of us) on
the up
town train
2010 Resolutions
December 31st, 2009- Be a good person
- Never be late for anything
- Continue trusting people
- Have as much fun working with kids as I used to have
- Be better to girls
- Be an outstanding teacher
- Be a great poet
- Get in tip top shape
- Dedicate to Brooklyn College Tae Kwon Do
- Fill each hour with something meaningful
- Stop relying on parents
- Start giving back to parents
- DON’T give money to charity
- Read more
- Connect and keep in touch with old friends
- Be a good person
- Simplify
- Simplify
- Simplify
The 1 Eyed in the Land of the Blind
November 2nd, 2009The 1 Eyed in the Land of the Blind
What distinguishes a queen bee all alone?
The size of her hips (the difference so small!) alone.
Above 2 plates of cold pork chops
the tick of a clock stands tall, alone.
Cicadas fill the night.
How could she know his call alone?
We limp back home.
Our bruises are trophies we each haul alone.
It’s too cold out to touch the scalding leaves.
This irony belongs to Fall alone.
Mom asked for a camera at Christmas
to prove Jonathan could crawl alone.
Human Conditioning
August 31st, 2009Human Conditioning
She hates the noise,
the rumble, the clatter of Bic pens
as they shift along the table.
The shriek of landing gears pierces
every solemn air
but she doesn’t leave, not for years
or decades.
She escaped the war,
the Japanese and their flying zeroes,
red and round like the sun.
She only ever heard
the 1 note song of bombs,
only saw the holes left by guns.
Her middle name is Luck
spoken from a Shanghai tongue.
Instead of lunch,
she spends her time
toeing the line
between US soil
and the international zone.
Her hands, wrinkled and scored,
still hold letters to be sorted
but whenever familiar faces
pass through opened plane doors
she fights the urge to pass them on
like notes baked in lotus seed paste
shaped to be silver and round
like the moon.
She forgets freedom
doesn’t have to be fought for
so soon anymore.
These new immigrants
can wait.
They can watch MTV,
eat donuts crusted in sugar,
gain some weight.
They can even move away
to Ohio, Oregon.
They’re not chained
to the gates of JFK,
no matter what she thinks.
She raised 2 children
to study computer science.
When her last studied English
she said, this isn’t a coded language.
It doesn’t need to be.
We can tell stories freely.
Listen.
The Gift
August 31st, 2009The Gift
by Louise Gluck
Lord, You may not recognize me
speaking for someone else.
I have a son. He is
so little, so ignorant.
He likes to stand
at the screen door, calling
oggie, oggie, entering
language, and sometimes
a dog will stop and come up
the walk, perhaps
accidentally. May he believe
this is not an accident?
At the screen
welcoming each beast
in love’s name, Your emissary.
Everything Illuminated
May 7th, 2009I’ve only heard the story once.
It came straight from the source
but was parceled out through shot glasses.
Mom and Dad were high school sweethearts.
Back then and over there, their high school
segregated genders, which meant
it was harder to pass notes during math class,
harder to schedule study dates that were
glorified excuses for accidental contact.
It also meant their love was more destined.
They grew up in the same building.
His family, being only slightly richer,
lived on the ground floor
while hers took the 3rd.
They had a better view
but were less likely to survive in a fire.
Even though it wasn’t color,
he still had a television
and she, the daughter of war survivors,
feigned envy and walked down
the 2 flights every night
to pretend to watch movies.
She was really watching him.
They came from Hong Kong,
the largest town in China,
and took separate flights
halfway around the Earth’s circumference
only to both land in Chinatown
and move into apartments
just blocks from each other.
In the shuffle, she found another suitor
and to hear Dad tell it,
40 years later and swayed by hard liquor,
he was fat and mean
and ugly.
She went to his uncle’s store
every afternoon and talked Dad’s ear off
while he wiped down tables.
She’d whimper like a coyote
caught in a bear trap
but was careful to cover her face.
She could fake the sounds but not the tears;
Dad always makes Mom’s eyes shine.
She technically didn’t propose.
All she’d do was stand real close
and suppose her only escape
was if she were already married
to someone funny, caring, and strong.
At this point, she’d cross her arms,
study the corners of her eyes,
sigh, and count the seconds
it took Dad to take the hint
by tapping her finger on her Chin.
Notice, she never said she wanted someone intelligent,
just someone smart enough to be good to her.
If God and goodness reside
in the laughter of children
then Dad’s been good to Mom
exactly 4 times in his life:
a daughter twice
and a pair of sons who hold
brightness in their hearts and in their minds.
If Love were a light
then my parents’ marriage would be its house
and it would guide all the wayward ships
back home at night.
Watching Dad passed out
and listening to him snore
while Mom stands in the doorway
shaking her head,
I realized I could never outshine their love;
a matchstick can’t go toe to toe
with a bonfire. But I know
if I could just be a mirror
to their 40 year old lime light
then I wouldn’t have to worry
cause I’d be doing pretty alright.
Ghost Writer
December 4th, 2008Momma never told me rain is the angels pissing on us
after 1 hell of an office Christmas party.
Momma never told me rain is God crying for the 1 soul
who slipped out of His sight and for whom
He can’t wait to return. Momma never told me rain is God,
to some, or that they dress up like peacocks, 1000 eyes
and all, and dance for it. She never told me rain is just
an excuse to have sex; never pointed out how my brother,
sister, and I were each born 9 months after April showers.
She never said why I still had to take a bath the nights
I walked home from school in the rain. Did yours? No…
She never admitted she played kickball in the mud,
used the gritty stuff for face paint; never tells
how she met dad when she slipped on the sidewalk
and chipped her tooth. Momma never told the rain to go away.
My momma never tells anyone she’s getting so old now
she can feel the rain in her knees. She never pointed out
how rain is like the steam that beads down the sides
whenever she cooks dumplings.
She never told me when a boy touched her for the 1st time
it reminded her of rain: how it always works under her shirt
no matter how many layers she wears
or how gently warm it feels.
What Momma did say was rain
is something that just happens.
Even if it doesn’t come for years,
you can bet it’ll be there in the end.
Like a parent’s love, I think to add but don’t. At least,
I know that’s what she meant.
