My Tormentor

Where is my soul, my faith, my reason?
What happened to my bright dream?
I gave it all to you for the promise of uncharted love and adventure.
In return you became bored and threw it all away with broken drumsticks.
You grow and I cling, vicariously needing your hope.
My need equaled only by your resentment.
Haven thrown out all purpose and sanity, I am left a hollow shell, my guts lined with infection, I ache and crave the relief of your touch.
Survival now is my goal, staying alive my only identity.
I lay on the shelf beside magazines, records, drumsticks, hoping to be the possession you reach for.
Your aspirations become my obsession.
Your attention the only nutrition for my starvation.

The stillness of night surrounds me and quiets the throbbing of rotting emptiness
Darkness distorts vision and relieves my eyes, swollen and red from eternal hysteriical tears.
I struggle to remain awake never to give in to the lull of sleep.

There I again find my dreams, wrinkled and torn like wadded up tissues, I open them and again become my own.
I am fearful of the peace of this slumbre for I know that it only lives in darkness and the sun will rise again only to blast away my clouds of contentment,
memory of a dream that was
Again the light will burn my eyes with reality and pierce my wounds with the familiar pain of your indifference.
Again I will seek the safety of your arms only to find the pain of your violent mood.
Again I will find myself despicable and fight to regain your gaze.

written to RS in 1975

Drummer Boy Valentine

You sit looking at strange symbols, a language of its own,
a world I cannot enter.
I watch as you concentrate, forever trying to hold back desire.
We sit only a few feet apart yet I am invisable for your thoughts are dancing to paradiddles and there is no space for the girl sitting in the same room.
The silence is broken only by the consistency of your metronome as it ticks in syncronicity with the beat of my heart
Once again I am amazed by your intensity, and the aesthetic of your rhythmn rushes with the pulsing of my blood.
The beauty of your strife for perfection enforces my belief in your ambition
but I know that I am alone and I wait for the abandonment that surely will come with your success.
I know that I am alone with only the beating of my own heart.
Oh Drummer boy, let me travel with you as you soar to your dreams, for my love longs for your embrace.

written in 1974  to RS

Father

There is a man in my life and although he is not large in stature, he is a giant to me.
When I was unsure of him, he gave me time.
When I was confused, he smiled with understanding.
When I was rebellious, he gave me room to grow
When I called out for help, his willing hand remained close by.
When I was burdened, he took responsibility
When I was doubted, he gave me trust
When I falied at my endeavors, he believed in me still
When I was afraid , he held my hand
When I lonely and sick, he sat with me
When I needed it most, he gave me his love.

Ther is a man in my life and though our blood is not the same,
He is a Father to me.

Daddy ( Things I Meant to Say)

Things I Meant to Say 

Caught between dirty laundry and work schedules,
a tightness grabs my throat 
When the day lasts too long or the night too black

silent fear creeps in dreams
Three weeks turns to six months and then 30 years.

A stranger with a one-sided smile walks by 

a flash of dread -goosebumps

Photos of happy picnics or easy tubing down a river,

Did we actually  laugh?
Tastes of speckled perch, frog legs  and hush puppies 

Did it really taste so good?
Gulf Coast sunsets and my small hand reaches for your calluses

Did I reach or was it just to comfort your guilt.

A dewy dawn in a boat on a still fishcamp morning 

Daybreak, you and I alone on a lake without a shore .

Hot sticky air and sentenced worms in a box.  
The picnics, gone and no fishing mornings come searching to

change diapers or hang out the clothes.

I am content. 

Once I was a 12 year old girl,balancing hope and terror

No welcome mat.

Now I am an adult caught in the rituals of days

I avoid drifting in unfettered boats or PB&J on blankets

but my childhood festers, questioning

Were you ever even there ?

Nursing Home

She calls you "darlin" as she changes your diaper, one more before her shift ends,
But she'll never know the babies only your arms could soothe.
She quickly glances away from sad sedated eyes- glassy stare-   mirrors of a distant time.
She never saw them sparkle as you sang to a little girl with a long braid.
She posies you to your wheelchair and trembling old hands reach out for something or someone no longer there.
If only she could see the beautiful lace dresses those hands made for a little girl's dolls.
She brings you a tray, nutritionally sound, as bland as the wax paper that covers it.
No more chocolate milkshakes that you love, sneaking sips when no one was looking.
She humors mild requests and feeble talk as you repeat yourself--.mindless muttering,
Ah, but she never saw the wink in your eye or heard the quick wit in your reply.

She is efficient and thorough and not without kindness.
She knows your name,  and your medication schedule.
She is your caretaker, but she knows not who you are.

Oh Grandmother.

White Hibiscus

WHITE HIBISCUS


They lay where they fall, lining the path to my Mother's door like so many corpses.
Petals, glistening white in the sun just a few hours ago, have now turned a fleshy beige,reminiscent of spilled tea.
Twisting and turning around themselves they spiral inward as if to protect their glorious red centers.
Curling edges remind me of  Belgian lace and the tissue itself folds ever so gently  -a thousand tiny wrinkles.
The skin of grandmothers..

I thought of my own Grandmother's frail arms as she lay, a nursing home  prisoner of her own soflty decaying body.
Her Skin,as soft and thin as the finest rice paper krinklies and shrinks like  petals of white hibiscus.
The red in the center of fallen dead flowers darkens like crushed berries,  spilled wine stains on tiny shriveled arms
The petals have slowly closed sealing inside thier  deep red centers -  like worn out wombs--
never again to reveal their secrets of passion and youth.

I collect the dead flowers and gingerly preseve them, more fall each day,  until my house is overflowing.
 I place them  in tissue paper and then in fine silk,  I lay them to rest in beautiful boxes
-- tombs for hibiscus, coffins for flowers.
They have taken over my house, a cemetary of dead decaying beauty but still I keep and protect them , occasionally unwrapping  only to marvel at their sad eroding lovlieness.
 Beautiful fragile mummies.

I think of my Grandmother, my Mother...........my self.