have you ever held a slug
petted it lovingly
in the backyard
of your home
during your youth
and wiped the slime
on your jeans
only to then smear
remnants of it
on your bottom lip
finding out that the taste
of said slime
is disgusting
ah, childhood memories
*This is based on a true story. And yes, it happened to me.
Redux
Opening the lid to the past.
Joy, tears, and laughter escape.
Youthful feelings rushing back expectedly.
Playing in the past like it was yesterday.
Staying there is tempting,
in the good ‘ole days.
But were they really?
Boxed memories are nearly all good.
Who saves the crap?
Those moments slowly come back too.
Time to close the lid.
Back to reality.
Originally posted 10/25/18 on I Write Her.
I was tiny, maybe about two or three years old at most, carrying some plates to set on the table that Oma had given me. Her instructions were stern as usual, and I was scared to take them to the dining room. I walked real slow and carefully so as not to drop them.
It was my aunt’s apartment in Berlin, Germany, when it was still called “West Berlin.” It featured a large open living room and dining room. She and her husband’s veterinary practice was just beyond the double doors beside the dining area.
I remember my dress was a blue crushed velvet, with shiny buttons down the front. My white stockings are tucked into shiny black patent leather shoes with a strap across them. Even the details of the kitchen and all the other rooms are vivid in my mind. When my father was stationed in Berlin, I remember spending much time there when I was younger. It wasn’t always a happy place because my grandmother was strict. My mother and her sister also didn’t get along well; the tension was palpable.
Perhaps there are more memories yet to surface. It may explain why I’ve always felt like life didn’t start well.
criticism, shame, and pressure
weighed heavy on her innocent psyche
existence
the process of accepting more pain
impeding her maturity
life’s mistakes chosen unwisely
battles wearing her down
a breaking point
finally came
she chose to unearth her decimated being
destroying the mold of generations
retrieving and reclaiming her true self
way past due
HOW TO KNOW YOU’RE HERE
It’s where water and reeds
go dark together,
a frog sends word
via deep-throated bloop.
Where a solitary hill,
just by being in the way,
extinguishes the sun.
Where cricket chirr
is the last sound
the wildflowers hear for the night
Where fading light,
gives way to slate sky,
and white sparkle
on the backs of the deer.
Stay put
if these apply.
THE DYING ART
Was I the only boy
who, on rainy days,
made a paper boat
out of yesterday’s newspaper,
launched my vessel
in the gutter
at the top of the hill,
then ran alongside its maiden voyage,
as it rode high on slimy water
a hundred yards or more
before that final swerve,
into the drain hole,
and the plummet out of sight?
I’ve been in plenty of company
but I’ve not heard it mentioned.
Please, go fold your own schooner,
cast off and ride shotgun,
or childhood dies with me.
IN THE CATSKILLS
The mountains are not going anywhere
and yet why do I watch them, not just in awe,
but for conformation.
And why are you beside me,
on this chair cut from oak,
wedged safely in rock at this overlook,
with the Catskills stretching before us,
so many peaks, so many names,
the landscape entrusted to their granite,
their greenery, streams etched into the dips,
waterfalls dispensing winter snows,
and the occasional shadow-rippled lake
to draw in the wildlife with a siren’s
silent song that echoes from a glacial age.
We too are staying put, our belief
in each other just as grounded and an occasional
glimpse presenting itself to a glance returned,
a skim that barely realizes the depths it encounters:
love, that fish that thinks it’s a dragonfly.
Sun’s setting now, stripping some of the scenery
away from us, so it’s time to leave before
the chill, the blankness, stake their claim
for sense and scenery. It’s a slow walk back to the hotel.
Direction would be darkness if we weren’t the lamplights.
POETRY HELPLINE
When sorrow needs words,
I am at your disposal.
I do pain, heartbreak,
diseases of the body,
mind and soul,
and the only charge
is that you read what
I write when I’m done.
I also do
love and happiness,
but rarely.
For that’s when
poetry about something
can’t compete
with that something.
People seldom come
to me for joy.
ONE OF A KIND
Sun fades
on granite ridge.
Shadow celebrates
the last rites
of rock and pool.
Trees fuse together,
become shape.
Half-blinded hills
close the other eye.
I look out from the veranda,
take kindly to the grayness,
the tamped horizon fires.
Birds roost, bats emerge,
my mind retreats
from spectacle to musings.
The moon’s let loose.
Sky breaks out in stars.
I’m under no pressure
to go in.
In so few places,
can I be
one of a kind.
THE GUY WHO VENTED
He poured out his heart
and many listened in.
Despite the alcohol,
the man’s emotions were genuine.
And they found doleful
but vigorous expression.
He talked of a departed loved one,
though whether dead or just moved on,
he never did make clear.
And it could have happened yesterday
or a quarter of a century ago.
Whatever the combination,
it had all been too much for him.
He told, in great detail,
the elements of a thousand dreams,
except they were all the same dream –
that he and she,
whoever she was,
be reunited again.
He must have found some relief
in the telling
because he went on and on about it
and, as long as the passion was there,
he had an audience.
He got it all out.
He got it all out a second time.
But then he started to fatigue.
He began to waver,
looked likely to totter
and fall any moment.
He went out looking for a little sanity.
He found a couple of guys
willing to help him into a cab.
~~~
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and International Poetry Review. John’s work was first featured on The Short of It on July 17, 2020, and again on December 31, 2020. He had several pieces selected and published in The Sound of Brilliance.
Submissions are now closed but if you’d like to be featured on The Short of It in the future,
click here for the submissions guidelines.
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A powerful read for anyone with a dysfunctional childhood, definitely one for me.
Father used his fists a lot Though never on the kids On the walls and the furniture and the doors and the mailbox and the fence and the neighbors and random people on the street and strangers in the bar and a few times the poor dog and one time on mother He was the childhood’s villain To defeat him one had to become a hero and becoming a hero took time And today after all this time the villain of childhood was dead He died at the hands of some other character, a neutral one A cop who told him to drop to the ground and father didn’t so he got shot That was it The end of his saga Utterly unsatisfactory anticlimactic disappointing just bad There was no final showdown between hero and villain because those things only happen in childhood and childhood had ended a long time…
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Another exceptional piece by Candice! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 🙂
~~~~~~~~~~
June 14, 2021 The Feathered Sleep
All those little malices
By all means ignore me
or dissect me
it seems a parody of contrasts
is my lot
the interplay of intensity and nothingness
for you who climb out of the woodwork and carve my freedom on your belt
you who look away after one glance and do not consult your back mirror
the gaze of this world exhausts me
I want to wade into the deeps and swim off
away from the noise of competition, egos, alarm clocks and paleo diets
to something resembling peace
then
that fissured part of my soul
fractured by time, strife and the religion of need
surfaces breathless
and sighting land, swims back
filled with a longing to be heard, touched, ratified
by those mercuried, humid hands of humans
the lovers, the haters, the players
I can’t pretend to keep up
I am tired beyond my years
trying to understand what makes people break others
why our penchant for destruction, lying and vilifying
is the healthiest hothouse flower of them all
as much as I want to climb inside silence and stay still
my ear pressed to a shell
listening to a fantasy world
I know now, as I am no longer a child
that wonderlust is only for the very young
who inhabit it with such unbridled glee
that we adults stop what we are doing, however important
and watch with indulgent smiles;
as wet and laughing
they dash through sprinklers
shouting
“The dragon got you! Get to the Faraway Tree!”
in that moment, I wish we could recall
what potion we drank to enable us to believe
such kind places ever existed
where, like glossy rubber boots we left at the doorway
all those little malices would fall off
and not muddy the floor
our family rich with morbidities
of the mind, body, and soul
wondering which fate awaits me
inviting the punishment
for perceived past misdeeds
a self-flagellation of sorts
abuse hammered in
nailed to my psyche
hard to escape, even after years
wrenching free is the only hope
Inspired by VJ’s Weekly Challenge – The Chase & Sadje’s – What do you see #77
the gleeful children
with imaginative friends
had the fairies dancing around them
laughing without care
and the sunlight fading into dark
the young minds began the chase
with enthusiasm and joy
one by one
little lights filled the jar
held brightly captive
these grantors of wishes
small eyes closed into slumber
it was plain to see, flying like a plane off her wooden stilts
there would be blood
there was no pain as the broken window pane sliced down beside her left eye
so much blood discombobulated her mother
tears took center stage, not the white t-shirt now stained dark red
the hysteria in the background so oscar worthy
a little girl watching the performance
not knowing yet there were deeper wounds created
years passed before mom and her chronic attention-whoring
got that so richly deserved smack-down
the girl, now a woman, didn’t clap, fawn or adore anymore
she just walked away
I Write Her 