I started writing poetry when I was about 13, but it was all silly or terrible poetry. It wasn’t until I was in my late teens/early 20s that I really started to write things that I felt like were actual poetry. Much of it was still terrible! But it was a start. Here is some of that poetry from my 20s.
- Brain’s Party
- Life Lines
- Ode to Peter Tork
- Scattered DNA
- The Path
- There is a Staircase Leading
- Dragons to Slay
Brain’s Party
Hello!
How are you?
Is this your life?
It’s quite lovely.
Wonderful of you to bring it
to show off.
There’s punch on the table.
Hello!
So nice to see you.
I see you’ve brought your heart.
Trained so well –
Sitting on your sleeve like that.
Please, have a drink.
(You’re going to need it.)
1991
Life Lines
She gazes into the mirror
And hardly recognizes the
Woman she sees there.
It seems as though everything
She’s ever done or known
Is there on her face.
Every string from every kite she’s flown,
All the roads she’s traveled,
Even the apron strings her children clung to.
They’re all there – etched for the world to see.
Her hair hangs limply.
Turned white with worries that seem so silly now.
What to wear on a date,
What to fix for lunch,
Where her daughter was at midnight all those years ago.
All faded from her memory, but left forever in her hair.
Her gaze lowers to her hands.
Hands that used to clasp those of the boys she used to know.
Hands that played the violin.
Hands that have changed hundreds of diapers,
Washed thousands of dishes.
Now they’re gnarled and clawed
From grabbing at too many brass rings.
She can’t comprehend why she did all
Of those things.
She feels her life has been wasted
Pulling weeds and playing cards.
What was that she’d heard?
“Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
And, “It’s all small stuff.”
If only she’d seen the truth in that
Fifty years ago when it mattered.
Now she has no worries, but it’s too late.
As she lies down in her bed,
All alone in the house,
She dreams.
She dreams of Australian outbacks,
Romantic Paris nights,
New York City.
Secret spy adventures,
Dark, mysterious men smelling of cigarettes.
Her cloudy blue eyes close, her face sags, as her chest slows.
For an instant she wonders at the point of it all.
Why she gained all of this knowledge to have it disappear now.
But, as she leaves her body,
She knows she’ll carry that knowledge with her.
To Australian outbacks
With mysterious spies
Smelling of cigarettes.
She is young again.
She can dance again.
She is free.
1995
Ode to Peter Tork*
I saw you in a dream
of comfort and lunacy.
Laughed with you,
slept with you,
watched you on TV
looking older than before.
I felt safe wrapped
in your blond bob.
Touch me, Peter Tork.
I saw you when you were young.
Innocent and baby-faced,
dimpled with the sky.
Grooving with three young men –
a hick, a brit, and a square –
making music for love
‘cause money is the root of all evil.
Wide eyed I watched and thought,
Touch me, Peter Tork.
Shake loose your paisley chains,
psychedelic raincoat.
Sit with me on a bed
of sunshine and moonglow
and sing to me of your
“Auntie Grizzelda” or “Lady’s Baby.”
Wrap me in love beads, or
trap me in a lava lamp, and
Touch me, Peter Tork.
I saw you playing your guitar
with gypsies and monsters,
pirates and surfer babes,
dragons, and princesses named Mike.
Being chased by long-haired girls,
mad scientists and hillbillies,
modsters and mobsters.
Now to the tune of “I’m a believer,”
Touch me, Peter Tork.
I saw you make me whole
with safety in numbers.
Run with me through fields
with flowers in our hair,
our thoughts the color of
seascapes at dusk.
Come to me again
in slumber movies and
Touch me, Peter Tork
1995
* I was a huge fan of The Monkees TV show even though it was way before my time. When I was a kid, my mom gave me a bunch of her old albums – The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, etc – and my favorites were the albums by The Monkees. When I was a little older I loved to watch the series in reruns. Peter was obviously my favorite.
Scattered DNA
Out in the dawn of a distant day
I heard the voices calling.
Looking back, I found
I knew their faces.
The faces of those come before.
The voices of those forgotten.
Take me there with backward steps
To a finite time in an infinite place.
She the memories off my tree
Til the fall
To the ground
To be gathered in my basket of lives.
I don’t know what I found
In the places I walked and
Left my DNA scattered.
I know they’re all marked
With the blood from the
Beheadings, stabbings, scalpings, shootings, and beatings
That left me soaked into the ground
To help the grass grow.
So many ways for breath to end.
It’s a wonder I can leave my house
And return with it still in my lungs.
Closing out the deaths of black and white days,
I leave behind my incarnations.
If I dwell on them too long,
My soul slows
And I can’t get out of bed
For days.
1995
The Path
On a mountain a man sits
Talking to the gods,
Finding the truths,
Learning the answers
To the many mysteries
We hold in the palms of our hands.
Walk the road.
Follow the path that leads to the sun.
Take your heart and
run to the one
who knows your secrets.
Share your sins and
Be cleansed in the river of souls.
Take your breath and
Be powered by the Prana.
The man sits
Alone knowing all.
No one asks him
What he’s learned.
No one hears when he shouts,
“The way, the truth, the path.”
He’s no Buddha.
No Vishnu. No Krishna.
No Christ.
Yet he knows. He sees.
He directs the grand play
WIth a script written by the stars.
Feel the wind.
Find the power
Taken in as your sustenance.
It is your food.
Is your quest.
Shake free the bands of judgement.
With open eyes
View the man in the hill.
With open ears
Hear his soothsayer truths.
With new found energy
Pursue the path you seek
With the courage you pick
Along the way.
1995
There is a Staircase Leading
There is a staircase leading
Down –
To where the elves wait to grab you by your ankles
And tie you to chairs
And poke at you with their bony fingers
While they laugh and click their
Spindly knees together.
I don’t take that staircase ever.
There is a staircase leading
Up –
To where the angels wait to grab you by your wrists
And drag you skyward
And tickle you with the feathers from their wings
While they laugh, their cherub cheeks
Flush with fever.
I don’t take that staircase ever.
There is a staircase leading
Around –
To where the bad men wait to grab you by your hair
And drag you into the woods
And beat you with the bloody stumps of others
While they laugh, their rotten teeth
Brown like leather.
I don’t take that staircase, ever, ever.
There is a staircase leading
Through –
A place where the air waits to stroke you
And put your mind at ease
And lull you to sleep
While the earth spins, mocking
your existence, never.
I’ll take that staircase forever.
1996
Dragons to Slay
The castle stood high on the hill of stone.
Its white facade proudly smiling on the land.
The highland king’s home and fortress.
He sat upon his horse, white as the castle,
And jingled as he adjusted his armor.
His wife, brave queen, stood near and
Held a red rose that caught the tears that
Spilled down her cheeks.
He’d ride out now and join his troops
In the bloody battle for freedom.
What price they’d pay
What dragons they’d slay
He dreamed of a world made better
Because of his deeds.
She only dreamed of her world and the day
When he’d ride back into her arms.
He thought her stupid for not seeing
The good he could in the land
For her and generations to come.
But if he never came home,
She couldn’t see how she would
benefit from his sacrifice.
What price they’d pay
To find dragons to slay
No one, she felt,
No one would win.
But he rode proudly in spite of her tears.
His eyes flashed and hardened
with every penetration of his sword.
Every heart he impaled,
Every drop of blood he spilled,
Hardened the once tender man.
She still walked her gardens,
Picking forget-me-nots and
Thinking of him.
What a price she’d pay
For his dragons to slay
As the blood flow slowed
And the swords were sheathed,
He took a deep breath –
His dirty face turned toward the sun.
He knew he’d changed.
He knew he’d never again be the man
Who rode off with a tear stained rose in his hand.
He knew without a doubt, without fear,
That he could never return to his beautiful wife.
All of his unborn children died in his arms then,
And he fell to his knees and wept.
What price he’d pay
For all the dragons he’s slay
He wept for every gasp of breath he’d stolen,
Every man he’d kept from being a father,
For every time his heart had grown harder.
Most of all he wept, not for what he’d known,
But for what he would never know.
If his children were never born,
He’d fought and killed for nothing.
Her face shown through to him then,
Clear as if he could reach out to her.
What a heavy price he’d pay
For no more dragons to slay
Her pale complexion smiled sadly at him,
Warmth radiated through him.
He rose knowing he could go home.
He could go without fear, for she
Would melt his frozen heart.
His last thought was of her
As a sword pierced his back
And left him to fall bleeding to the ground.
And left her to pick forget-me-nots
in her garden of forever.
What price they’d pay
With so many dragons left to slay
1998