Wineberries and River Hoppers
Packets of tart red orange
Explode crisply on our tongues
Instantly, pricks and scratches from thorns and brush
Encountered by the Wineberry Patrol
Melt in our mouths
A body away
Uniforms and badges sloughed
The Wineberry Patrol claims its booty
Clear our palate with rainwater.
The younger officer seven years wise
Perceives the thicket as a prize
Long before it yields its reward.
The older, seven times seven
Scars of hiking the single seven
When five when three when one
Wades through mud and brambles,
The Patrol Auxiliary cradled in the rearmost arm.
Long past the point of satiation
We pick our harvest clean
Three sets of footprints clasping
The footholds in the rock
Two sets hard, three sets easy
The waterfall awaits.
There one dives, one quakes, one comforts
The craggy pond extends its cold invitation
A ledge guards an ankle deep habitat.
There a sudden flash of silver
Casts forward from a tiny cave.
Freed from mossy boughs they
Leap to the surface with supple tail fins
The young patrolman flinches giggling.
Gathering our clothes our shoes I
Walk on snow barefoot in my mind
Berry scratches never penetrated the
Piercing tang of the sweet
Month
Of custody
I relive the memories in the snow wind
My toes still in mud
The bronze of my children still radiant
Radiant
July 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
David Garcia or Garica
If this poet is David Garica, I'll find him. If he's David Garcia, hopefully he'll recognize his poem and find me. I gave it a ten on poetry.com:
A gray cover,
eternally,
grows in the sky.
Swallowing,
growing.
Bringing cold times.
A dark void,
keeps spreading inside.
Consuming, freezing, me.
Making me feel alone,
inside.
And you just stand there,
watching,
my hope,
fall,
frozen,
as snow.
Copyright ©2009 David Garica
David, you can write, dude!
A gray cover,
eternally,
grows in the sky.
Swallowing,
growing.
Bringing cold times.
A dark void,
keeps spreading inside.
Consuming, freezing, me.
Making me feel alone,
inside.
And you just stand there,
watching,
my hope,
fall,
frozen,
as snow.
Copyright ©2009 David Garica
David, you can write, dude!
Bookmark
Have you ever stepped
Over a moment, through a footprint
In and out of thought
Imagining a lens shuttering
The feeling frozen in the skin of
Your foot pads, locked in shale or
Sand, sea or sidewalk?
Touching time with your toes
Knees flexing into memory
Bouncing onward in fluid stop-time?
I wink at this sensation
Capturing it as a bookmark in a novel
A screen shot in the hologram of life
Over a moment, through a footprint
In and out of thought
Imagining a lens shuttering
The feeling frozen in the skin of
Your foot pads, locked in shale or
Sand, sea or sidewalk?
Touching time with your toes
Knees flexing into memory
Bouncing onward in fluid stop-time?
I wink at this sensation
Capturing it as a bookmark in a novel
A screen shot in the hologram of life
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Random ruminations on a road trip
Sorry all zero people who follow me, but this isn't a poem...
Having returned from my brother and sister-in-law's 20th anniversary, on a trip that as my sister-in-law put it, ate up 80% of my bank account (not to mention triggering a huge fibromyalgia attack, which led to an Ambien OD, sleepwalking, a broken antique table, and multiple minor injuries to Yours Truly)...
Traveling with my children refreshes my spirit much more than it taxes me. I'm not sure if this is because of my age (49) or despite it. I know being in good shape helps, but I am here to tell myself that I am in bad spiritual shape. It's REALLY been a bad year to be me, but the experiences of not having the money left to eat properly after doing what I need to do (plus a fraction of what I want to do) for my kids. I am defensive, jumpy and anxious all the time. There will be a poem going on about the serpent of my chakras getting lost and trying to digest my sternum instead of energizing my crown.
My son (see "Tall Tales for Small People") reflects on things that happen as just happening, and uses surprisingly little of it, so far, as emotional buckshot to fire when ready. One of those rare occurrences hit more like an RPG. We were all tired and increasingly cranky as the train sat in New London, as we call it, "buffering". A video that you try to "stream," that is play on your computer in real time, has an annoying habit of pausing in the worst places for the signal to get ahead of the play track and enter your RAM (not the truck or the sheep). This pausing , a video liminality between prehension and experience (sorry, dudes, I do have a master's degree) is called "buffering." So whenever we get in an experience where something by all rights should be happening, we call it buffering. So we were buffering in New London, and my son talks about wanting me to buy him dinner. Frustrated, I replied, "We've eaten everything I packed, and besides, do you see a restaurant or a fast food outlet anywhere around here?" He shot back, "Hello, ever heard of a cafe car?" with more than a bit of irritation in his not quite eight year old voice.
That missile scored a direct hit. But nothing like it occurred the rest of the trip, and I do not believe that he will tell my ex about the sleepwalking. Why? Part of it is his emotional excellence, part of it is knowing that he is not to insert himself between the feuding parties. He is a fan of Ben10 games, and unterstands being caught in a crossfire between a cryptid and a DNAlien. Mostly it's a blessing from God Herself.
Little girl story: she kept going up to everyone at the anniversary party, saying, "My Daddy!" The pride in me and the adoration in her eyes and voice impressed everyone, and will probably create a follow up to "To Be".
Department of Senseless Beauty: one of my son's best friends boarded with us, along with his brother, two sisters, and both parents. The two 8-year-olds actually read The Star Trek Chronology for about 40 minutes! That family was off to a hiking and camping trip in Oregon. See (Dang! I forgot the title, and I posted it only six days ago).
So there is joy wound up with fear, and parent-child bliss sharing a foxhole with panic. I know that if I just invited Mara to tea, some of this would dissipate. Thank God for Lyrica...
Having returned from my brother and sister-in-law's 20th anniversary, on a trip that as my sister-in-law put it, ate up 80% of my bank account (not to mention triggering a huge fibromyalgia attack, which led to an Ambien OD, sleepwalking, a broken antique table, and multiple minor injuries to Yours Truly)...
Traveling with my children refreshes my spirit much more than it taxes me. I'm not sure if this is because of my age (49) or despite it. I know being in good shape helps, but I am here to tell myself that I am in bad spiritual shape. It's REALLY been a bad year to be me, but the experiences of not having the money left to eat properly after doing what I need to do (plus a fraction of what I want to do) for my kids. I am defensive, jumpy and anxious all the time. There will be a poem going on about the serpent of my chakras getting lost and trying to digest my sternum instead of energizing my crown.
My son (see "Tall Tales for Small People") reflects on things that happen as just happening, and uses surprisingly little of it, so far, as emotional buckshot to fire when ready. One of those rare occurrences hit more like an RPG. We were all tired and increasingly cranky as the train sat in New London, as we call it, "buffering". A video that you try to "stream," that is play on your computer in real time, has an annoying habit of pausing in the worst places for the signal to get ahead of the play track and enter your RAM (not the truck or the sheep). This pausing , a video liminality between prehension and experience (sorry, dudes, I do have a master's degree) is called "buffering." So whenever we get in an experience where something by all rights should be happening, we call it buffering. So we were buffering in New London, and my son talks about wanting me to buy him dinner. Frustrated, I replied, "We've eaten everything I packed, and besides, do you see a restaurant or a fast food outlet anywhere around here?" He shot back, "Hello, ever heard of a cafe car?" with more than a bit of irritation in his not quite eight year old voice.
That missile scored a direct hit. But nothing like it occurred the rest of the trip, and I do not believe that he will tell my ex about the sleepwalking. Why? Part of it is his emotional excellence, part of it is knowing that he is not to insert himself between the feuding parties. He is a fan of Ben10 games, and unterstands being caught in a crossfire between a cryptid and a DNAlien. Mostly it's a blessing from God Herself.
Little girl story: she kept going up to everyone at the anniversary party, saying, "My Daddy!" The pride in me and the adoration in her eyes and voice impressed everyone, and will probably create a follow up to "To Be".
Department of Senseless Beauty: one of my son's best friends boarded with us, along with his brother, two sisters, and both parents. The two 8-year-olds actually read The Star Trek Chronology for about 40 minutes! That family was off to a hiking and camping trip in Oregon. See (Dang! I forgot the title, and I posted it only six days ago).
So there is joy wound up with fear, and parent-child bliss sharing a foxhole with panic. I know that if I just invited Mara to tea, some of this would dissipate. Thank God for Lyrica...
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Baton
Two parents, three races, four children
Cared for each other across the train
Like ants spreading pheromones
A baton, real as if red, prodded
The red haired boy to pee
Flashing an eyelash he
Passed it to his Nubian sister, 14
Did I see her stuff that red stick in her pocket
With the Nathan's Hot Dog
She had bought in the cafe car
Mom, from West Mt. Airy by way of Ukraine
Returns the signal, along with ticket stubs
Dad, Irish and young, fist-bumps
His twelve-year-old mulatto son
Across rows and aisles and rows
A stop passes, five, the airport nears
Backpacks, trail bikes, meal bars and jugs
Sorted, passed from brown to tan to pink to brown again
The trailhead is 3500 miles away
The travel is begun
Cared for each other across the train
Like ants spreading pheromones
A baton, real as if red, prodded
The red haired boy to pee
Flashing an eyelash he
Passed it to his Nubian sister, 14
Did I see her stuff that red stick in her pocket
With the Nathan's Hot Dog
She had bought in the cafe car
Mom, from West Mt. Airy by way of Ukraine
Returns the signal, along with ticket stubs
Dad, Irish and young, fist-bumps
His twelve-year-old mulatto son
Across rows and aisles and rows
A stop passes, five, the airport nears
Backpacks, trail bikes, meal bars and jugs
Sorted, passed from brown to tan to pink to brown again
The trailhead is 3500 miles away
The travel is begun
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