THE QUILT
(for Meri Walker)
You make it using
materials from all your old garments
Clothes that you have worn
for weddings, vacations, births and deaths
all the best days of your life and all the worst
When you give the gift, your friend says
“Thank you, this is perfect
it is sometimes very cold
where I am living at present
and this will get me through the winter”
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THAT SAME OLD GARDEN
A lover sheds the skin of loving her
Bullsnake of fear blunt at both ends
poisoning without venom
as it crawls away
The snake of herself biting herself
as she watches
BUDS
At the age of three or four
her bike hit a sharp ditch
pitched her into a fence
and broke her jaw
The tooth buds were damaged
and never grew in right
At about the same age
something else happened
She can’t remember just what
the family wouldn’t listen then
and the family won’t talk now
But the trust buds were damaged
and never grew in right
HANGUPS
She had the greatest voice on the phone
someone once said “a girl like that
should carry a phone with her everywhere”
I fell in love with the voice
the voice on the phone
and thought it was her
Someone gave her some of my poems
she fell in love with the poems
and thought it was me
The story doesn’t end there of course
and perhaps it would not have gone
so quickly great, good, bad, worse
If she had stayed on the phone
and I had stayed in my verse
A SHAME
It’s a shame that my shame
looks for someone to blame
It’s a shame that my shame
won’t be called by it’s name
It’s a shame that my shame
will kill to reframe
It’s a that my shame
can’t see through the game
Where my shame and your shame
are so much the same
SONG OF MY FATHER’S SONG
I am the end of a long line
and the music plays in my head
feeling the need to sing the songs
of the silent living and the silent dead
To somehow feel and heal each one
right down to my grandfather’s son
To sing the songs of a slow gray man
who runs and runs till out of breath
chased yet by the swift dark wolves
of a long ago young mother’s death
With all the tender sores and songs
and all the stories he needed to tell
cauterized by a hard world’s fires
and the scabs on a private hell
And the part of him that I can’t touch
is the part of me that I can’t touch
the part of me I need so much
God help me to reach that note
God help me to clear my throat
BONDING PATTERNS
Although it may not be apparent to you
the non apparent parent in you
is more than apparent to me
Although to be perfectly fair
it’s not likely I’ll mess with a hair
as long as it’s taking good care
But when it gets too big for its thighs
when it starts to guilt and to criticize
Something will change in the blink of our eyes
and it’ll be fighting with someone its size
Even though it may not be apparent to me
I’m gonna go running to the parent in me
If I tell my dad he’ll have something to say
and
if I tell my mom there’ll be hell to pay
TRUTH TO TELL
It is well to learn
the lies we learned to tell
will not make us well
MARILYN FOREVER
Many men
may pray to Mary
but many more to Marilyn
With Marilyn
on calendar or window sill
time stands still and always will
It is Marilyn
who always forgives
even when we forget to pray
It is Marilyn
who know that we are all Misfits
too fragile for the roles we are asked to play
HOPE FLOWERS
In Bethlehem
a refugee with sadness but no hate decreed
another generation is what we need
And a school where
the children of the refugees of holocausts and
refugees of refugees can learn together
learn to look inward first
This is a most beautiful and special place
with such regard for dignity and respect
so successful in their message of love
so filled with fairness to each side
That Arafat’s Palestinians burn their busses
and Israelis torture teachers and riddle walls
While Caterpillars sent from across the sea
creep closer each day in their wonderful
mindless mechanical way
with levelling intent
To be met with Gandhi smiles
and your help, if you give it
Hope Flowers School – Bethlehem