Ghosts

For Bjorn’s prompt at Real Toads.  He asks us to flashback to a time and place in our memories.  Smells, songs, words will all take us there.  Thank you for the interesting prompt! 15 lines on the 15th in Honor of Shay Fireblossom, a true poet and friend.

Ghosts
“Ghosts don’t haunt us. That’s not how it works. They’re present among us because we won’t let go of them.” ― Sue Grafton, M is for Malice

The sign said, Pansies for Sale.
I closed my eyes and remembered
pansy eyes.
I am surrounded by ghosts.
I remember lovers, chefs, drugs, family.
Mostly I remember the pansy brown eyes
of my grandmother dying from bone cancer,
my mother’s pansy brown eyes
as she lay dying from the effects
of dementia and heart failure.
Even in winter I remember that perfect June day.
She closed those wilted pansies
for the last time.
I remember that perfect June day
not long after she died of your dying by your own hand.

 

At the Beach

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse Blogspot

 

At the Beach
“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.” Henry Beston

We sat on beach towels on the sand
watching the waves and gulls,
cooled by the breeze.
I held the shell I had found on the beach
just an hour ago.
I held it up to my ear and said,
Mama, I can hear the ocean!
She grinned.
But of course you can!
She took a sip of her iced tea
from the thermos.
I sat in front of the ocean
and continued to listen to the ocean
through my shell.

Lilacs

Lilacs
“We are ghosts in Victorian gowns, lilac apparitions with parasols…” Simone Muench

lilacs droop in the rain.
their scent mingles with the scents of honeysuckle.
I remember the lilacs in the garden of our family’s home,
stretching up to just beneath the
third floor windows.
I used to hang out of those windows
touching the tips of the blooms
bringing my hand up to my nose.
lilacs in the moonlight –
intoxicating to a child –
intoxicating to an adult.
I remember those lilacs
dancing in the soft May breezes.
I remember those lilacs
scenting the rooms of that house
like the ghosts of young girls
drifting past luring you to follow,
to dance with them in the moonlight.
I remember those lilacs.

 

 

Haibun: Neighborhood Music

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse #48

Haibun: Neighborhood Music
“Time is the longest distance between two places.” Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

Mrs. Williamson was a crochety old woman. She had a thousand sets of collected salt and pepper shakers, windows hung with handmade lace, and a hand wound old Victrola up in her bedroom. Sometimes through the neighborhood you could hear the scratchy music winding through the neighborhood. “You can bring Sal she’s a real nice gal but don’t bring Lulu” or, “He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour, His whistle broke into a scream, He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle, Scalded to death by the steam”. The wreck of the Old 97 was her song when she was melancholy and sipping on sherry. Of course she died, in the midst of 1950’s rock and roll and bee bop aloo-ing whining. She left me her Victrola and half of her salt and pepper shakers because I would play with them when I visited.
summer nights seem empty
without the sound of old songs –
stars fall from the sky

Smells of Home

For Gina’s prompt at dVerse:  Comfort smells of childhood.

Smells of Home
“As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly; you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life–and travel–leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks–on your body or on your heart–are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.” Anthony Bourdain

Ivory soap – pure white and floating.
My mother scrubbing me clean and later
Mme scrubbing myself clean.
My father shaving off bits with his pocket knife
and putting into a bowl of water to melt
and then blowing soap bubbles.

Fresh laundry – the smell of sun
and later starch, ironed and fresh.
Diving onto the bed and rolling from one side
to the other – reveling in the clean crisp scent.

My grandmother’s lipstick and face powder,
my father’s Old Spice,
my mother’s clean fresh smell
as she came in from the outside.

Smells of cooking fresh green beans,
frying chicken, freshly baked bread,
freshly squeezed lemon juice into the
pitcher of sweet tea,
the fresh coconut cake, the scent
of tomatoes fresh from the vine.

Cedar and pine for Christmas,
oranges and cloves.
Carnations spicy and rich for Valentine’s day
and magnolias in a crystal punch bowl,
roses and honeysuckle and newly mown grass
In the summer.

Smells of childhood take me back to happy times.
Smells to remind me the dead are always with us.

Long ago rooms

Day 11 of NAPOWRIMO….the prompt at Real Toads is to use the phrase “long ago rooms” from a Maya Angelou poem and to use 12 or less lines to write the poem.  #30 in 30.

Long Ago Rooms
Through open windows drifts the scents
of honeysuckle gardenia magnolia –
Books are covered with dust
And unread – memories sleep
in these long ago rooms.
Childhood has become old age
laughter has been stilled –
the night lasts forever.

dVerse Poetics: Recipe Poems

Today, Mish is our prompt giver for the Poetics section of our Pub. She is asking us, in spirit of the Season, to give us recipe poems – but not just recipe for food, recipes for solitude, disaster, happiness, peace, war, well being, love, etc. The recipe is my Grandmother’s recipe for old fashioned tea cakes and in the pic, is also her original enameled wooden rolling pin she used when baking over 90 years ago. My mother came to live with my husband and I about two months ago. She has Alzheimer’s and is in frail health, but she remembers these cookies!

Recipe for Memories

She looks puzzled.
Why didn’t anyone tell me I had a child?
Why didn’t mama tell me I had a child?
I sigh deeply and explain,
that when she lived in Tennessee I called
her twice daily –
That she and papa raised me.
That she never mistreated me or left me,
that I always had the best she and papa could afford.
She will nod and sometimes request to be taken to bed.
When she awakens and joins me again in the kitchen,
I mix together softened butter, eggs, vanilla, flour.
I shape and cut and put into the oven.
She sniffs the air.
I remember Mama baking these when I was a child.
I remember her rollingpin with the green handles.
Why didn’t Mama tell me I had a child?

copyright kanzensakura

The Necklace

Open link night at dVerse tonight. You can submit any one poem of your choice. Come join us. Bjorn is tending the pub all the way over in Sweden!  He has a special guest today – Sean Michael – a prisoner in the California penal system who frequently posts on dVerse.  Open Link Night #178 – Saving Grace

The Necklace
After you left I kept thinking you would return.
And because you so loved the small beauties
and the simple things, I kept the memories.
I wanted to embed them in molten glass
and string them on a fine gold chain
that you could wear under your clothes
close to your heart,
to pull the chain up and look at those simple things
and see them through my eyes that saw them without you:
the way the mist lay close to the ground
in the late autumn,
or the sound of birds the morning of the first snow.
The tiny new kittens boneless and blind
opening their pink mouths and silently hissing.
The last string of geese flying south
in the apricot dawn,
the velvet eyes of the young heifer in my friend’s barn
and the warm smell of the animals and hay,
the first tiny pink cherry blossom opening slowly
in the cold of early spring
or the ever spreading ripples in the koi pond
made by slow rain.
you never returned.
and the necklace of memories sleeps
in a small wooden box
never touched by your hand or seen by your eyes.

dVerse Quadrille Monday: Star Jars

Bjorn is pubtender today – back from hiatus!  For our Quadrille Poem – exactly 44 words not including the title – using his prompt word:  “jar”.  Great noun and verb – jars, jar, jarred, jarring – Come visit us and read!  The poems are only 44 words about jar. http://dversepoets.com/2016/08/15/quadrille-13/

Star Jars
Summer night –
Fireflies and falling stars.
By my bed
jar of fireflies – magical nightlight –
released at dawn

By my grownup bed
a jar of stars
plucked from the summer night sky –
My private galaxy,
eternal fireflies
lighting my dreams until rosy dawn.

fireflies in jar – public domain image

Haibun Monday #10 Cherry Blossoms

Monday, over at dVerse Poet’s Pub, I am behind the Bar pouring out the prompt.  Cherry blossom time is a special time in Japan.  Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, is all about family, fesitival, food, fun…from dawn to dawn, people will be out and about admiring the cherry blossoms.  At night, the trees will be strung with lights so they can be viewed at night as well as providing light for dancing, drinking…lovers!  I am using several cherry blossom haiku by Issa and Basho for the prompt.  Writers are to choose one of the haiku to begin their haibun and then end their haibun with their own nature/cherry blossom based haiku.  Come on over and read and view all the cherry blossoms provided by the various talented poets.  Bar opens at 3:00 pm EST.  Join us here all week:  http://dversepoets.com/2016/03/28/haibun-monday-hanami/

copyright kanzensakura

“How many many things
they call to mind –
these cherry blossoms” Basho

As is my annual habit, I checked the cherry blossom blooming forecast for Japan.  This year, they are blooming early – both in Japan and here in the United States.  Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom festival) is always a bittersweet time for me.  Many memories tied to cherry blossoms:  dancing at night beneath lighted trees, hearing the laughter of other dancers and lovers, wandering beneath their beauty during the day – my breath taken away by their beauty, sakura ice cream, stealing kisses in the midst of a cherry blossom snow, the first blooming of sakura after he went away, standing in the rain and seeing the petals driven into the earth around the trees – like tiny headstones for the graves of tears.

I still feel some of that sadness but remember when I began again to feel anticipation of and joy in their blooming.  The sadness is the mono no aware felt during this season for their quickly passing beauty – deep pink blooms against an azure sky or pure white blooms like earthbound clouds.  Yesterday I strolled under the cherry trees and smiled at lovers and danced to music of Japanese style bands, introduced my husband to a typical hanami picnic lunch.  His eyes as blue as the sky took in all the sights, sounds, and smells of his first sakura matsuri.  Joy and peace at being again in love with the cherry blossoms in spite of their beautiful brevity.  Hand holding and stealing kisses under the cherry trees seems to be eternal as Fuji – it is comforting to know some things do not change with time.  And that which was thought lost is found again.

cherry blossoms dance
in spring breeze – song of birds
like temple bells.

copyright kanzensakura

 

No Return

Today Ahbra is in charge of Poetics at dVerse. He wants us to write about returning – perhaps. I feel you have memories, good or bad but you can neither go back nor come back. Come join us for this interesting prompt and all the takes on “What would I be if I could come back” or going back to a time or place. I’m in a cynical mood today! http://dversepoets.com/2016/02/02/poetics-coming-back/   The poetic form is the Bussokuseki. –

public domain of old southern home

No Return
streets are smaller and
trees are fewer – someone else
lives in the homeplace –
all is faded into mists –
the past has passed no return –
look forward angel to now –

Summer Love

A second poem for Kelly’s wonderful poetics on Smell. Come visit!  http://dversepoets.com/2016/01/05/scents-that-linger/

Summer Love
hot summer night – room full
of locals dancing to a country band
and now they are playing a waltz.
Sweet peach of a man/boy
you glided across the floor and asked me,
Want to dance?
Oh yes!
Your arm around my waist
and you against me guiding me around
and in and out of other dancers,
swaying, sliding, feet making that
swooshswoosh sound against the
rough boards.
And you, sweet peach of a man/boy
and my head on your shoulder
breathing in the smell of you –
sundried cotton shirt
and Ivory soap
and the faint newly budding man-smell.
Even after all these years
these smells make my hips sway
and my lips curve into a lazy smile.
Oh yes! Sweet peach of a man/boy.

public domain free image