reflections on life

There was a poor little man 

with a shabby black hat 

that rested upon his head 

But in his head was a mind 

devoid of the kind 

of things like shabby and black 

The poor little man 

on a dreary green bench 

with nails sticking out here and there 

Out of the man or out of the bench? 

No difference ‘tween him and his chair 

reflections on life

This room more vulgar than beige 
It swallows all color that dares enter. 
Fuchsias, daisies & baby’s breath 
fade to yellow ocher and bleeding browns. 

Cheeks of flesh, once red, now pallor of ash. 
Revlon red colors the dead. Fingertips pink no more. 
White sheets jaundiced by light shining through 
corrugated plastic veiling neon tubes flickering fast and constant. 

Ready to go out on their own 
or with a simple flick of a switch. 
Joy is disposed of with brown paper towels 
in a stainless-steel receptacle properly placed by the door. 
Nurses enter with perfect teeth and perfect answers 
delivered with insincere smiles. 

Empty voices that never reach across this room 
where I stare forgetting, remembering. 
Gazing where the sun shined onto the wood in sight, 
out of reach while your eyes were open 
here in this pallored parlor. 

Gazing across ridiculously trimmed green lawns 
grayed from the day’s rain, 
I see you dancing to sunbeams that are your music. 
Paisley’d skirt yanked to the knee, 
held in living hands no longer palsied.  

One foot raised in the air teaching the fairies a jig. 
Gone now, but soon I’ll be there. 
Together we will dance and I will sing like the angels, 
like you, and we will laugh again. 

reflections on life

Amidst the fug of spilled beer, stale piss,  
and the howls of whores exchanging sins 
with drunken patrons for pints of their own amber dreams, 
Hope stared back, dirty and wretched. 

Our eyes met. She saw cold and dead, the gray of dirty steel. 
I saw brown, deep and rich reflecting everything, 
especially my darkness. 

She burst forth, dashed past me, and pushing open the door 
a saber of light flashed, dissecting Hope from all that was inside. 
She escaped. Which way, I do not know. 

The door closed. I emptied my beer. Returned my mug to the bar. 
I smelled memories from long ago as I put a tip on the bar. 
Then I stood and turned on my muddy boot and followed the fading scent 
of bacon and coffee, of new books and old, of spring promises, 
and Hope. 

reflections on life

Rabbit pensive, twitching,  
skittish 
of lights and shadows. 

Rabbit peering, startled 
stares 
dashes through scattered cover. 

Eagle soaring, sailing, 
seething 
lifted by wind and hunger. 

Eagle gazing, hunting, 
glares 
cut through the open sky. 

Rabbit freezes. Eagle misses. 
Fox 
on watch from brambles. 

Eagle retreats. Rabbit eases. 
The fox, 
he’s found his luncheon. 

historical

The cane weeps sweet. Its water flows. 
Rum for sailors is where it goes. 
The fields they burn before they reap, 
but ne’er a drop will ever seep
to quench parched lips, black and deep. 

The sky is azure. The sun burns amber. 
The green leaves of cane cut like razors. 
Reap the cane that bleeds the nectar 
for sailor and the slave of leisure. 

Us men who hack and carry freight 
are kept from drink by master’s tin mask plate. 
A tin mask plate my master tinks 
as the harvest, we do bring. 

Through tin mask plate I may not drink, 
but my song it will eternally sing 
of freedoms mine behind this plate. 
Freedoms master’s table cannot sate. 

My freedom ne’er not mine, for freedom ’er not mine. 
For mine it is now, in spirit if not place. 
Freedom is mine. It does not forsake 
as I sing behind tin mask plate. 

In the hot Jamaican sun 

this the price of sailor’s rum. 

“… a precaution to stop the slaves from eating the sugar cane.”
Michelle Cliff

historical

Whiskers on kittens and… No, no, no. Excuse me.  

Wrong lyrics. 

One moment. 

Here we go. 

Children in cages. 
Armed guards in towers. 
Parents are grieving while children are smitten. 
All while Donald still sits in power. 

Nancy is dawdling 
while Nadler is scrawling 
subpoenas, indictments, congressional edicts 
all while The Orange One is breaking our treaties. 

These are the things that make us shamed:  
Bed of concrete, 
Aluminum blankets, 
Influenza. 

Try to remember to ease any pain 
Other people’s kids 
They’ll go away 
Then you won’t feel so bad.  

Figure 1 Foreign Children-Dr. Seuss, 1941-UC San Diego Library

fantasy

Wood nymph would not speak to me.

She whispered with her eyes. She whispered to Tree.

I heard her for naught. Her eyes spoke Nymphanese.

Luckily for years, I had spoken Tree.

The Toad Suck Tale was told to me

by Qeseth in Nymphanese,

translated by Tree and subsequently by me.

Tree is a musical language, and the Oak dialect full of creaks,
and an adagio melodic voice. Unlike the Birch and Aspen dialects,
which some of you know are more of a scat. 

Because of the general structure of the language,

take note of the gaps and inconsistencies in the story

are as they were relayed to me.

I leave the reader to fill the gaps with imagination

and to reconcile timelines if you feel the need.

I think neither Tree nor Qeseth will mind.

 fantasy

Becharmed by children playing in the yard, 
I lit from Waukau Cave. 
Ah... how my ears deceived, misguided me. 
Not children at play, 
but urchins of Sutekh, and so began my plague. 

Captured under a bushel of quickbane staves, 
Sutekh's children trampled upon my wings 
leaving me afoot, forcing me to stay. 
For too long a time I was absent 
from my home, my home at Waukau Cave. 

A time so long songs were sung 
and magic charms were prayed. 
I heard my sisters singing hymns for me, 
above the thunder of quicken staves. 
Sutekh's urchins scorned, poked sticks at me, laughed, and called it play.

During this time, a time too long, 
I heard distant songs of praise. 
Praise for a fairy that had been gone too long 
and who had gone too far away. 

Sutekh's children in these formative years 
learned the power to intimidate, to devour souls 
of those who fear their fate. 
I learned of a poison, hemlock. 
My potion of hate.  

A forgotten trifling, I became 
as the boys became pimps, 
the girls became whores, 
as songs became silent and prayers prayed no more. 
For a time too long, 
I watched the rot of quickbane stave. 

Then I simply walked away. 
To this grotto is where I came, 
where fairy wings do grow. 
I am the forgotten fairy in the Tales of Waukau Cave. 

 fantasy

Before crystal gates of Borealis, 

amidst arctic summer storm, 

my flesh was torn by grains of ice 

blown with the force of Thor. 

I beheld two gods of the north, 

sea nymphs Aurora and Borealis. 

Hollow breath of sirens echoed from the north in blues 
and luminous greens; echoes back and forth. 
The plea of sea nymphs yearning 
was seen in summer’s night. 
The call of lost love's burning without touch or sound their plight.  

A thousand miles of horizon brightened by their song. 

The sight of sirens singing for a lost love that they longed. 

fantasy

Bivouacked near Navoo, on palisade above tugs that persuade lethargic barges laden with grain, we met Fintann. In a soft, disarming fashion he claimed to be the assassin that put Joe Smith in his godless mansion. Fintann told us more of the unholy war pitting Christian against pagan, rendering asunder the Borean nation. He offered up, over quiet embers, a toast to go with his dark tales and deep barley amber. 

“We are the dreams of gods, Mists of sacred sleep, muses of holy hibernation. Black and white Mortals’ lines of demarcation. Live life in color versus gray or vague implication. The profanity of our planet, a magnificent happenstance. Fear not the wrath of God. This life, our only chance.” 

So, we had met our newfound friend. We thought he would become our companion. When truth be told we became his. Shanachie his claim, witness since the origin of legend. He claimed to be at Yahweh’s creation as Ambassador of the Borean nation; a land beyond north, where the wind is born, and weary gods come to play and rest. 

Seeing the doubt to his claims, Fintann smiled and reposed. “I have been challenged to the veracity of my age before, at the Fair of Temair. I had gone to praise her good laird carrying a sprig of yew in my hand. With yew in hand, the truth is told without fear of retribution. I had been queried by some and demanded by one to tell of the Royal DeManse and the decrees that divide Eire. 

“Others said to lie is a sin and wanted to know how long it had been since God had washed sin from my home at Don Talcha in Kerry. When Grandfather Noah had finished his ark and culled his menagerie of two’s, Lady Cesair and my father Bith, forbidden to board, came to Ogygia to live, far from the flood, far from the wrath of the Lord. His anger so great His rain sealed the fate of all who were living in Eire. 

“After the rain came down, I found no one around and myself atop a noble old yew. Once the tide did subside, I climbed down from my perch. Scattered across the moist earth was the old yew’s cherry fruit. The seed secure in my sac I took with me. I regret to inform there was no one to be sworn. They were all singing in the Choir of Neptune. 

“The seed I planted in the shade of quickbane where for twenty years it grew. Then I moved it to the plains of Kerry. There the yew grew some more, from north hedgerow to the south of my plantation. So large was her shade two thousand champions would camp: steeds, pages, slaves, and hunting bitches. 

“There is a story to mark each season, but that is not the reason I share my tale of the yew. I was asked way back then and you are asking again how to know what I say is true.” Grace stirred restless. I listened intently. 

“I will end the tale of my noble yew. It grew to a ripe old age. Time and the elements began to decay the meat of my companion. With broadax, I hewed the magnificent yew. Felled it and prepared it for sawyering. From its trunk and its limbs, I whittled the rest of my story. With a rasp and a plane, I made seven vats and keeves, seven churns and pitchers, milans, and meadors. Seven stans and whittled the hoops for all of these. After a millennium maybe, maybe it was three, the hoops fell off from the rot. 

“I made what I could from the remaining wood: A keeve from the vat, a stan from the keeve. A meador from the stan and a cilorn from the meador for eating. To the gods I will leave what happened to these, having sprinkled their dust upon fairies.” 

Grace took pause. Then she placed a log on what was left of the dying embers. The fire was mute. Grace did what she could then broke the growing silence. “Cast a spell, great wizard. Invoke hell, old lizard. Let me see Lucifer’s flame.” 

“An old lizard I am. As a wizard, I offend, but as luck would have it Lucifer owes me a favor.”  Fintann turned his head asleep as if dead when the flames began dancing. Nothing more was said the night I met my first Irish shanachie. 

If you’re wondering what got me started writing poems, you’ll find the story here. Or, if you’re wondering why my collection is called Slender Stalk, click here. If you’re wondering where you can read the past issues of Slender Stalk, click here. If you’re wondering where you can read more of my poems, check out my website: Life at 240.

If you know someone who you think would enjoy these poems, please feel free to forward this email to them. If you’re reading this poetry letter for the first time, you can subscribe here to get ten poms emailed to you at the beginning of each month. — Mary May