poem – Page 37 – Press Send Poetry

i refuse to cut my hair

i refuse
to cut my hair
like Crosby Stills & Nash

i refuse
to bend and twist and
let the scissors close

leave it be-
this tangled nest, a waving
mass curled up by the sea

it is a
culmination of days,
of a lost youth splitting ends

hi all – I felt like featuring some poems from my great-grandmother’s earliest text – Silver Threads (Alice B. Johnson, Layren Press: 1938). This one goes out to my cousin tonight. i love this poem (and hope you read it someday JRB)

Forget the Past

“Forget the past,”
A small voice said,
“Bury it deeper
Than the dead.

Bury it deeper
Than the dead,
A ghost of fear
Might raise its head.

Shades of remorse
Regret has fed,
Bury them deeper
Than the dead.”

“Forget the past,
The past is dead,
To-day is yours!”
The small voice said.

a welcome home of sorts….

wheels rolling fast towards home —
FREE STATE STEEL
stands in its stoic capital letters all lit up
and Peterbilt’s giving a smile
(perhaps a smirk) and
the logical lines of the plant that has no name
its horizontal pipes
leading the way

white smoke casually glances
and the piles piles piles of decay
or construction
give a deep bow

and in a near distance
the Natty Boh man
beckons with a neon
towering
wink.

[author’s note on this: for better or worse, baltimore always has that knowing, that good natured ability to look at itself and take it all in with a slight* chip on the shoulder]

untitled [pale hands]

watching the color drain
as the fall slips a sulking hand
into winter’s firm grip and follows
until my skin pales around
veins blue, icing up
the backs of my hands and wrist —
it is the blood leaving the heart.

to the antiques roadshow — haiku

that basement dweller
dusty, all that time, all those
stories….spotlight waits.

hanging in Calvert Hall (a ghost story from St. Mary’s College of MD)

when leaves die
undignified on the lawn,
winds howl laments
that curl the building
in a straightjacket
when the halls empty
of sound, those kids
off in costume to party
in blissful ignorance
when the moon shrouds
itself with funeral gauze and lace
she paces the halls
without footsteps
she moans
the eternal attire of a noose
its comforting burn
and the swing swing
of mortal troubles living with
damning persistence.

cemetaries dressed in their fall finest

cemetaries dressed in
their fall finest —
orange tafetta red bows
draped in yellow satin
— headstones primp while
their stone angels admire
and smooth the dressings
with a soft ghost hand.

the dance begins
and for a season
cemetaries
feel the flutter of
a young girl’s anticipation
and take a break from
supine rest.

watching volleyball, remembering

stands empty yet
how the court shines.

the net doesn’t quiver yet
i can feel the sting from one
huge kill.

hear the squeak from shoes
in a quick back slide

[currently watching TX vs. NEB in set 3, women’s volleyball, wanting to be out there sooo bad]

cab in Tampa

then i’m in a cab in Tampa
and the woman
says that in Christmas they camp
and one year
the cold kept them in the van
with homemade stew
and strings of cranberries

outside the palm trees
snuggle with the humidity
and again the woman says
she’s been driving for 25 years and
when she turns 50
the theme of the party will be
life is highway

aren’t we all just another fare,
another green light to
leave behind.

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