III

Caution! Children Can Fall In and Drown!

 

I found an old five-gallon bucket at the end

of the day, that over the years bled it’s black

into charcoal grey and I thought hard about

what the father was doing when his child fell

in and drowned in one just like it. I turned it

upside down to sit and watch the Magnolia tree

grow as it watched me fade beneath a four o’clock sky.

 

I smoked as the sun lowered its rays in systematic

defeat through the budding March branches and I

thought about how in six days the moon will be closer

to earth than it has been since I was that dead child’s age.

 

An 8.9 on the Richter shook the Japanese with tsunami

waters that lifted homes from their foundations

and left thousands washed on northern skeleton sand

to be tagged by the unfortunate ones. We watched

Miyako wash away on the home-owners big screen during

lunch, after digging pier holes for a seven hundred pound beam,

set to run straight through the center of their million dollar home

 

but I wasn’t hungry. I mixed eighty pound bags of concrete that

afternoon and argued the morals of dropping atomic bombs on human beings

With my boss, my father, and he left me at the perigee of exhaustion. I

wanted to tell him I was envious of the b*****d who was swept

from a dock by six foot surge off the coast of Cali to never come back.

 

I’m losing the Magnolia just beyond the distance my gaze can hold

in night’s endless privacy fence while I wash semi-hardened concrete

from decades old wheel barrows with water cold as hell, enough to turn

my bare hands stiff as mud and concrete-dust coated boot laces.

 

Reviews

[Marie Anzalone]

A snapshot of a day, spoken by one who can take context and weave it into a tale. Smart, thought-provoking stuff here. Awareness never made our problems disappear; it simply ever made them smaller, more human, more acceptable. Small failures of connection fade into every twilight sky, and we are left behind to contemplate it. Nightfall as a privacy screen is brilliant choice of words, one I will carry with me.

[Coyote Poetry]

I like how you tell a story. The part about Japan made the story seem real and stronger. Sometime life leave us in a daze of finding a reason and a purpose. A excellent chapter. Made me think this late evening.
Coyote

[Emily B]

it is an amazing thing about stories, how the tendrils of this loss curl and grow round the latest tragedy, you weave your words well

[MuSe Ampoule]

profound, and with a different, deeper, darker tone than the previous 2. Appropriate for the times and holds a visceral feel to it. Our minds wander during tragedies over the events and more specifically over the poor who are so effected. Blessings for the survivors, for they need it the most. Great work with these HM.

[Linear]

I watched the super moon, my it looked big, sure i know it's an optical illusion but it still looked big, and so many people wont see it, swept away to the sea or buried underneath mountains of rubble, that used to be a safe haven (home) and more are dying through wars fought over what i dont know, where is the peace where is love, perhaps it just turned and ran!!!!!!!1

[HighBrowCulture]

shallow perhaps to knight a favorite, in this moment, it is.

lifehouse just came on pandora... wtf... ahh zep, tis better.

anywho. dogstar piece. juxtaposition is my fav. like bouncing rocks for a pious stoning against a carvnial mirror and joking, they look like coins in an offetory dish.

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

gut wrenching ~ the movement of the poem spreads itself deep into the psyche ~ powerful imagery~ key words punctuate the painful aspects with resounding strikes~ each line permeates the senses~ amazing descriptives~ you have painted cinematic motion with words~

[Ruth]

True human flaws always show and people who are content to drop those bombs, well......mind control doesn't help! Ah yeh, we have to have revenge....hmm...an eye for an eye....jeezzzzz.....what fucked up state is this world in?!

As always love, this shows the heart needs more than a bomb exploding, taking innocent lives! And more!

Excellent!

xx