Month: January 2015

Adolescence coincided with the 70’s
loose hair – tight jeans
soft notes of West Coast rock
push aside 60’s guitar gurus.

The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac the new kids in town
less noise, more polish
angst spoken quietly
capturing sales and critics. Win win.

Feminism also reduced volume
the polemic of Germane Greer and Simone de Beauvoir
replaced with the persuasion of Marilyn French
and Boston Women’s Collective.

The new literature read by a callow identity
determined to value and appreciate women
imagination rehearses dialogues of inequality
and meaningful closeness.

Revolution breed in the captivity of academia
is often released to an unready catchment
earnest intensity rebuffed by women barely ex-teenagers
the second sex happy to be both.

Newborn sensitivity carefully explained
the need to render invisible the imbalance of gender
and receives puzzlement and abrupt termination – an auction with no bids.

In a tobacco stained voice she asked what was wrong.
Cynthia, in her late 40’s probably
age blurred by three plus decades of smoking
the question self answered. “Girlfriend problems?”

Time and place parent unlikely friendship
vacation factory work
stations serious youth alongside relentless cheer
three months of constant chatter builds comfortable dialogue.

Disclosure confesses inability to find meaningful other
cigarette voice smoke signals absolution
“when the right one comes along …. you’ll just know
I did with each of my three husbands.”
She had not been widowed.

The applause is over
gown and mortar board returned
the future has become the present. Today.

My immediate superior has an announcement
I was not the best candidate.
Small of statute
large of opinion
he said he believed in speaking his mind.

Some people it seems
do not have the courage to take a risk
or make bold decisions
the out thrust jaw and indignant moustache
a Mount Rushmore testament
to him suffering no such lack.

A pause
then a second proclamation
an opportunity exists
for him to be proved wrong.
I sense it will be difficult.

Hansel and Gretel
child victims of second time marriage
unloved
and unwanted by stepmother
father controlled by a powerful woman – a fairy story.
Love abandoned to the forest
returned by pebble trail
via misfortune
and death
to love.

I admired the house
she took a sip of wine
said she had built it with her father
he being good at that sort of thing.

A standard jigsaw house
prefabricated, dropped on site
made beautiful by his craft
wooden ceilings
wrap around decks
panorama windows.
Just before job’s end he fell ill
dying just after completion
just after connecting drainage umbilical
just at summer’s end.

Before winter displaced autumn
from where ankles of floor meet earth
a finger stream of water.
As an engine’s first stray from melody
is classified unimportant
or flicked undeserving of attention
the trickle was dismissed as growing pains
it did
the trail had to be followed
beneath the floorboards
past piles
past joists
to where tributary drains delta
wedged carefully between sump and framing
a bottle of wine
“love Dad.”