Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Anne Sexton, Andrea Gibson, Allen Ginsberg, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Rita Dove, Ron Rash… I could go on forever!!
Funerals. They’re a frightful bore, aren’t they? I’ve been to far too many, but that’s what happens when you come from a ridiculously large and archaic catholic family. They all spend their time clamouring to die. Must get to heaven before Cousin Doris.
But this one was interesting. I had a quick peep in the coffin, my face covered by a handkerchief in mock grief- they’d sewn her up quite neatly, I thought. And the Boy’s family on the other side of the church. A double funeral, no less. I was so sure Father Laurence wouldn’t agree to that. What was he thinking, letting our families in the same room? But then the rumours reached my ears. About Father Laurence, and a shadow of implication. It made sense. He was sweating up on the pulpit.
Everyone cried. It was awful. There was Aunty C, clutching at his mother, drowning in tears behind their black veils, and everyone muttering and shaking their heads. A tragedy, a bloody tragedy. We’re sorry for your loss. I didn’t think it was a tragedy. I thought it was bloody stupid.
I tried to warn her, really I did. But she just said I was jealous, jealous because he wasn’t interested in me anymore. Now that was amusing. I told her, as plainly as I could, that I was glad the freak had stopped following me around town and pawing through my rubbish. It was wonderful knowing I could turn up to a party and not see his eyes following me across the room, like a wounded stag begging to be put out of misery. And it was a relief when he stopped bombarding me with love letters and leaving tear stained poetry on my doorstep. Honestly, the cringe worthy sentiments he sent to me were enough to make me want to vomit. She blushed. Interesting. Has he been recycling those little love notes? I asked, and she blushed harder. I laughed, and told her about my favourite one. Rosie, you are the sun. Marry me? She called me a liar. I told her I’d sent the ring back, along with a restraining order.
You’re a slut. That’s what she said to me. You’re a slut and I hate you. He loves me now.Fine, I said, fine. What is it you’re planning, Ju? Running away from daddy and straight into his arms? A moonlight flit? Are you going to marry him? Fine, I laughed. Go ahead, I won’t tell anyone.
she had skinny wrists and a broken heart and a necklace she wouldn’t take off— you could watch her hesitate doing the tiniest thing. she wanted to learn to run headfirst, keep her eyelids closed and swim while trusting the water to keep her afloat. she had a rusty pair of scissors gripped in her white knuckles and wished she could be brave enough to shear off her lustrous black hair and the pretty, delicate image of her you have in your mind.
He was the brave one. He’d never been scared of anything, he’d boast, and she was glad, glad because as long as he was there to take care of her, and fight for her, and rescue her, she could continue to love him. But now she must be the brave one. For him.
But she told no one that every evening, she would light the long forgotten night lights, blowing away the dust and humming an abandoned lullaby. Every evening, she’d falter in the doorway to their bedroom, then turn and head for the nursery. Bent double in a tiny bed, she’d breathe in the scent of her childhood, and pull the covers over her head, tracing her fingers over her memories. It had been so easy, back then, to escape the nightmares. How easy it had been, for a small girl to feel safe in the arms of a boy.
During the day she’d rattle around the old Kensington home, writing ridiculously cheerful letters then tossing them into the fire place. Uncannily astute, he’d see right through them, and she mustn’t let him know that she was afraid. Some days, she could no longer bear it. Some days, she would sit by the nursery window, and wait for the stars to come out.
She’d only received three letters from France. The first had been ridiculously cheerful, filled with adventure and pleasant descriptions of the country side, and the food, and the men, and the training. The second had been filled with desperate assurances. The third had arrived only yesterday, three months after his last.
The generals say that we have arrived as boys and will leave as men, but that isn’t true. None of these boys will ever grow old.
your lips taste of the peanut m&m’s straight from the jar and of drunken promises in the dead of night. our eyelids are shut and our eyelashes tangle from the closeness of us. your warmth is everywhere and i can hear every word you murmur against my skin: “you’re lovely, beautiful, i wish you were mine,” and i tell you to stop talking, because it makes no sense to wish for something you already have
Eli came back from Iraq and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist above that a medic with an IV bag above that an angel but Eli says the teddy bear won’t live
and I know I don’t know but I say, “I know” cause Eli’s only twenty-four and I’ve never seen eyes further away from childhood than his eyes old with a wisdom he knows I’d rather not have
Eli’s mother traces a teddy bear onto the inside of my arm and says, “not all casualties come home in body bags” and I swear I’d spend the rest of my life writing nothing but the word light at the end of this tunnel if I could find the fucking tunnel I’d write nothing but white flags somebody pray for the soldiers somebody pray for what’s lost somebody pray for the mailbox that holds the official letters to the mothers, ———————fathers, ——————————sisters,
and little brothers of Micheal 19… Steven 21… John 33 how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses
the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school recruiting black, brown and poor while anti-war activists outside walter reed army hospital scream
100, 000 slain
as an amputee on the third floor breathes forget-me-nots onto the window pain
but how can we forget what we never knew
our sky is so perfectly blue it’s repulsive somebody tell me where god lives cause if god is truth god doesn’t live here our lies have seared the sun too hot to live by there are ghosts of kids who are still alive touting M16s with trembling hands while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor another missile sets fire to the face in the locket of a mother who’s son needed money for college and she swears she can feel his photograph burn
how many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return the rest remain forever caught between worlds of
shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl to welcome to McDonalds can I take your order?
the mortar of sanity crumbling stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again Eli doesn’t know if he can ever write a poem again one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands
tell me what land of the free sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones hones them like missiles then returns their bones in the middle of the night so no one can see each death swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt each life a promise we never kept
Jeff Lucey came back from Iraq and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his fathers lap rocking like a baby rocking like daddy, save me and don’t think for a minute he too isn’t collateral damage in the mansions of washington they are watching them burn and hoarding the water no senators’ sons are being sent out to slaughter no presidents’ daughters are licking ashes from their lips or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks in case they ever make it home alive
our eyes are closed america there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america fuck your yellow ribbon you wanna support our troops bring them home and hold them tight when they get here
It was easier for him; a quick email to his boss- a woman too busy to take phone calls, and a woman too busy to care- was all that sufficed. She had to wait until 9.30, until she knew her boss would be at his desk. That gave the rest of the office plenty of time to notice yet another absence, but it was plenty of time to sing herself hoarse.
She positively croaked down the phone.
The snatched back morning was slept away. She opened the windows wide, to let in the morning sun, and they stretched out like cats beneath the duvet. The sunlight splashed across her face, and he laughed and said that maybe she’d get a tan. They could not afford a holiday this year. This was their holiday.
The rest of the day was frittered away, filled with warm G&T’s and idle, hair brained schemes to get rich. She repeatedly vowed that this time, they’d clean up their act. He strummed his guitar and repeatedly ignored her.
After the fourth bottle, they were truly drunk, giggling as far away, termination papers were signed. They both fielded the news with good grace, not caring at all about substandard work, or unacceptable behaviour, and spent their last fifty on enough gin and cigarettes to get them through the rest of the week. They’d worry about it on Monday.
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful- The eye of the little god, four cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
