Author: poetryfest

We were floating in the stagnant muck.
She was singing songs back to the birds.
I sat in the canoe in amazement.
Everything beauty and budding.
Drunk on spring, herons, lake, her shoulders.
Is that when it happened?
Were you released in the call of a blackbird?
Did you wait for your son to arrive?
How could you have planned to go when I was in my bliss spot?
The day before I was researching the day you were born.
Stories from the area of the world where you were born.
I read obituaries of people who died the day you were born.
I have some questions.
I don’t expect any straight answers.
Now you’ve slipped out of your body.
I have a lot of questions.
How did you manage a marriage that stretched beyond 60 years?
What do you remember from when my father was born?
What do you think of the size of your progeny?
What did you last think?
Is that how it happened?
One moment one is one
then you are birds over a lake?
You are turtles?
You are all the things for those that love you?
Before heading back to dock
we encountered a bald eagle perched on a low branch.
In the next tree two blue herons.
Eagle flies away.
Were those large blues grandma and you?

Fist-size dough packet that
Ashkenazim packed with them
into steerage from Kiev or Karkov:
it begins with a hard “K”

Hard like the kicks New York City
gave me after moving there with
a Graduate School hangover
to become a great writer

Still hadda eat and whether
Times Square or Alphabet City always
a street cart with that steamy
potato-filled packet that only cost a buck

food that Moses probably
fed his people while bringing
them across the desert

Food that Mary and Jospeh
packed when they had to flee
with their little Jesus into Egypt
(hey they were Jewish too)

and now staple for poets artists
musicians & other criminals couch-
surfing or squatting like me in the
1980s’ Lower East Side: Yup
we were all eating Knishes

we: this unnamed tribe
could always scrape up a dollar

just like we could a bug-infested
futon for a night
and in the morning if lucky
a shower

i read a poem:
Ocean Vuong’s
first lines of a
love letter to himself–
and the waters break

i think of how i’ll
never see her smile
as her eyes scan the
unfinished paintings
in the drawing room

to ask if she will
teach me how to shape
a face the way she does
with mere black lines
almost scribbled

i always wanted to sit
beside her as she painted
on a wooden park bench
watching her thin fingers
move as a brush

i squandered all my
chances and dementia set
in before i acquired sentience
she no longer
knew me

and i had never known her

when my mother told me
she was gone i imagined
the paintings sitting against
the walls in her drawing room

following her into the
cramped space in awe
of her colors
her brushstroke
her imagination
her eyes

i wonder of the stories
she never got to tell me
i wonder how i might’ve
asked her for them

i wonder what she would
have said to me
if i’d ever made the effort

if i’d become self aware
early enough
to love her as she was
instead of as i saw her

i thought of my mother
how she never cries
wondering if her waters
had broken down
afraid to face her if
they had

when i did see her
she told me she was fine
and she was fine
away from her,
i had forgotten
her emotionlessness

she was fine
and i was remembering
all the times i hadn’t
spent with this woman
i barely knew

who
mere days ago
i sang to
in the hospital bed
set in her apartment
the one i’ve always adored
on University and 10th

beside NYU’s campus
where people i know
will be attending next fall
where she cheerfully attended
my music memory competition
in fifth grade

where we walked through
washington square park
celebrating how my peers
had won for us

she was not yet demented
and she was proud of me
unaware i had been useless
we had gone back to her apartment
with her bowl of heart rocks
atop the kitchen table
collected from around the world

brought back by her and kids and grandkids
(one of whom i’d always wished to be)

months ago i unearthed
the card she’d drawn for my
parents in honor of my birth
a chubby pink baby
smiling in its newborn cap

her rendition of me
without yet having seen
i wonder what she thought
of me afterwards

From his place in the corner of the breakfast nook,
he told Susan how to fry fish–when he could no longer cook

because of shortness of breath, and an even shorter oxygen cord.
When the food was fixed, he’d thank the Lord

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost—
which took him back, three times a day, to when life had been most

fulfilling—to when he’d worn the collar and seen souls
pass him by in procession, and all his goals

had been the wellness of their hearts. He’d answered their questions, addressed their maybe’s
blessed holy communion, baptized their babies,

married them, counseled them, wrote homilies into the night,
visited the sick, given last rites.

He catechized their children too, patient indeed—
even toward those slow and of unique need.

Once he brought as catechumen, a child
whose needs it seemed could not be reconciled

to the knowledge that she must state
to take the baptismal pledge, but Rich said grace would compensate

for what she could not comprehend.
And that’s where we are left now, at this ending,

Now Richard’s gone to God, and we are looking for grace
To understand that he is better off, though we can’t see his face

Or hear his voice boom from the pew,
Or echo up the stairs at home, “Susan! I need you!”

From his place in the corner of the breakfast nook,
Let us take down in memory’s book

The moments where he sat with his daughter–
The room filled with reminiscent laughter

Over “Bride of Frankenstein” scenes–
And the black-and-white in betweens

Of childhood times in another place.
Now, something of that child, and something of him, still lives in her heart and on her face.

From his place in the corner of the breakfast nook
Where he watched CNN and browsed Tic-Tok,

Where he’d pet his dogs, read the paper, and grump
Over conservatives, hypocrisy, and God-help-us-all: Trump.

Just one of the myriad ways the world was out of his grip
Those last years—why it all seemed to slip

Away. The day-to-day doings that gave him pleasure—
The Christmas tree, and the gatherings together,

The Easter Vigils, and the alleluia’s clamor born from Lenten hush.
Now next year, we’ll pray: Richard, pray for us.

Shall we light a candle and gently look
To his place in the corner of the breakfast nook?

It was not but a room or two away
That this friend and father slipped through the fingers of day

And when Susan came to hold his hand,
His breath was still. Yet she felt him stand

Nearby, because he would not leave
Her there alone to grieve.

From his place in the corner of the breakfast nook–
Empty now–sweet Jesus, look

Upon us who are left behind, with thoughts of Richard on the mind.
We thank you for his life.

Remind us to so spend our days,
That when we leave an empty space,

The world may wonder at the place

Of one who’s gone from grace to grace.
Amen.

A hymn of going home

O when I climb, o when I climb, this mountain of the Lord!
Oh when I leap from yonder height, and break this mortal cord!
It’s not to die I cast myself into the mortal air,
But it’s to live, for in that void, God’s arms will catch me there!

Then I’ll be caught, in moments brought into His loving arms;
Then I’ll be safe and sheltered deep from the devil and his harms—
Beneath the wings of God above, I’ll find my sweet retreat,
And evermore, I’ll find my rest there at the Savior’s feet.

The beauty oh! The beauty of my Jesus’ blessed face,
For how I’ve longed to look upon Him, while dwelling in this place.
While I laid sick, I feared to leave my body’s fleshly home,
But now I could not leave the grace to which I’ve safely come.

Goodbye, farewell! O gentle loves, I’ve left for paradise;
Though you may grieve, still please believe, I see with fairer eyes!
And though I’m hid beyond the veil and caught up to the clouds,
Please know that I am witness to your life, and I am proud.

So do not call me to return, but join me as you may,
When you have lived your fullest life and known your longest day.
Do not fear that I’ll be lonely while I wait for you to rise,
For a thousand years is like a day up here in these bright skies!

“Now live your life—it is a gift!” I can say now life is past;
Never take for granted love or friendship—those will last!
Know I’m happy and I’m well, that I’m peaceful, that I’ve come
To the river, to my rest, to my Lord, and I am home.

sometimes i think of you, sierra, kid gone rogue, cross at the intersection. sometimes i think of you, where you are, where you were going, what you had to offer. this could be a poem about death, about pieces of wood covered in fake flowers. this could be a poem about your name painted on the grain, each brushstroke a half-chosen agony. or this could be a poem about the sign juxtaposed against your own final mark, garage sale and how endlessly predictable we are about our secondness. what did you think of garage sales? of extra chances, of moving on? sierra, you, biting your cheek, trying on the dress, adjusting your hair, sierra, i am trying to picture you before the intersection. you were so very young. i can feel it in your name, your memory, my crossed legs, glossed lips, cropped shirt. i think you imagined death as something better. i don’t blame you. what glory is there in your commemoration; a reverse crucifixion? what do you mean now? sometimes i think of you, sierra, girl of the road, girl of the fake flowers. your clothes sold at a garage sale years later, mother sobbing over the fabric, father putting up a sign at the same place that stole you away. the change is inevitable. sierra, this is me remembering you. remembering everything you could be and never were, remembering the obituary i haven’t read and the face i haven’t seen. sierra. your flowers are everlong, stark against an acute opposite. i have so many questions for this cross. i wonder about the storebought blooms and if you had a plan for them, sierra, something grandiose, something queenly, crowned, perfect. could you feel it, as your fingers grazed the fabric, did you know you were brushing up against destiny? against loss? against a fractal rip, a lifetime of plot holes, a dead butterfly? imagine it better. picture the grass, the blossoming green, the patches of dirt. imagine it better. replay the moment until it’s alright, sierra, you’re shaking in your bones and screaming for tomorrow, but i promise it stops after a while. imagine it better, you, girl of the windshield, the wheels, girl of the frame that wasn’t strong enough. sierra, lovely shadow, perfect ghost. cross at the intersection. sometimes i think of you.

Golden sparkles
Deep blue sky
Sandy beaches
Flying high
But is that really so?
Smokey winds
Warning bell
Houses burt
And spirits fell

Did you hear?
It was in the papers
The parents, grandparents,
Single parents, adoptive parents,
foster parents, street parents
Showed up at the morgue, looking

The papers said
They found her face down
In late December
Floating in an almost
frozen Potomac
Embalmed in icy loveliness
Such a pretty girl
Such a pretty face
Someone’s daughter
Someone’s wife
Someone’s mistress
Some child’s mother
Someone’s grandchild
Some aspiring actress
Some silent citizen
Some frightened immigrant
Thrown from a crate on a Baltimore dock
Someone’s neighbor without her hajib
Some dancer that hung on a pole
Some ambitious model or newscaster
Who went too far and said too much
Someone’s neighbor with two husbands
And one that was crazy

They all wanted to check birthmarks
On shoulders, on arms, on calves
On the left breast, the right hip
On someone missing
Someone loved.
Someone’s life.

Every day you die
And every day I hug my friends over it.
I once heard of a writer
With only one arm
Who was bombarded with the question
“Why don’t you write about anything
Besides your missing arm?”
She smiled and said softly
“I’m writing about myself.”

Why do I only ever write about you?
One time, when I was eighteen,
I became a girl who lost her friend, and
Life became the only poem I will ever write
Over and over.

Where will I find you?
In everything that is beautiful.

When will I see you again?
In the silver leaves of the maple trees.

How can I hear your voice?
In the sweet song of the wood thrush in the morning.

When can I hold you again?
I am the warmth of the sun on your face.

What if I can’t wait?
I am just across the river.
I will wait for you there.

When I added the pill box to my cart,
He was beside me in the car.
Driving by run down, shitty bars
His green eyes never left the road.

It was silent,
The air lingering with anger.
Anger that hooked its claws,
And refused to let go.

Hours wasted
Arguments over regiments,
The lack of medicine
Consumed over the last year.

Medicine to keep you here.
Didn’t you want to stay here?

All I know is I’d take over your medicine,
You could be angry about it too.
I’d keep you on this side of heaven,
Even if I killed myself saving you.

Florescent lights flashed us in the blue.
The white gown faded your pale, freckled skin.
You tried to argue again,
I leaned in and kissed you.
“Please,” your lips were colder than sin.
Then the doctor came in.

They wheeled you back.
I st r u g g l e d t o l e t g o.

Your hand slipped from mine,
An hour later,
They said things went fine.

So you can imagine my shock,
Opening an amazon box
I ordered for the deceased.