Making Up Is Hard To Do

Making Up Is Hard To Do

the last time I saw her

she was in the kitchen

making sauerkraut soup

in a pressure cooker

in the time it took her to

brown the bacon, onion

and garlic in oil she was

done with my excuses

the curt nod of her head

and the flick of her hand

was my clear dismissal

I obeyed her direct order

            I’d rather have

found a way back into

her good graces – to be

able to sit across from her

with a bowl of that soup

a slice of warm country

bread smothered in butter

a grilled sausage

and her sitting across the

table from me, laughing

if she only knew

how truly sorry I am

***

The smallest detail of a recipe in newsprint inspired this poem. The second after I saw it, I jotted the whole poem down in the margins of my crossword puzzle. It’s two parts outward spark, and two parts truth. The regretful feeling in this piece is very real. For me, it’s healthy and helpful to work it all out on the page, keeping the drama where it belongs. In art and outside of myself.

In propinquity,

Nic

I Still Hear Your Voice

I Still Hear Your Voice

            I still hear it

your voice in the halls

vibrating up through the

floorboards

            calling my name

singing ‘High Flying Bird’

shooing the cat away from

your desk lamp or while you

sewed well-traveled patches

on your quilt

            I still hear it

your voice

your voluminous laughter

echoing in the rooms you’ve

left empty

living-rooms, dining-rooms

dance halls

            and I still hear it

the buzz

of machines in time

with your lungsful

drawing oxygen deep

exhaling in emergency

            it’s always there

the slow outbreath of your last

moment

            an Angel’s soft sigh

you bloomed in freedom

I wither in grief

I still hear it

the sounds of you

                                    especially

when I feel stranded in my joys

            and when I hear it

I look for the rendering

of your

human guise

for a soliloquy

any kind of refrain

I still hear it

            and it kills me

***

Another poem for my dearly departed sister. When I feel the hurt settle in, the reality, the only way I know how organize it is on the page.

I miss you, Big Sister.

In propinquity,

Nic

My Paralell

My Parallel

“… you realize a poem is buried in there somewhere (in the unconscious) … there is a lot of unconscious truth in a poem. As you see me now, I am a lie.” – Anne Sexton

Here it is

a cold hard truth –

this poem is an ultimatum.

I refuse to mince words. This

lunge, heave, & knock under

the blackest of suns, it is not

living.

It is a definite kind of sorrow

a simmering demise, no wiles

could confuse. It is the most

lucid admission I can propose.

I am no longer meant for this

cutting animation. I could pen

poem after poem to ease you

but they would be lies after lies

after lies, as I am ideologically

unsound. This is not rhetoric

nor is it a threat but simply an

attempt to valorize the requisite

for voluntary exile. I know that

I am a conscious creation and I

have tried too hard to live by

painstakingly ruthless editing,

revising, polishing my veneer

but the language of madness

swayed me into the sinuous

sphere of Death’s clean clinch.

You can go ahead and try to

dismantle of the myth of me.

Be sure to include the fact I

was resistant to the corrosive

battle toward artistic sincerity

that I bowed out not for weak-

ness but in strength. I chose the

trees, the fish, the Moon, water

the rain, river and oceans, caves,

Angels, and a voice speaking

only to me in fairytale and fiction.

I cannot highlight the contingency

plan for you. There is none. There

is only the affirmation of absolute

divinity. Do not cry for me. I am

not praiseworthy for your tears.

You in your judgement and your

acrimony have made that quite

clear.

You are relinquished of all agency.

Leave me to soft hymns, and a true

internal measure set to sing me home.

You might hear me linger in frank

laughter some time or in a postponed

heartfelt prayer you might recite to

yourself when you’ve realized it is

too late. You might catch a glimpse

of my old body when the wind stirs

in the bleached sand beneath your

summer feet, maybe even in a star.

And, at last let me make myself

perfectly clear – I am not ashamed.

Not of disappearing into the ether

and not for following in the valiant

footsteps of those who have struggled

                        and succumbed.

I will be free.

Of ache.

Of verdict.

Of the attention afforded.

***

I probably shouldn’t be reading poems by Anne Sexton or about Sylvia Plath right now while a loved one has taken quite ill. Alas, reading and now this uber heavy writing has helped me to put some of this anxious energy and overwhelmed-ness somewhere and direct my ire away from tempting targets.

I am not myself so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m forgetful or distracted or unable to show up for something or say the right things or act how you are used to. It doesn’t mean anything other than I am tired and sad and even a little frightened. I will be blunt and admit I care little for the opinions of others, especially now. I will not accept judgments and/or vitriol in my loved one’s name, even in my own but will fight for her because she is unable. It’s what family does or what they are supposed to do. It’s simple, if you’ve got nothing nice to say …

My heart is the heaviest it has been since losing my father and I am painfully aware some don’t and won’t understand. I don’t need you do. All I ask is for kindness because at this time I’m not open for any other kind of business.

In propinquity,

Nic