poetry

Home at Last

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

for a thousand miles
we see the reach of
the Mighty Mississippi,
the river we bought
for pennies on the dollar,
the river of dreams
(sometimes nightmares),
the river that feeds us all
and doesn’t feed us.

after cornfield gives way
to soybean field and
amber waves of wheat,
all i can think about are the bison
who ate and fertilized
this prairie, feeding
ten thousand generations
and yet
we destroy it
with unnecessary crops
feeding cattle that could
(and would) do the same as the bison.

as night gives in to day
we cross the border
and see cows in pasture
(home at last)
a truck with a Kentucky plate
(home at last)
and hope that one day
we will release
the native grasses
and allow the prairie
to be home at last.

Varying Shades

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somehow
despite their travels on
long-sunken ships
they have nestled in amongst
those that are native

in varying shades
of the colors of God
(who you hope to meet one day),
they intertwine
their lacework leaves,
dot the sky with flowers
as bright as our imaginations,
and root out homes in
fantastical forests.

though you think that only
ugliness
breeds each time they reproduce,
for the rest of us
all we see is the beauty
that still exists in this world.

When Reality Returns

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my legs ache from want
of the bike paths, of women on bikes,
mosquitoes and fleas now eat me alive
and i miss my mountain peaks
but
i feel i will miss this more
the gurgling babyhood smiles
the hickory-oak-taller-than-buildings forests
the relentless rivers and rains
the stick-to-the-skin heat
and everything i should hate
that i have head over heels
fallen in love with
but mostly
our family, our (second) home,
knowing the hollowness that will
sit between the hours of my days
when reality returns
and i will have to live without.

Perception

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she could be quoting my words
(from another time)
driving through the town with its decrepit
buildings, broken down cars
crashed in signs
and lack of traffic
i whisper across to him,
“what a dump.”
within five seconds
(the time it takes to remember
my favorite novel,
to recount the town’s significance,
to get to the other end)
she announces,
“what a cute little town.”

a day later
we sit on the porch
where two disabled neighbors wait
to board the
fifteen-passenger bus
with cracked windshield,
rust-covered roof,
and a muffler heard a mile away.
“look, it’s a limousine,”
the oldest daughter this time,
and i wonder if it
is my perception
or theirs
that is invalid.

We Have Won

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Twenty perfect pictures
A cry-free four hour drive
Thrilled squeals that last for miles
A dip in the end-of-maze pool
A local restaurant in a sea
Of red jerseys and sauce
On the way to the stadium
With an ocean of red jerseys and lust

It’s summer and the sun has set
On fourteen flights of stairs up
The arch glistens from city lights
Alongside the river of all rivers
Our room sees it and smiles with pride
For we have won, we have won,
Our team, us, them, we have won.

Blackening the Blue

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your tone hovers
like an angry cloud of hornets
over the perfectly peaceful day
that i have said good night to.

i will tuck it away for now
knowing that its snippets of disgust
will linger in my dreams
blackening the blue of today’s sky.

you will know none of this.
as always, your stings come straight
from your rear end, piercing me
and then abandoning everything,
unaware of the pain you have inflicted.

Little

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I have opened my wallet one too many times
but I just can’t help but pry it open once more.
it is for their eyes, sparkling and expectant,
and the polite smiles of the women who run
this little shop in this little town
that I will be leaving a little too soon.

with little brushes
little fingers
little hands
they paint.
an alligator as brightly decorated as a carousel horse
a miniature hat box with scribbled-out brown
a snake with dots and stripes and red eyes

they thank me
(all of them, the girls, the proprietors)
and the money,
it can’t capture their happiness,
so I’ll just tuck it here into this poem.

It Isn’t Enough

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it isn’t enough to be ten feet from
the door of our tent to the shore of the lake,
to paddle out into the cove side by side
for a miniature version of a date

it isn’t enough to swim with three girls
in ring-around-the-rosy circles into the night,
the campfire’s afterglow and the Milky Way
lighting their way into the warmth of their beds.

it isn’t enough to stay for one summer
because it could never capture our midnight swim,
our skinny-dipped rekindling after a week’s absence,
the fact that we haven’t lived,
we have never lived,
until the deep-down,
sparkling starlit beauty
of this moment in Kentucky.

The Climb

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surrounded by green,
i feel i’ve traveled
this path in my past,
its twists over tree roots,
the edges thick with ancient ferns,
moisture licking my legs,
it is more than a memory.

i come to a place
that has haunted (pleased)
so many dreams that my mind
has put forward just for
this moment in time.

here it offers me a crossroads,
the yellow wood from my youth
or the mountain to climb with age.

i reach for what i think must be
a native plant, plucking up
its circular leaf pattern to turn in my palm
while my mind, taken aback,
makes the choice.

as startling as my decision is,
i turn towards the mountain.
i have seen some peaks between now and then
and I am ready for the climb.

Follow the Pavement Black

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after five and a half years of bodily sacrifice
i have taken a bite out of a different slice
strange it is to follow the pavement black
but this is the only way to get my body back

it’s not the baby belly (though it may seem)
but about my dignity, my self esteem
for them i gave scarred skin, life, milk
and now the road beckons with its silk

i follow it wherever my legs desire
as in high school when i was on fire
it saves me just as much as it did then
reminding me how to be myself again.