swivel chair spin

When I hear the garage door
open, I feel the impulse to 
jump up and begin cleaning, 
throw away all artistic pursuits, 
black out the dancing
gyration show, and look up
with a smile (or a
complaint).

~~~~~

My son sits on the swivel
chair spinning, spinning like
so many swivel chairs before
when the doctor knocks
and sticks out his/her
hand, and the room rights
itself and greets
the inevitable.

~~~~

My friend dresses with
flair, has hair that
curls, has fine teeth,
and welcomes with
her arms in reach.
All around her, art
revolves around the
gallery wall, and she
blends, represents,
portrays the outward grace
which sometimes clashes
with the awful art displayed.

~~~~~~

I have essays to grade
and so I turn to poetry
where organization and thesis
correction aren't allowed
up in the treehouse
where I've kicked the
ladder down.

~~~~~

And so the good doctor sat
with a gentle smile,
with a smile used at home
with a smile that went
to the high and low,
with a smile that drew
a picture graph,
with a smile which
wanted to help, if only
it had something it
knew how to do.

Peeing on both poles

I'm back after a tearful
threat at a table full of
teachers looking concerned,
not knowing what to do
with my son who they've
described in black and white
lines upon official paper.
I'm reminded of the old
well room attached to
my rundown childhood home.
The door was helplessly ajar
and the cats would find all
kinds of curl places in the
dark, wet, cool, trashed-out
place where they were
safe from storms and people.
~~

I have a secret in my purse.
It is an object
which I feel guilt about
because I have already
given so much money away
this year and now
I am encumbered more.
However,
with this object we will
have a moment and his
eyes will widen and
before he thinks about
his wife being in debt, he
will only think of how much
he is loved.

~~~~~

When I go to the mall with
my daughter, no thing is simple.
So many unspoken words,
hopeful intentions,
repressed feelings accompany
our rack search. In the sock
department in JC Penney, I
bizarrely blurt out bits about
God and our prayers for her.
She says her usual, "Hmmmm"
and picks up a really cute
pair of discounted tights.

~~~~~~

Moses, the black lab version,
is one of my running partners,
but he only greets me after
he has sniffed and peed
on both poles.

The pants just stink

The coffee pot creaks,
the Bible app reads.
My cats are where they
want to be. An expectant
morning quiets the
soon rush sounds and
we sit together once more.
I show my age but morning's
face is seamless and fresh,
but she will be thrown down
as noon takes her life,
while I will be made-up
and alive.


~~

And the students are captured
away from their beds
where late nights up trapped.
And now they're caught speaking
of chivalry and Chaucer,
courtly love and confession
in chatterly groups of four,
and I'm happy that in America
freedom isn't entirely
widespread.

~~~

You sit down in the highback chair
if a cat isn't there first. And you
look down the fretboard to your
fingertips. You see what they do and
how they move. You see that they can
make sound. You see that you are
capable of something in this big
uncontrollable world, and you look
up at your lesson teacher.

~~~

If I could bottle up all of the Old
Testament wrath, all the swinging ass'
bones, all the conquering nations'
drumrolls, all the slews and all the
slays into a pretty black bottle, I would
have hurled it today at the heads
of the three students
who turned and laughed at my son.

~~~

I have a black pair of jeans
which smell.
I've washed and washed
until they're faded out, but
still the dye is a stench.
If I were not so modest, I
would ask someone, somewhere,
"What do you do when your
pants just stink?"

Water&Light

Today, I was reminded of my "Water & Light" notepad book, compliments of the City Utilities. I use it to jot down moments and the layers of meanings in so much. That's life. Here are a few:


The white horse picture of the Apocalypse rears above my
computer reminding me of Grandma's wall. The flashlight-beaming
eyes of the rider scoped the room where a furtive 13 year old girl, who
argued with her sister, even to this day, squirmed. Grandma Faye knew
the Holy Spirit convicted. And she would watch me with a smile
because I looked cute in my warfare agony.

~~~~

My feet are on an Oriental rug,
and "Ode to Joy" is being played
on the piano. The light fully brightens
and forges a paper shadow which right
sashays and quickly skips back to the left.
A lovely piano instructor friend counts
time and smiles back at me regarding
my son's  musical impetuousness. Today
he's striving and ordering and being a
bit shadowy on a page. However, he's
a teen, and I'm being too
observant.

~~~~

I called upon my son and he
disappeared into the hallway for
the ritual bathroom break. As I
taught, he stayed away, and I imagined
him circulating various rooms in
the cavernous church finding another
lonesome piano needing just one
plunk to make its day.

~~~~

I could have poured out
a thousand lessons,
a million verses,
a score of aphoristic advice,
however, we sat and drank lattes,
my experiential ex-student and I,
and then vistied art galleries.
She made plans to buy a repulsive bug
necklace which didn't concern me.

~~~

St. John's Hospital -- all roads lead here.
The Bible verses on the wall reassures;
the XL nun portraitures on the wall
overwhelm; the cream sparkled tile
leads you on and down and around until
you appear in the doorway of the
designated room full of hope
that your mother is eating her
rolled-tray morning meal.