Notes to self

I really should clean the fridge
clean the oven
organize the basement
learn to delegate
rake the yard
weed out my kids' bad habits, the ones they learned from me
work harder
get some new clothes
call my mom
take more pictures
get the camera fixed
be a different person
re-pot the houseplants
read more
face my fears
get a new sofa
get more exercise
get more sleep
learn to be angry
ask better questions
eat more beans

I really should
get going


[inspired by "I Really Should," a sculpture by Kelly Mark]

Runaway

driving a midnight street was never so frantic

window unrolled, summer asphalt hissing she's gone she's gone

potholes thumping your father's dead in a ditch


my heart an arrow in a broken bow unable

to knot the gut string that had been cut


your brother on foot certain he could find you first

(we were all still too scared of the police to call them)


this was a time before cell phones

a time after the implosions that had rocked us

(you the one who hid behind the couch when it got bad)


dawn came on weary and grey

and I think I might have briefly slept, or dreamt I did


then began the phone calls, I even started to make a poster

as if you were a lost cat and a tear-off number

could return you. this was the first rip of many tears.


like a lost cat you

came back when you wanted to.


years later you told me how that first night

you'd slept on the riverbank within sight

of a bush party, certain you were safe.


ever since that night, I've doubted

all certainties.

Expulsion

My brother’s laces

hugged by maggots.

He is warm and safe here.

Beyond the wall,

twenty thousand chickens

keen for broken egg skies.

They won’t laugh 

if he wets his pants

or send him home

for screaming.

(Someday he will learn

not to act handicapped.)

He plucks foam 

from the vinyl chair,

watches the thermometer

on the yellowed 

kitten calendar. Last 

December falls.

Outside the barn,

the dog paces 

at the end of

his nine-year-long chain

where the cars 

speeding to a city

can’t chase him.

duende 1

it is late September. there is a bridge. half-moon slippery woods. rain. the faces of two. look down into water. lilies. Lost Lagoon. surfaced, a Seurat, with tiny green points. exquisite, O painter who makes this. perfection. look down into water. see. two faces stare back. nineteen again. when first he said, "I love you". but then. when she had been. too young. to hear. him. future. looked away.  now September is blowing tiny wavelets. fresh water stirred mud. September. decades cool as west coast mist. on her face. on a Japanese bridge she. he. clean. new. look down. beneath the surface. the last silvery fish of summer. look up. look up. the taste of autumn. the taste of love seasoned. the taste of another. first kiss.

Sleep, Interrupted.

As the body swells, the bladder shrinks (baby's trampoline) and nights
are segmented like Mandarin oranges. Then it's the labour (four days long, that first time)
and learning how to nurse or make bottles in the most deprived-of-sleep state known.
Nothing prepares you for any of it, except the experience itself. And so it goes.
Growth spurts, teething, night terrors, crying-it-out, or the time a toddler locked the door
and, pregnant again, you spent the night stretched out by the locked door, fingers interlaced beneath
("like Dumbo" laughed the father)

Like Dumbo's mother, you learned about flying, you learned about crashing.
No soft landings, not when pre-teens forgot to tell you where they were going,
not when teens told you where to go. Long nights waiting for doors to swing open or shut again,
for footsteps to come home. Ears that listened for kids and for intruders (the drunk
who stumbled in like a bad dream.) Sometimes phone calls shattering the witching and itching hours
but not yet, like your cousin and too many others, a policeman at the door. I'm sorry to tell you.

Rest in peace,
sleep in pieces.

the day of the dead

this is the day of the dead
each night when you come to me
a blood rite and bells, bells
that toll for me, for thee, O

we in our bed high
above sirens' needled streets,
make soft life as, o God,
o love, you enter.

The long strange history of Prussian blue (Iron hexacyanoferrate)

Thanks!

Family reunion

When a marble dropped there were two
ways it could go, and no way of knowing
which it would be, so we guessed
and made bets for handfuls
of popcorn and Smarties.
We set up the Hot Wheels race track
and tried to make marbles loop-the-loop
which only worked once, ever
but we kept trying. It was fun
in a sort of stupid way. This was
Sunday afternoons when the adults napped
or talked politics after dinner, and we,
my cousins and I, got tired of crokinole
and playing with the little kids.
We built Rube Goldberg machines out of blocks,
boxes, yarn and dice, toy pots and pans,
a yellow dump truck, all to make a marble
knock over a cup of minuscule blue beads.
This was invention, this was physics
made practical, holding us attentive
till the last dish was dried, the last
stray coat retrieved, our parents at the door
calling come now or you get to walk
home.

Waiting Room Inventory

: a white clock with black hands that never move despite audible rotation of second-hand

: puce green walls

: dirty linoleum tiles to count

: someone else better off/worse off

: a door that opens/slams/squeaks/stays shut, most eyes focussed on it

: receptionist counter covered in essential text with frayed edges, leftover tapelines from old signage

: chairs to sweat in

: fluorescent lights to turn everyone slightly greener than they already are

: an apologetic jobber of some profession who shakes your hand brusquely, or nods, or avoids eye contact

: low-pitched conversation leading to news that is never/always good/bad

: an exit

: an exit

: an exit

the first

the first is water, clear
u nearer, nearer, near
showered, so clean, I
hear your bare feet
pad across the floor,
sweet footstep sounds
down the stairs to my bed.

the second is heat, of you
in sheets, your tallness
stretched slender body
your febrility (how,
how can such a strong
man have such soft,
warm skin?) we pull
the world of all lovers within.

the third is water, clear
u near, near, nearer still
libation to all gods
the holy site of lips
in this, in this, hosanna
blessings of our bodies
the holy site of the dead
first the kiss, then this
O yes. yes. love. this is.

Welcome back

Hi all! I thoroughly enjoyed workshopping with you last year, and I'm happy to be back. I look forward to learning from your poems and comments and getting to know you better.
This month I'm working on the resubmission of a chapbook called "Roads of Stone." The publisher liked five of my original submissions and needs about 10 more in the next months or two. However, he won't accept poems that have appeared on a blog. So I'm not sure what I'll be posting here! Fragments? Questions? Unrelated poems? We'll have to see.
Angeline

salutations and salivations

I am playing with translations right now.

So I will play with something else here. I think. I hope.

Because overall I am not doing enough playing. And I have been, like our dear SMS, very immersed in school life and not enough of "the good stuff" yes!

Word therapy!….or something like that.

So happy to see Joanne & Suzanne here…and whomever else comes.

xoxo

hello bonjour mes amis my friends

oh em gee oh em gee I was so afraid I could not return this year and this would be, would be, as if a snow goose could never again see the, well, the snow!  o my beloved country. o my beloved poets. words shall trickle, spill, then hopefully delight, or at least make light of this overworked predicament called me!

seriously tho … I am in my final year of my PhD in England. I am doing way too much, writing not enough of the good stuff (as if that makes me any different than anyone else), so I am delighted to be once again a part of MAY DAY!

I want to continue where I left off (I think). I want to leave war and embed, if that's the word, in my next big idea.

we shall see … in any case, thank you in advance for helping me write… merci, merci

SMSteele