Remembering

Oh usefulness, oh usefulness, tomorrow, indifferent remembrance.

To do everything, to caress an ugly swelling, and then ruffle it.

Numbers, cardboard boxes, wheelchairs.

 

A grotesquely huge human husband

There, smile, smile.

Barren and left unloved.

 

Switch-faced nuns as big as cattle and a bursting junkie

Make her uncomfortable.

New beginnings

 

Stick in her blood.

 

Unlike the shaven-headed brother she touched quite frequently.

She has no love for a second or third one -

Pregnant, one is pregnant, convulsed with life.

 

Monochrome.

Stay, stay still in one place, blank landscapes

Dusted with no family to blaze, just

 

A black star.

And destitution the dry sap of its emptiness.

Several nuns discuss

 

Colorless foodstuffs, plates of murky soup.

Falling down above and below her like strewn cross nails.

Invisible foodstuffs shrink and die.

 

My brother, step-father, spouse,

Bitter oblivion should not be who I am.

I will return to that. I will return to those neat folds.

Reviews

[h d e rushin]

poetry, i guess, is a sort of continuum of sorts. You know, you leave off where you began, then
try to pickup where you left off. So we just say f**k it. Which in american speak means that life
keeps happening to me and people in this life keep being wonderful and horrible and you have to
wind it all through that mechanical, metal sifter (the one my mother had with the red painted handle)
just to make it all fine enough to sniff; fine enough to sprinkle on our laps. Of course i'm being metaphoric and to that, unreasonable. But this is a love poem not a poem of any recompense. So why
bother to return to "those neat folds". Because love makes you a lady.

Quite a brilliant one in fact...

i love you so much.....dana

[Rosalind Gale]

Oh! I just saw this - lovely. I was trying to find another comment (words of love) you wrote the other day - but I cannot find it. Grrr. Dunno how to find things, anything at all, really.
-x-

[Corset]

disjointed emotion, flashbacks, hindsight and those colorless, tasteless memories, monochrome existence..after the mating season of our lives has come and gone , father ,brothers and spouses no longer disappoint and make us bitter, because we out grow the need to succumb, we outgrow the need to be needed...and expectations forget to expect perfection in other humans and we learn to give ourselves what we need.

[Rosalind Gale]

Ooh, you have read it! And I just sent you another message!

-x-

[Corset]

:P.........

[Ruth]

Such a visceral emotion in this...really grabbed my heart...the battle is never over it seems...yet there is recognition...a light within...wonderfully articulated love...

[Rosalind Gale]

Thank you dear Poppy -

-x-

[Coyote Poetry]

Honest and powerful thoughts my friend.
"My brother, step-father, spouse,
Bitter oblivion should not be who I am.
I will return to that. I will return to those neat folds."
Hard to forget bad places and memories. Maybe old pain can make us wiser? Thank you for sharing the excellent poetry.
Coyote

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is a very interesting piece...i see the person remembering as one who one time felt useful in life, but the men around her changed that---and life became kind of miserable, but it was what she was used to, now she is in assisted living, not taking care of anyone but being taken care of...and who she was is in oblivion...

and the nuns judge...they take care of her, but judge...

anyway, that is where i went with this poem...so glad to read you again Rosalind...always enjoy your writing, and that abstract quality about it...much like William Carlos Williams...

j.

[Rosalind Gale]

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this! Your thoughts and ideas are always most welcome.read moreThanks so much for taking the time to read this! Your thoughts and ideas are always most welcome.

-x-