National Poetry Month--Day 20--Nonet Poems--Dad--Free Verse--Gone Man

 

Here's my free verse poem about my dad. I find it sad that he too wrote poetry, but none about his wife or family. I figure sometime soon I'm going to write poetry about Mom and slip it into the book of poetry he wanted me to transcribe for him. Anyway, here's my poem about him:

 

GONE MAN

She saw you, she thought.

The bright, quicksilver girl

With moonlight in her eyes.

You were her prince, her knight

You rocked her in your arms

And she saw possibilities in your eyes.

You shared corners of you

No one else had ever seen.

But not all.

Some, you kept back

For those 

Silent green spaces you shared with no one.

She was your pole star

The maker of your tribe,

The designer of your life,

But you began to belittle her efforts

To paint over the gold with brown.

You shared a gypsy existence.

Babies multiplied

Dollars did not.

But the you's of you were happy

Until you were not.

We came.

A quiz

A conundrum.

A trouble in diapers.

All too soon you were 

Dragging us across the planet

By the tiny arms.

Run! Faster! You're too slow.

Stop whining.

I'll give you something to cry about.

Until we ground you into place with inertia.

We, our needs, became your anchors.

Chaining you down

To a day long and dreary

None of our antics seemed to 

Waken your smile.

A dearth of  joy.

Only the mistakes. 

Punctuated with watermelon seeds

And a rare day on the slopes.

Once, when I danced on your shoes,

Embarrassed,

While other little princesses

Chattered away.

I was never enough.

Good enough.

Smart enough.

Charming enough.

You were always there,

The stony monolith,

Seemingly impervious to

Wind or water

The battleship

Plowing through the waves

On a course you set.

No plea went unchallenged,

No hope unexamined in

Fine detail beneath the microscope

Of fatherly castigation.

Hour on hour,

One foot and then the other,

You flailed from us all

Broken compasses, all lazy chairs,

Any witless falsehoods,

Any unworthy dreams or

Uncomfortable questions.

Determination built you.

Your children would not

Deviate from the pattern

You set out with

Knife-sharp edges.

Somewhere along the way

You lost all of that.

The ship sailed without you,

Left you ashore and wondering

How it came to be

That your kingdom had shrunk

To the size of one woman.

You raged at the too tight lack. 

You wanted to punch out 

The other side. 

The search eluded you.

Day in and day gone, 

You ached for a place to stretch 

Wings and walls and ideas

But they only held you inside.

One by one we escaped through a hole in your curtain wall. 

You couldn’t fill the breach, 

Couldn't go out the same way.

Couldn't see the good inside.

Couldn't find the good outside.

Stuck.

You searched and searched,

But nothing came.

You hoped you would be strong enough

To keep the enemy

Without.

But he entered anyway.

Entered and stole,

And took and carved away your ‘self.’

Walls of you fell and rolled and drifted,

Down into rushing rivers of

Manic activity, frantic,

But no more fulfilling.

Still the enemy chipped away.

Chipped until you began to let go,

Fingers aching from clutching

At what you had and 

What you were afraid you couldn't keep.

You watched her watching you,

Knowing she knew your lacks,

Knowing you had become 

Less

To the quicksilver girl.

You hated those lacks.

You hated the sorrow in her eyes.

You hated knowing

She knew how you failed 

Yourself and her.

Your edges grew hard and sharp.

Hers sharpened in tandem

To find

That you'd hidden 

All the you's you'd once 

Shared with her

Along with the ones you never had.

She wept.

You raged.

You looked for other treasure boxes

To hold the bits 

You no longer shared. 

But none came.

How strange to see you wither

As I slowly waltz in the flaccid circle 

Of your once-strong arms and watch.

The wind suddenly carving into

Your bastions and buttresses

And you,

Lost behind your eyes somewhere

Unable to call for help

Unable to find the words

To define your rage, to open the

Bars of your mind.

And your quicksilver girl,

So road-weary,

Defeated

Trudges along, 

Pulling your leading strings.

You yank at those tethers,

Trying to prove you don't 

Need them.

But you do.

You see us out here,

Getting away with things

You never sanctioned

And powerless to stop them,

Your rage builds.

If only you could recall

Where you put the keys to your mind.

If only your mind remembered the dance

Your feet still keep beat to.

If only you could go home,

Back to the simple place

Where deer came to drink and

You ran through green silences.

But you can’t go.

Not anymore.

Too many people hold the strings. 

Hole you hostage in this dank, hot Hades.

Distress. 

You clutch at the gone-ness

But can't quite reach.

No one will help you.

No one sees the hollowed-out inside of you.

You see with blank eyes.

Glimpses.

Flickers.

A shuffling waltz.

A fond see-you-later.

That faint, lost little smile

Barely there.

 

Time for bed--for the

Recklessness of sleep 

For the practice death

The facing of dreams lost and forgotten

Your eyes shutter.

Your unknowable heart shutters.

Your lips shutter.

Your mind shutters.

And you have become

A gone man.

Sand sifting away

Into the wind,

All that’s left

Of the monolith.

Someday,

You’ll be found.

But which you?

Your quicksilver girl wonders.

And I wonder.

Who will you be when the shackles fall away?

©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

 Nonets are the poem for the day. If you want to know how to write one, go here. And now for my double Nonet poem:

So many buried nuggets extant

Bits of grit rubbing places raw

I tried once to remedy

The lack, but already

His mind had retrenched

Into haziness

Too dang late

I wept

Dad

Pearl

Someday

From the grit

A gorgeous stone

Will grow and fill up

Our lives with nacred gems

Of thought and feeling and rich

Treasures that should have grown in life

Without the grit to mar and annoy

©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

National Poetry Month--Day 19--Book Spine Poetry--

 

Today we're doing Book Spine Poetry. It's not really the Rhymey kind, but can be fun. If you want to know about it further, go here. Otherwise, TA TAAAAAA:

Here's my more serious one:

 

©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

National Poetry Month--Day Achtzehn--Acrostic Poem--Christ--Haiku--Chivalry

 

When I wrote this I wasn't sure what Stephanie's poem for today is, but I try not to write on Sunday unless there's an ox in the mire somewhere. There being no extant male cattle, I'm doing this one on Saturday and using Saturday's poem form.

I apologize

For not believing in him

He came through like wind

He blew me away

With his largess and kindness

It was un-looked-for

Perhaps chivalry

Isn't gasping its last gasp

Now I should step up

  ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

 

Palo verde blooms

Pepper the ground in sunshine

And sneezy pollen

  ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy 

If you want to know what an Acrostic poem is go here. Okay, here is Sunday's Acrostic poem: 

Christ came to calm our troubled hearts and call us home with Him.

He took upon Himself the mistakes and pains and disappointments of all the earth.

Raised from the dead to walk and talk with those who loved Him, then to other places to bless the people.

Intense pain caused blood to eke from every pore. Pain for our pain. Payment for things for which we are not proud.

Still He paid the price, even for those who doubt his very life. Even for those who care nothing for His sacrifice--who think their own way will be less rocky.

Then He rose, not simply to rest upon a throne, but to continue His work of salvation--of untangling the hopelessly tangled lines of our lives. 

  ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy  

National Poetry Month--Day 17--Haiku Poems--Ground Squad

 

Yay!!! Today it's Haiku. And I've got one. If you still don't know about how to write one, go here. If you do, here's my super haiku:

 THE GROUND SQUAD

Squirrel 1 checks out

The perimeter for food

And stray picnickers

Always on lookout

For carousing marauders

Of dog persuasion

They might drop goodies

But they also have sharp teeth

Go for the balloon.

  ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

National Poetry Month--Day 16--Tyburn Poem--Clouds

 

This one's a doozy today--a Tyburn Poem--and I don't have much time as my writer's group is meeting at my house soon. So go here to figure this out if you care about such things. Here's the blasted Tyburn poem:

CLOUDS

Drifting

Wisping

Bulging

Leaking

Blown before wind, drifting wisping gobs

Tower over, bulging leaking blobs

 ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

 

 

National Poetry Month--Day Funfzehn--Shadorma Poem--Vinyl Magic--Free Verse Poem--Working Through

 

Before I get to the Shadorma poem, here's the Free verse rant that wouldn't leave me alone this morning:

 WORKING THROUGH THINGS

 I have a prince

In shiny tin foil armor

Of whom I expect 

So much.

He works every day

At his quantifiable job

Designing

Fixing

Programming

Solving problems

Which allow people

To be comfortable

And to make sense of

Their days.

"Have fun slaying dragons!"

I say as he goes out the door.

Then I go

Back to bed.

When I re-awaken

I do things.

Write 

Concoct

Imagine

My flights of fancy

Are less tangible

Until finally the books

Lie in boxes

On the living room floor. 

Until I sell them,

My work effects

No one.

Nebulous

Unquantifiable

Perhaps mildly pleasing

If I'm lucky.

Maybe that's why

My knight cannot

Rejoice 

When, at last, 

The evidence of my work

Presents itself.

He cannot grasp

What pains, what striving

Brought forth

My work

Into the light of day.

To him, it's fluff

Blowing in the wind--

A mere breeze

Here now, 

But soon gone,

Merely something

Which keeps his wife

A kept woman.

To him, it's all bonbons

And daytime dramas,

Pap for the masses 

Which keeps his 

Dinner from coming 

To fruition 

Unless it's burnt or late.

 

In reverse,

He comes home

Dragon blood everywhere,

Tired from castle-storming

To find little done.

The difference rankles

"What has she done all day?"

He asks himself

As he washes off the 

Dust of a thousand 

Passages and crawl spaces. 

"She wants to be

Congratulated

For the little she managed

To accomplish in eight hours?"

And with a sigh

He folds himself

Into his desk chair

To find relaxation

And await the

Burnt offering.

Not knowing 

How much I need him

To look me in the eye

And acknowledge

That I am 

Just as dusty

In other ways.

 ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

So today it's a Shadorma poem. "A what, now?" you ask with your head tilted to the side. Let Stephanie tell you here.  Otherwise it's on to the offering:

Round black disc

One long spiral groove

Hides magic

In music

Needs only a small needle 

To call back childhood

 ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

National Poetry Month--Day the 14th--I Wish, But I Am Poem--Stinking Knee--Also a Couplet--My Stompin' Knight

 

Today we're doing I wish, but I am poems. I know. Me too. So go here if you're confuseled, confustigated, or cluebatless. So here's my I Wish poem, but first, my couplet offering for your enjoyment...rofl:

MY STOMPIN' KNIGHT

When sewer cockroaches come up through the drain

Who is the man that is bringing the pain?

Forget the chocolates, the sent'ments, the flowers

It's my man doing battle protecting my showers

I hate those dank bodies disgusting and brown

Skittering, hiding, and making me frown.

I run a clean house and I don't like it mussy

So bugs uninvited cause me to be fussy.

Occasionally something intrepid, adventurous

Pops out its head, rend'ring me quite cantankerous

My blinding white knight with his 'lectric bug zapper

Goes into action while I play the napper.

I love the loud THWACK!!! as the stomper comes down

But sometimes he misses and fear comes around

Will that nasty, disgusting, impossible bug

Find me as I cower five feet off the rug?

I don't mind the occasional spider or snake

But cockroaches, of me, do a scaredy cat make

So when my GREAT husband goes into his 'mode'

Of fearless roach hunter, my feet hit the road.

Forget the dragons, or monsters so mean

My man is a fearless bug stomping machine! 

 ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy

 

STINKING KNEE

I wish that there would be a longer time between when I started to like to run and when my body fell apart.

Like a racehorse trained and groomed, who has her first race, does middling well, shows potential, then takes a disastrous fall and can never race again.

And I dream that I am still climbing, skiing, sword-fighting, and dancing.

Ah dancing. Sigh. I am jete-ing and glissading with supreme grace, pirouettes precise and breathtaking, toes turned out and pointed, tu-tu fluffed, tiara straight. Lithe and poised instead of plumpy frumpy.

I used to take every dance class I could take, and sneak into some I didn't have. I used to ski black diamond runs. I used to climb mountains with my friends, and rappel back down. I used to hike. I was a squire who once won third place in an international women's fighting competition.

But now my knee has abandoned me, aching simply to walk. I hobble about like an old crone, glad to make it around the block. 

I seem to be out of sinc somehow, not fitting the chubby old lady skin in the mirror. I look at my recalcitrant, forsaking knee and dream.

I'm really twenty five and if I turn around quickly enough I'll surprise my real self flitting back through the time rip into an alternate reality, where knees are strong and I've left half of me back here. Then I wake up.

 ©2021 by H. Linn Murphy