Poetess Laureate

It's your birthday today

2012-01-28T15:23:00.000-08:00

It's your birthday today,

And the room is full of men's laughter and crude jokes.

Quietly you sit in the corner playing your computer games.

You have this gift of being without saying.

Of listening without judging.

And of leading a room - with your quietness.

I am awed by you.

Your love isn't a wildfire,

It isn't scary and it never burns.

Your love is, and always has been,

more like coming home

and sinking softly

into the arms of clouds.

The guilty and the dead.

2012-01-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Without a shadow of a doubt,

You're crazy if you've seen a ghost.

But you're sane if you can prove it,

Without a shadow of a doubt.

A shadow walked beside me this chilly morning.

"Why did you do it?," she asked me.

"I couldn't do anything else," I replied.

Doubt nagged at me as her anger grew.

"You broke his heart," she forced at me.

"He took the risk," and I tried not to meet her eyes.

The shadow stopped in front of me, looking at me with piercing eyes.

"He tried to kill himself because of you."

"I didn't know," I said softer yet.

His mother flickered in fierce retaliation

as she walked toward me.

For whatever reason, she couldn't quite reach me.

"Sylvia," I said to the fading light.

"Please try to understand.

I lost my man because I lost my mind.

You're a shade because you've died, but I'm a shade because I've lived.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I have regretted it since.

I have never forgiven myself

And I haven't liked myself from that day on.

Even if I can never prove it. "

-RMG 1/12

Sparking (Video)

2012-01-23T04:58:00.000-08:00

You want the 4 minute version, not the 5 minute one - hopefully it'll self-correct soon. Thanks for being a fan. :)

Kisses

2012-01-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

These things make me smile.

Chubby children and chubby cats.
My sweetheart's smile and my mother-in-law's happiness.
My adopted Mom's teasing, and my best friend's laughter.

These things give me strength.

Coffee and quiet reflection in the early morning.
A prayer that's a dance, a painting, or a poem.
Quotes from Dorothy Parker and Eleanor Roosevelt.
My brother's continual presence.

These things bring me joy.

Orange and yellow flowers mixed with an outpouring of sunlight.
The wind in my hair on a day of beauty.
A kind action witnessed, whether given or received.

These things bring me home.

Your heart's arms enclosing me in a soft and tender kiss.

The safest of kisses.
The strongest of kisses.
The smooth, cool metallic heart of hot kisses.

For you. I fall on my knees in gratitude.

Things could be worse, I guess

2012-01-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

Got me some ham, onions, rice and beans Christmas week, and ate like a queen.

I made $100.00 this week, but Uncle Sam has to get his share. Bread, milk, soda, cheese. $25.00.

All that money for an education, that doesn't seem to be helping all that much right now.

The food shelf offers almond butter, sugared figs (that look, smell and feel exactly like Tender Vittles), onion pate and butternut squash sauce.

I'm grateful for the weirdness, even as I hesitate to open each jar. After all, they didn't want to eat it either, but only one of us has to. Unfortunately, that person is me.

The fruit and veggies are a nice change.

My birth mom showed me about being poor. My adopted mom showed me about living real. "Never be ashamed to work," my wise adopted mom taught me. "Never be ashamed to ask for help," my birth-mom taught me too.

"Speak your mind," my adopted mom taught me. "You can't trust anyone," my birth-mom would say.

And they're both perfectly right.

It's ironic to be a well-educated poor person. I still research for fun, write poetry and play Sudoku. I count the cost of toilet paper, and put back fresh fruit to survive, even if it's not exactly flourishing.

"Things could be worse - things can always be worse."

An old mother's axiom that gives more comfort than the pipe dream education once promised.

I don't want a band-aid, people - I just want a real job.

Heirarchy of Needs

2012-01-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

The chart of Maslow's needs looks like a cheese, or a pie maybe. All those enticing slices.

Survival, nom, nom.

(Self-actualization looks delicious too.)

Packing Up

2012-01-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

As D.C. burns like Rome once did

I will stand right by the side of God
to help him watch out for the kiddoes.

Not because he needs help, but because it simply needs doing.

As Rome burns like D.C. once did
I plan to send a heron-shaped God plane to scoop up all the wronged ones.
I'll tell the kids to protect each other in this deranged era
Where poor children are property and not people.

"But Rose," he might say.
"I am all good, and all mighty, and all powerful.
And I have a plan for each and every one of them."

And I'll simply say this back to him.
"I know sir, and I hope you don't mind,
but you made me too.

What you made is the kind of person
who would stand between you and them
so justice won't ever triumph over love."

Then we'll take over Hawaii.

A Poem Called Tragedy

2012-01-06T21:24:00.001-08:00

Tragedy

Shock therapy.

The bolts ran through your body, and my classmates laughed.

As an encore, the teacher played a film of a woman with multiple personalities.

(It was the biggest joke in the hall.)

I held on to my tears, seeing your face in those jolts, and your cries in that woman. I saw your humanity, and your anguish, and the god awful cruelty of this world.

Closing my eyes to fall asleep, I saw you. You lying on that table with electrodes attached to your head. Fighting, resisting, or lying peacefully, I know that it doesn’t matter.

It would all have happened anyway.

-----------------------------

The years went by and I lost you. I had to grow up, and others said you were not fit.

I learned and learned and learned, and loved you all the while.

I learned enough to fight for you. Tackling county, state and country, I fought. I used every tool I had—I fought with my mind, my teeth, my claws, and my tears to give you peace.

And I lost.

I lost.

I ended up losing so many times that I lost myself.

-----------------------------

Now I close my eyes, and I see you walking--

Alone, you are in the bitter cold snow, with no loving arm around you.

Shadow smile, your death will never stop haunting me.

(As your life hurt us both.)

Sparking (A poem)

2012-01-06T21:23:00.001-08:00

Some days

the shadows eclipse the light of the soul

that like a lantern, like a prism, must keep shining out

Sparking, a lighter with no flame.

I am the light of the world.

The smell of burnt hair reminds me of my ancestors.

Witches and witchhunters all.

Today, I read about a strange math puzzle, where 1=one, but nothing is greater than 3.

But, in my eyes, 1 can never equal one, because by viewing it, it's doubled, and by saying it, it's tripled. It's like 1 = infinity.

I am obviously no mathematician.

Burnt hair, burnt smells, acrid smoke, Fatena A., with burns all over her body.

My foster sister once. She was crazy about tennis.

I am crazy with grief.

As a child, I could always see a concentration camp when I closed my eyes.

I could see numbers on my skin, and hungry people. I remember, with a memory that never happened, being trapped in a train with too many people, and no hands to hold.

Maybe we all have memories that never happened.

There is a primitive satisfaction in tearing meat off a bone. Not cutting it up, or gently eating it, tearing it off with your teeth, quickly and fiercely. It's what lovemaking should be. Honest. Direct. Primal.

Hungry.

Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs shaped my early reading, with Sylvia Plath joining in somewhere in my 20's. A teenager reading Burroughs was eye-opening, thrilling.

That's a man who knows how to tear meat off a bone.

Sylvia's jar and Sylvia's oven still hurts me. She was my mother, and I am her. We are all crazy, all smart, all wicked, and all funny. And all 3 of us are partly dead. As for Jack?

Well, you know Jack.

Most of my writing classes were pretentious. "That's a poem." "That's not a poem."

I always got A's. Apparently I could pretend a poem.

All these words about me, all these thoughts about me, they entangle me up, because I have no daughter. No Freida to my Sylvia, as I was to my mother.

Freida and I are on a level most can't fathom. I'll never meet her, but we're sister souls.

With no Ted.

I had a Ted once. He threw me away.

I still love you. My father. My daddy.

You asshole.

Where are these thoughts leading? Where is this poem leading?

It's leading to this.

This.

But Rose, You're Not a Poet Laureate....

2012-01-06T21:21:00.001-08:00

Not yet, but I'm working on it!