White

When

my mother told me the story of her existence,

of why she didn't have a birth certificate

it was when I saw her honest eye expressions for the first time.

she chose her words horizontal as if placing a "Life" magazine

under the leg of the dresser with the crocket tilt.

"My grandma had that good hair" she said to me. Dipped in tallow tigereye

is what she meant. So that's why birds are ginger strewn and dazzling

from firm air, I thought? She gathered the crumbs of another's lunch

and shook them in the flower garden's of viscid air.

I was born with the same bad hair. The stuff of wild coven dream-stares.

Sulfur 8 kept it in it's cage, as it can discharge hermitically

all the liquid negatives like sorghum incho; wickerwork millefiori 

that Jesus intended. Chemo took the best of it in 08. What's left of

shape I bend and buff,  pompadour, beau-coup, spit-shine

and stroke coat like a dog with a crushed back.

 

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

the title drew me Ms. Rushin ;) first verse is warm and intimate ..me own mother was born on the farm and also had no birth certificate .. we have what we're born with don't we ... no matter what the attempt to hide or change .. we are who we are ... and the past can not be erased ... we can lie about it if we want .. but to no avail ... gotta say you have a real gift of working those words ... mixing image, irony and sarcasm in a rebel voice ... you do have an edge to ya don't you my friend!:))
E.

[h d e rushin]

thank you Einstein and good morning to you my friend..dana

[Coyote Poetry]

Your poetry, real life and real thoughts. We become our parent and our grandparent. I am old now and when I speak. I hear my grandfather voice. Always a pleasure to read your work my friend.
Coyote

[h d e rushin]

thank you so much my friend and happy holidays to you and yours......dana

[Eilis]

There’s a beautiful intimacy to this. It makes me think of the dichotomy of American experience where the ideals of freedom are placed out in front- on stage waving- while behind the curtain there is the truth of what those ideals mean for the people outside the fold.

There’s also a sense of being defined by an ideal that we have no place in forming and struggling against it our entire lives.

I recently had a dna test done and found out all sorts of things about my family that I never expected. The sense that one is anything can be shattered when some new element is introduced.

This poem is so thoughtful and loaded I think it will be on my mind all day.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dearest Eilis for those kind remarks....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

even though i don't know the entire story behind this piece...i find it quite interesting...

i think we are all like that dresser...with one bad leg and a bit of tilt that has to be temporarily fixed...
like things we duct tape...just to keep together....and when we go through really traumatic episodes in our lives...the duct tape often gives way...but we just put more over the wounds...and lose a little more of "our best."

j.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear brother...do you ever get the idea that we step into each other's hurt which is the basis of most modern poetry? Happy holidays my friend...dana