Every Day Songs-- Poems from Grief's First Year

2020.02.23 Every Day Songs-- Poems from Grief's First Year

Every day songs

Oct 10

heart is a bird 

Blue eyelids over blind eye-bulbs

Tremulous and fallen

Aged and unflown

Naked out of the stony ribs of the nest

August 12, 2019
For a moment i become aware
I have a shadow sisterself
At my right side overlapping me
Coinjoined by a lung like a blue venn diagramm
And
I am fine
I budget
I grumble
I diet
I fret but
I'm fine

She, all along
Weeps
For a moment i am drenched in her hot tears
Like a veil over her face

I am dragging my body through my life, and she is on my arm,
Invisible
A cool blue weight
Always crying
The strange tears on my face
Are hers.

10/31
Halloween today and
It's raining yellow leaves under
like cherry blossom petals in Japan.
Leaves living and bright as gold leaf across a screen.
A slight man walks down the road ahead of me, his hair a Blacktail at the back of the skull. He's hunched up against the cold and in all his jacket.
I drive past and turn to see his face. Old, smooth, native. Unfamiliar in the details, intimate in the expression.
I can't, for a moment, remember what my husband's hair look like. Then an image rises.
A coiled black bun at the nape of the neck. A woven tweed hat, a nod to Okinawan Sammy send players, and Scottish poet. A dark unsmiling gaze. A winking gentleness. A shared world.
It's all hallows eve, and the falling pedals are souls. Gold and beautiful and lost.
I hear their voices, feel the press of their ghostly fingerprints against the glass the panes.
They leave a cold sillouette
In quiet steam.
Where is he? Where has he gone? I'm shocked and offended suddenly.
Where? How can this be? How can that nape, that knowing wink, that looping doubling wit-- be vanished-- like last year's fallen leaves?
The jacket hunched against the cold. Walking on ahead of me

10/9/18
Fox faced spirits chortle,
Mad as children, wild, fey
Reckless with our short and tony lives
They see us as we are
Ripples on their surface
Of a great starlit sky


How can i love a man who is a hard bright and hot as the creator-miasma-rock that is the animated swirling core of the sun?
Who is wild and arrogant, broad shouldered and relentless as a buffalo
And clear seeing and distant as an eagle?
Who jokes and whips around his words like a sharp web?
Joyfully, with my bare feet pressed into the warm bread-dough mud. I may not have the words for it, but my body is a well into the dark and endless womb-earth. I'm neverendingly enough. Not a cloudy buddha, but an earthy one, milk sticky breasts, blood-tacky thighs, round and ripened belly, rough hands and feet for tying the umbilicus chords together, back to the piko.
The tricks, the arrogance, the distance, the searing bright sentience, all seek the peaceful dark refuge of the earth-bed.



10/9/18
A scooped out moment of modern digital weirdness
Reading seamus heaney poems in kindle book form, North
A line, a stanza highlighted
About corpses pale and marble eyed
And willows succumbing to the boggish suck and pull
The faint digital smear
Of my dead husband's mind
A moment of attention
The brief light of his gaze
Colored those words

Like the ephemera of "likes" dotting the digital world of photos, articles,
The tiny spark of a dead brain

What note sounded in his soul when he read these cold words:
I grew out of all this like a weeping willow inclined to the appetites of gravity,


7/14/2018

My love is an ocean
Big, in liquid motion, dark
Crawling and climbing up onto the sand
Striving, carrying the mirrors of the stars
Exhaling oxygen from tiny phytoplankton mats
Strange humped shapes beneath exhale, and rise for air with an audible gasp and a stately descent.
Dotted with fierce taloned angels, polymorphs who streak up and dive down in a pile of bubbles.
Multichrome fish Flashing with bright coral brilliance
And weighted in the midnight zone with befanged nightmares.

If you let me
I will love you
Endlessly
As wild and rich as
The whole ocean

The cost is only kindness
Safety
Love

And i will give you the whole blue world
That i am.



4/16/2018
I was a little worried my heart was turned to stone
Cant feel anything, happy or sad
A little worried that my tears weren't falling
So my funny body said
You can't feel? Okay, then, feel SICK. Pain in your back, twisting your hands, pounding in your head.
You cant cry? Weep some blood and pus.

Thanks body, i'd rather cry. 


April 20, 2017. I am trying, trying, not to be better. I am trying, trying to keep a good face on, smile and sweep up, grin and bear hug it out, I am trying, I am trying I just need a breather, give me a break,  i'm trying goddamnit I'm trying.

The way you see the world they say is how your world will feel, so smile your way through all the ups and downs, just put a good face on it and those demons will not hunt you, I'm trying, I'm trying to hang on

I tell myself I am not shooting for perfection, reassure myself I'm just trying to get by, but every little Jott and tittle drives me up the wall I'm trying, trying grin and bear it.
4/18/17
Here's the first of the songs I want to sing,
a blue robins egg half shaped wing,
the back-and-forth of early spring
better shape it into a song.

I just want to leave a mark,
just want to gather up the strings and threads of things I find,
just want to make a nest,
weave it into a song.

Always feel like you're forgetting,
never know what you'll be regretting,
best be safe and hold it close to your chest,
make it safe in your warm little nest.
Time for a song.

Spring is the time for new beginnings,
letting go of old never-ending's,
time to let old things be dead and gone, time to sing a new song.

July 30 I had a vivid dream once that i was carrying a heavy book bag around campus Oversized and cumbersome with texts And at the bottom, beneath novels and workbooks and paper, there was a severed head. It was discomfiting.  It was scary-- a gory Banquo thing, ragged shreds How would I dispose of it? I could not bowl it into a gutter... I hadn't killed this person but I still had to carry their head, unstaring, mashed a little by my books What could I do?  I didn't know, I couldn't shed it So my dream self carried the small heavy horror with me Under my ordinary daily stuff Just now I realized This is a story about grief Which is not my death  But my bloody burden to carry  But July 19 Man and woman At the cusp of it At 11, long haired, flat chested Both equally distressing I hoped puberty turned me into a satyr or an oak I limped into girlhood  Flailed through womanhood, like an itchy I'll tailored but complicated and expensive suit with elaborate fasteners-- bad drag acting out my femaleness  Putting it mostly aside, shrugging the fact if it away like an irksome fly Until unexpectedly, now, I've landed  A worn and comfortable gender  An easy embodied and gendered self A cozy home on the other side of the "girl" treacherous path I live in my gender "mother"-- it's a relief to arrive here, to stop trying to do the drag of girl, of woman.  I am my eyes gazing out of my own mind, I am my stronger and lifting arms, my pushing woman, my feeding breasts. I am no object of male gaze.  I want to reach back in time to that 11 year old satyr-oak and say-- you'll land in your body. It won't be a makeover. It will be in trusting the animal that you are, which is beyond the boundaries that culture tells you you're allowed to be.  June 18 2017 Ice cold springs make me want to worship things To gather garlands and braid then into lei and make chants and offerings Liu liu wale  Kunihi ka mauna  Winding columbine oak and ferns into crowns for the goddesses and gods of this world I am recharged I bring and sing the songs The chants are offerings--seeds we gathered in Hawaii And which now we lovingly offer to the cousin spirits of this place Rushing fresh water Glacier cold and icy vivid Refills my parched aquifers I anoint my head and hands Laugh and sing and remember the viva the vita the vitality The ola the hoola the hooolioli  My parched limestone substrates recharge After a decade of salt waters dissolving me The fresh water wakes me up-- an older forgotten spirit self-- myself a kinolau of myself, The spiritual body blinking and laughing in o life At the shock of icy spring water June 14 C   Em This is a high mountain song Dm   G7 A little melody for when bright days are long  C   Em starry nights and endless skies  Dm. G7. C this is your summertime song. The winter body waits in place  when the nights are long the sun hides her face  but when summer comes again  We turn our faces to the sun  and bask in the summertime grace This is the turning of the wheel  little green things growing in all we feel  we touch our bare feet to the fertile earth Put off the illusions everything is real. Dm. C This is your summertime song  Dm. C  may your days be bright, may nothing ever go wrong  Em. Dm.  maybe your skies be clear and your rains be strong  Dm G7 C  this is your summertime song May 11, 2017 The mourning body Is an unfamiliar shell An exoskeleton  Hard and brittle like a blueblackbeetle  A carapace  Nerves don't quite reach the surface  I strain to smile for a picture I look like I've just come from the dentist The nerves severed, my blasted eyes Shadowed Seeing horrors  in a smile-mask face  The grieving body vomits, shits, for no reason, rejecting and ejecting nourishment Chocolate in my mouth is as stale and foul as old sponge Dry leaves and sticks My tongue a dry alien slug in my mouth Every cell in rebellion Revolting The mourning body is time trapped Responding to seasons without your mind Trapped in a moment of memory. At the first hush of autumn chill the body time travels to the other autumn When spring blossoms are bursting on trees the mourning body wakes up in another year Moves through its day displaced Time traveling without you, the helpless captain of the rogue body, gazing helpless out of eye-windows    It trembles Like a fairy tree Branches moving and leaves quivering in the breath of the wind from another world From another world's breath To save the body You must care for it As though it is a treasured but damaged garment Frail and stained as an ancient attic wedding dress You must mend it, very gently Cleanse it softly Nourish it so carefully along Perhaps sometime You will find that you inhabit your skin again,  Unified and comfortably moving through the world  It until then Wear your mourning body gently Until you come back into your self May 6, 2017 Death stops the clock It lopes on Lopsided Ticking on  With a beat of silence A shout into a canyon with no echoing response  We're still ticking notches Craving lines In the hollows of my eyes And another year passes Anniversaries A counting and non counting Would have been-aversaries  May 4 2017 This is the Story of this Song Set the stage set the mood The stormy night  the provincial town, the misty wood, a spaceship outpost  a dusty ranch here we are, at the exposition And here’s the protagonist!  (What’s that on the mantlepiece— just Chekov’s old gun, nothing to worry about.) Foreshadowing! This hero if they’re sweet, anti hero if they’re not, maybe burly, maybe plain, maybe strangely pretty, They seem ordinary but— Ah a fatal flaw, a chosen birth, an orphan’s lot, perhaps a secret inheritance, a curse, a plot! Then! Out of the blue! The clarion peal, The call to action! Our hero’s reluctant, unqualified, unprepared— there must be someone better, but no she’s our only hope! She tries to reject her true calling but it’s as inevitable as— where did that old gun from the mantlepiece go? Thank goodness for the Old wise guide, a gentle helping hand, a wise witch’s test,  a disguised fairy Our hero gains some little trinket, or learns a secret art, just a mirror, an amulet, a secret SIM card, with this little talisman she can face The trail of trials a wretched path, maybe gold, maybe over mountains riddled with trolls, trick questions from the mouth of mute old dogs malevolent trees fling their silver apples, her allies turn against her and  oh— is all lost? She is in the belly of the beast! Swallowed by the whale, And the whale is full of killer bats, and enemies with blasters, and impossible demands—  And just at the moment when the ship is sinking, demons circling, the nightmare island is rising, Deus  Ex  Machina! The impossible hope, the gods intervene, an old friend returns and  Rising action!  Our hero, with her trusty helpmeets, for comic relief (though it pays to probe their tragic backstories) reunite with the lost parent, (I am your father, say your mother’s name—)  the mysterious source,  the map and gain the gifts that will bring certain death or victory, and learn their secret name They face the final conflict, tried and ready, They bring their secret weapons, secret knowledge and hard won wisdom to The great battle! Perhaps with blasters out in space, or over tumbling tumbleweed, perhaps on rolling pastures or in a high rise dungeon They are tiny and few, the enemy is multidunous, And at last— Chekov’s gun— the retort resounds! All strength unites, allies and former enemies as one for the common good, some fall, some flee, some turn, And our hero, her selfish childhood left behind, her smallness burnt away like chaff, faces the terrible enemy, And through the strength of her heart she wields the little gift, from the wise guide in act 1, so cleverly disguised as a trifle, to defeat the wicked enemies, at terrible personal cost, What is lost? Perhaps her hand, her heart, her sense of home, she loses something that cannot be restored nothing will be the same, and yet victory is won. Victory and pain go arm in arm. And lessons learned, some things gained and lost, she receives the great reward. A royal hand in marriage, a title or a treasure trove, the family ranch, a kingdom restored to her, the rightful heir. She takes the hard road home, traversing the denouement  on a carpet ride, or loyal pony, or rusty old bucket, her magical flight bearing tokens of her victory to the home she’s left behind to save she plants her garden, sweeps her hearth, master now of two worlds. The happily ever after is a promise in the story but there’s a blank space on the mantle where Chekov’s gun once was and wait—what’s there, is that a metallic glint, the suggestion of a barrel, of a muzzle, the seed of our destruction, the inkling of calamity perhaps but for now just a shadow of foreshadowing, throwing the reunion and domesticity into bright contrast in the foreground bright happily ever after  an optimistic promise better turn our gaze away before we see the way these things unravel cap the story there, seal it in wax unless of course were going to get --the stage is set— some lingering doubts a few pieces that don’t fit-- the sequel!!! Rising action -- denouement lyrics  April 25 Angelle,  you seem really swell,  though I don't know you well,  I thought well what the hell,  I'll write this little song,  we can sing-along. Angel,  you are really nice,  like sugar and like spice,  Your friends all really rave,  they say you're good and brave,  Your worth is beyond price.  Angel,  it's the middle of the year,  the turning of the wheel,  old things cast aside,  we're in for a ride.  Angel,  I hope you find your bliss,  with all the turns and twists,  and hope wings like a dove,  I give this song with love. April 24 I'd like a fortune teller To take me by the hand To read my leaves Decode my guts And decipher all the runes To trace her wise old fingers Along the lines and mounds That make my palm Into the map  Of my life's ups and downs I'm in the mood to learn To have a wise voice tell me Just who I am and where I'll go And all the things worth knowing So whisper in my ear Shuffle your wise cards Read my file, See the truth Reveal my guiding star Cuz I don't know the answers Don't even know the questions  North south up down I'm seeking my direction I want a fortune teller Someone with a clue To see the way out through the dark  And tell me what to do  April 23 2017 Funny that for years my poems are silent Quiet like small hibernating things Buried under drifts of winter obligations, Without the warmth and space of spring Then like California's desert flowers They come out in a mad explosive rush A profusion of blooms, air heady with pollen, Blossom sex on wet hot sandy wind So if you ever read my biography If I ever print my anthology Watch for rich profusions and long dry spells Watch for empty seasons while I fill my wells Watch the drain of water into invisible aquifers And watch it bloom When the season comes April 22, 2917 There are things that I love,  in my life,  like chocolate children and cheese.  But none of these things comes as close as the love that I have for an old keeper of bees.  See I have a little problem, a tiny obsession, I thing around which my world revolves. And Dusty Victorian story, in all it's gay subtext glory  Inside four musty velvet smoky apartment walls...  0h 221B mine!  0h 221B mine!   you take up all my headspace  you take up on my time   0h 221B mine!  When real life gets too gnarly  the problems are two snarly,  my thoughts are tangled like all my yarn,  I know that I can turn to  the Boys of Baker Street to,  elementary my way through  Whatever mysteries do Arise.  You see Sherlock and Watson,  they make it all so clear,  each problems just a puzzle to solve,  and while the problems solving the pieces all appear,  one by one in a clear line.  So in the moment of revealed, the bad guys brought to heal, and good guys are you left to go free, Watson and Holmes, return to their hearts home, and gather around Mrs. Hudson's great tea. When things get really dark and I must admit it's where I turn, to the cold sun of reason and it's icy chemical burn, the pleasure of the facts laid out, on an inevitable course, makes models seem as clear as crystal, as clean as white bleached bone. But the thing that keeps me coming back is more than cold clear reason, it's the all of roses simple bloom, the turning of the season, the romance of the pirate ship, the sunken Indian treasure, the warm hearth and True friendships bond is what brings the most pleasure. And I must admit that what I want most of all to see, is the shackles of another age to set this famous pair free, step out from Oscar shadow, and into this bright new day, where Holmes and Monson finally can say out loud that they are gay!  April 21, 2017 Blank spaces, absent names. You never fill the gap,  The wound never closes The pain just becomes ordinary and everyday I'm surrounded by ghosts, quiet non-spaces where people should be  There's no grandma for my kids, No concerned mother for me When I'm stretched too thin She's not here to see I'm falling and lift me Her life was bright--  A star streak across the night She dazzled and dreamed And she walked up death like Mount Everest and blazed into the sky I feel her absence like her presence Her loss continues every day A week, a year, a decade, more She's gone and that never hurts less April 20, 2017.  I'm here for the long road The dusty road Worn soft with the tread of all the feet before The dead The dying walk this road If they're lucky One gentle footfall  at a time  I'll hold your thin arm Skin soft and loose like crepe paper I'll walk along with you Each soft footfall Down this well worn dusty path You walked with me,  On the springtime path, I curled my baby fingers around your thumb, I took determined baby steps Became, step by step, a little person alive Spring and fall, summer and winter We've walked these human paths We'll walk together  April 19,2017 I am trying, trying, not to be better, just to be. I am trying, trying to keep a good face on, smile and sweep up, grin and bear hug it out, I am trying, I am trying I just need a breather, give me a break,  i'm trying goddamnit I'm trying. The way you see the world they say is how your world will feel, so smile your way through all the ups and downs, just put a good face on it and those demons will not hunt you, I'm trying, I'm trying to hang on I tell myself I am not shooting for perfection, reassure myself I'm just trying to get by, but every little Jott and tittle drives me up the wall I'm trying, trying grin and bear it. 4/18/17 Here's the first of the songs I want to sing,  a blue robins egg half shaped wing,  the back-and-forth of early spring  better shape it into a song. I just want to leave a mark,  just want to gather up the strings and threads of things I find,  just want to make a nest,  weave it into a song.  Always feel like you're forgetting,  never know what you'll be regretting,  best be safe and hold it close to your chest,  make it safe in your warm little nest.  Time for a song. Spring is the time for new beginnings,  letting go of old never-ending's,  time to let old things be dead and gone, time to sing a new song.

Something's not right.

We're having trouble connecting to Google. We'll keep trying...

This may be caused by network or proxy issues. Learn more. Please try accessing Hangouts directly.

 

 

 

 

Loading...

Search

Clear search

Close search

Google Account

Kawaikini English

kawaikinienglish@gmail.com

Main menu

Google apps