The Poetry Thread

Cafe Society
21

May I? Thanks!

Poem for a Fourteen Year Old Son

That evening, you found your parakeet dead
in the corner of his cage, and the force of your grief
drove you against me, clutching and mute.
I held you and said the motherwords that are natural
after fourteen years, and hid that small secret
gladness—the joy I couldn’t help at this unexpected chance,
perhaps the last time you would come to me for comfort.
A month from now, a year, you would begin to hide
your bruises and sorrows. You would say it’s fine
when your gerbil died, and lock yourself in your room
when your girlfriend moved away, and I
would begin the unending process of letting go.
There in your bright bedroom I cried with you,
grieving my own losses, safekeeping each moment
and offering unvoiced thanks to poor Crackers
silent behind his thin chrome bars, huddled
beautiful and calm in his yellows and greens.

22

bump

23

So little time left,
And yet she does not know it.
She is beautiful.

Still a child, for a while,
Yet soon to be a woman.

Goodbye sweet baby!
I cannot hold you back now.
These are a fool’s tears.

But if your own tears return,
I will be waiting for you.

24

Welcome to Disney World,
hope you have fun.
Now give us all your money
and your firstborn son.

25

Adam’s Lament

I take the apple given me
And procede to take a bite
I had to do something with it
It was given me by my wife
That rib that became a woman
Has caused a lot of pain
I can’t say having a compliment
Is really such a gain
You can’t take her fishing
She thinks that worms are icky
But she’ll stick her tongue on mine
And lick warm and sticky
Her voice is different
Smooth and high
Sometimes for no reason
She just starts to cry
Her shape is different, too
(I must admit, that I like)
But I wish instead of Woman
God had brought to me a bike!
Or a boat
Or some shoes
Or a rotton fig
Or splinters under my tongue
Or shards of glass in my feet
Or…

26

The Danaan

Sitting silently in a tree
I strive to listen closely
Remembering how things used to be
When a place like this was holy
And people walked the astral plane
As far as they could go
Enduring vast amounts of pain
With lust their eyes did glow
Creeping darkly on the ground
I catch an earthly scent
I flay it madly round and round
For fear my life is spent
Then I remember who I am
The things that I must do
For I am living as mortal man
And only this tree is true

27

My site with 8 of my poems on it
(Hey, its on Geocities. Whaddya expect? Quality? Ha!)

28

Middle Age

Middle Age

I have lost the words.

In voyaging, in scrabbling,
In years of endless night,
In struggling, in scavenging,
I have misplaced the light.
Fear has drained its power,
But moreso life itself,
For job and rent and bills to play
Replaced it on the shelf.

I have misplaced my skill.

A silly thing, a faerie’s wing!
What good does it do me?
It does not toil; it does not spin.
It’s just a fantasy.
I must see things as they are,
Not waste my time in play!
It’s what I do that shows my worth,
Not what I have to say.

I am afraid to try.

Though I open heart and open soul
To show you all I dream,
My words will fade in empty air
As I neglect my theme.
And no one hears it anyway.
It’s not what matters now.
And if they did, they’d only ask,
And I cannot answer, “How?”

I am too old to dream.

A prodigy now past her time,
It’s not what women do.
Silly girls play games with rhyme.
Give dignity its due.
It’s easy now to walk in shade,
Put childish things away,
To hide the gifts I one time prized,
Or say now, “Not today.”

If I step into the light,
Give words a living form,
Can I withstand the fire’s touch?
Will it burn or merely warm?
I remember words inflamed my soul,
Flowing faster than my pen!
Form and shape and flashing rhyme!
I want them once again!
And if this is a faerie’s wing,
Well faeries still can fly.
I think it’s time I claim my place;
I think it’s time I try.

C. J. Howorth
12/17, finished 12/18, 10:38 am

29

I paid attention all I had
so now there’s nothing left
to pay old Charon’s fare
back across the river Styx
so I’ll just sit on the shore
testing the molten river’s mettle
tossing shards of what surely
must be the bones of
some poor soul like my own

poor Cerberus he had
such a bad reputation
he just wanted someone to
scratch behind all six
of his all-hearing ears
and Medusa’s stoney gaze
and nest of serpents in her hair
sort of hid the fact that
she’s as repulsed as we are

feet in knee in thigh in waist in
chest in head in I begin to swim
across the water dyed red
and glowing from the spotlights
at the bottom of this manmade canal
it’s a myth you see
proven with belief
it’s a myth you see
you must surely see

30

what has become…of me
the silence is glassed and glazed thick like the spit in my mouth
and I sweat out the only available moisture
so dry
this desert in my mind
give in
let go
turn back
no relapse for an hour at least
what thought rules that desperate look in the hollow eyes of the blinded
seek the light
get it right
no patience for the ignorance of innocence
tread upon the trampled flesh of the helpless
help yourself
inside the temple where gods feast on the souls of the dead
from ambrosia to cynosure
a parasitic illusion of allusions
volatile with threats of veracity
get out
while volition remains an option
crawl away under the dust
and remain a part of me
as if part of me remains unshed
my shell is dry
peel it back
as the old gives in to the new
as the excoriation begins
each syllable a drop of acid
each drop a stagnant regret
each regret an affirmation
of what…has become of me

31

A Hand (Mindful)

So the indecisive frosts of December have come
And you have been walking under bare trees
Through the fallen, wet leaves
To this; a summons of the body
To an unset scene.

Here is a hand, mindful of want, caught in the meter of memory.
Here is the tongue that hitches mind to language,
Language to the sun rising in every cell.
Here is the eye that breaks light free of prisms
And scatters it into candled flesh;
A burning scented with night, distance and mourning.

This is a summons of the body of need.
This is the onset. Scene:
This is a mind, a handful of memory
Caught in the meter of days.

This is a tongue that hitches and stutters,
Its language like a sun assaulted by clouds.
Here you are, an eye that prisms all light to memory,
A distant burning – This is a summons of the body.
Here is what may be seen:

A hand which neither lights nor extinguishes nothing –
Not the sun, not the eye, not memory, not burning,
But a hand which opens beyond language,
A hand which opens through distance,
Beyond the fallen, wet leaves to a tree;
Its limbs like a tangle of bare wires twisting dangerously. [Live.]
John MacKenzie
December, 2002

32

When watches change:

All that matters
Is all that will remain.

when watches change,
you’re a boy crying.

you can change the day,
but you’ll never find the day you died.

The point is i’ve quit smoking,
and then take another,
when the watches change.

The day will come,
when all that matters
is all there is.

2 across

Bad news casts no shadow, good news beats a drum.
thin hair and cigarettes.
Salery men see the truth from a moving train.
Brace yourself to scream with all you’ve got… ready? Ready?
Oh, sorry,
“Hello?”

33

Shadow Self

Can you really see me?
Do you know me for what I am?
Or do you only see
The illusion
Of an ordinary man?

I weave a web of shadow,
My darkness to protect,
And I never know
where my soul will lie
when the candle flickers next.

I touch the living realm
like fingers trailing in a stream.
a flash of fangs in darkness,
a sleeper overwhelmed,
and a dark and endless dream.

Can none see the monster among them?
I’m ready for the fall.
Let it be war,
or a quick, clean end
–or are you monsters…all?

This is what comes of feeling alienated and reading vampire stories at the same time. You have been warned. I find that a nice cup of hot chocolate and a copy of The Princess Bride often prevent me from writing things like this.