Poem - Ghosts On My Computer Screen

Inspired by the contributors to Illogical Muse

They send me visions of lonesome wolves
and speak of twisted lives.
Empty pages are filled with truths
that are often hidden from human eyes.
Words that could never stand alone
come together to fulfill prophecies;
rendering me breathless and amazed
by someone else's atrocities.
Here among these shattered dreams
I will sometimes find threads of hope
that entwine and repair the frayed
fabric of an emotional rope.
They reach out to me
with words I never thought to say,
and bring a little excitement
to an otherwise boring day.
Their voices are unheard,
and they are never seen,
but their hearts are represented
by the ghosts on my computer screen.


Published at PoetsHaven.com Spring 2007

Muscovy Duck

Poem - The Man In The Corner

© 2005

The man in the corner
Is drinking his coffee
He looks in my direction
But sees right through me
He’s getting nervous now
There are so many people here
He thinks he can’t do it

The girl behind the counter
The woman tending to her baby
This crowd of people
Never noticed him leave for the bathroom
We never knew how long he was gone

Before the man in the corner
Became the man in the body bag
He got what he wanted
Everyone noticed him
No one will ever forget

The man in the corner

Published in Children, Churches & Daddies March 2008

Article - Adventures In Cat Rescuing

© June 14, 2010

Being an animal lover with pet allergies isn’t easy and that’s why I turned to stray cats for companionship. I spent the majority of my childhood giving abandoned and unwanted cats a new lease on life. They had food, water, toys, and a place to sleep; yet they were free to prowl the streets and do whatever it is that cats do when their humans are not around. There was, Tigger, Junior, Squeaky, Smoke, Dusty, Curtis, Harvey, Blacky, and several others who weren’t around long enough to name. The most memorable, however, was Fritz.

Fritz was a pampered orange and white tabby who adjusted well to life on the street. Rumor was that he had once belonged to an elderly lady. No one else in the family wanted him so when she passed away Fritz was abandoned. He found his way to my house and that’s where he stayed until his death eight years later.

In that time, Fritz and I shared a special bond. There were others he went to for food and attention but he always came back to me. Perhaps it was because we had much in common. He also rescued abandoned cats. Junior and Squeaky were kittens that had followed him home. I believed he went back to the cats he mated with to check on his offspring and if there was a kitten being neglected by the mother he brought it to me. This made him even more unique than he already was. Most male cats will either ignore a litter of kittens or kill them so the female will go into heat again. Fritz, on the other hand, played babysitter while the mother was away.

Two weeks after his death on July 23, 2003 I took in two kittens from a neighbor who no longer wanted them. I named them Smoke and Dusty because of their gray fur. They were extremely wild for house cats and after a battle over who was going to sleep by my head and who was going to sleep by my feet Dusty ran off and never came back. I don’t remember how long it was before Smoke contracted distemper but I believe it was about two years. She died shortly after her second litter of kittens, of which I kept one. I named him Naraku, after a Japanese Anime character.

Naraku loved to chase shiny objects, sleep in boxes, and bring live rabbits into the house. I think his favorite thing to do was bury himself in a snow bank and lay in wait for an unsuspecting victim to walk by and attack an ankle. He had a wild streak just like his mother, but he was the best pet I had had since Fritz. Although he never brought stray kittens home, he did allow another cat into his territory once.

Tigger was a severely abused orange tabby. I never found out what exactly was done to him who did it but the evidence was there. The back of his spine and his hips were crooked and riddled with arthritis. The abuse was also noticeable by how he shrank away when I would try to pet him. That particular habit disappeared as he came to realize no one was going to hurt him anymore. His habit of urinating on everything, however, did not. I didn’t know that his kidneys were failing him until it was too late to do anything about it. It wasn’t long before it consumed him and I just hope he found solace in the final days of his life.

Now, I only have one cat; another orange tabby named Mercury. She’s been a pampered house cat most of her life, ever since she was rescued as a kitten by a friend of mine. Mercury lived with her but, as my friend is approaching her golden years, the responsibilities of a pet were tiring her out and so she gave the cat to me two years ago. Mercury is now fifteen and the way things look she may very well live to be twenty.

I don’t know if the love and passion I developed for rescuing cats was always there or has developed after spending so much time in their company. I do know it’s something I will continue to do. I’ve also found that I’ve owned so many cats over the last seventeen years that I think my pet allergy gradually wore off.

Review - The Lost American

The Lost American: From Freedom To Exile
By Michael Lee Johnson
iUniverse
ISBN: 0-595-46091-7
$13.95

When I first began reading Michael Lee Johnson’s The Lost American: From Freedom To Exile, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve read several of his poems in the past and our styles and experiences are greatly varied. There is a whole generation between us and our backgrounds haven’t that much in common. For these reasons I was – at first – skeptical. But this book – containing 87 poems divided into 4 sections – opens with a richly painted biographical poem titled, “Skinny Indiana Boy.”

With a heart as big as Texas
or Alberta where he came from
the draft resister tries to erase
the memory of his sordid past . . .

The imagery alone is breathtaking . . .

. . . coming out of the Rockies
down over the slate, out of self imposed exile,
he leaves the northland shaking his bandaged fists at the prairie sky . . .

But when the author mixes it with raw emotion . . .

The night looked long in his deep green eyes
robbing his faint life away
The scream of loneliness has turned
his innards inside out to pity . . .

It creates a stirring piece, making it the perfect opening poem.

Several pages later the emotions are more deeply felt by this reader in a poem dedicated to the author’s mother titled, “Speaking Of Death – Mother.”

. . . I come to you
blurred eyes, crystal mind
countenance of grace
as yesterday’s winds
I have consumed you
and taken you away . . .

There is a gentleness to this poem as it takes one through the pain, grief and acceptance of the death of a loved one.

As I continued reading, delving deeper into the context of The Lost American, one thing became clear – Mr. Johnson is very dedicated to his craft. Having revised and refined poems written as far back as the sixties to create this book. This book that was forty plus years in the making.

“I felt proud,” beamed the Indiana-born poet during our recent interview. “I was surprised that it turned out to be a poetry book since I expected it to take the form of a narrative novel or biography.”

This book is a must have for anyone who struggled during the Vietnam Era. Because as the Prelude states, The Lost American is about one man’s journey into exile during the Vietnam War many years ago, his struggle, his survival, his road to recovery and strength manifesting itself through his prose and poems. From the simplest of love poems and lyrics, to the more complex, exposing his inner self – he stands firm with his convictions over time!

Poem - The Mummy

© 2005

The creature awakened from his eternal sleep
Bringing with him the ten plagues of hell
Causing tears of fear and panic to weep
As all of Egypt fell under his spell
Searching for the love that he held dear
This walking corpse became the living's worst fear

The treasure hunters---they came, they saw
Unfortunate they wouldn't live to tell
They fell victim to the undead maw
As it devoured the life force with in their cells
Not even the Egyptologist could survive
Nor the "superstitious bastard" that served as their guide

In time the monster would become unstoppable
With the ultimate control of the sands
With his beloved by his side, he'd be all-powerful
Ruling wickedly over every land
Only three could bring this torrent to an end
Two British folk and their Yankee friend

The Book of Amun-Ra they did require
As it was, lost inside the mummy's tomb
Within the statue of Horace laid their desire
'Tis the fate of the world---saved or doomed?
But before they could take what they were after
The beautiful librarian was under capture

The heroic deed now left to the men
A brother, a lover, along with the Magi
Could this battle they possibly win
Or be forever lost in the sands of time
Quickly, you brave fools! onward to Hamunaptra
For there will play the finale to this desert opera

Scripted in the Book of Amun-Ra they must use
An incantation to steal the mummy's immortality
"Kadeesh mal, kadeesh mal! Pared oos, Pared oos!"
'Fore O'Connell can deliver a righteous fatality
Thus, an ordeal they will not soon be forgetting
For death . . . is only the beginning

Review - A Tiara For The Twentieth Century

A Tiara for the Twentieth Century
By Suzanne Richardson Harvey
Fithian Press
ISBN: 978-1-56474-489-0
$14.00

Suzanne Harvey writes words that embrace the reader, at times with a gentle hug and at others like a vice grip. The emotional detail and grittiness of her poetry will leave readers nodding their heads in agreement. She is a true writer, meaning she uses her life experiences to write poetry many can relate to; as can be seen in this excerpt from “Sins of Omission: Remembrance for a Birthday.”

Sometimes all you remember
Are the mistakes you made
The things you didn’t do
Those small sins
Of a mother’s omission
That can wear a hole in a child’s heart

Like the time
He cried from 10 till 2
You shut the nursery door
Till all the tears dried up
You wonder if they left
Some permanent desert in the heart

One poem I particularly like is “The Velvet Garrote.” It reminds me a lot of my mother and me. It displays the lengths a daughter will go to for her ailing mother. It also shows some slight bitterness to someone else (perhaps a son?) who enjoys the finer things in life while his mother is reaching the end of hers.

I feed mother broth
Scrub out the grime between her toes
Clean her crotch
Stick a Q-tip in her ear

You’d be coasting at anchor in Sausalito right now
Or maybe dipping escargot in spinach sauce on Fisherman’s Wharf
Perhaps you’re fondling a jade Buddha in Chinatown
Or worshipping the beach at Monterey

If you have read the works of Suzanne Harvey than you already know that she has a gift for bringing skeletons out of the closet and making them stand up and be counted for with elegancy. A Tiara for the Twentieth Century is a full length collection of her poems and a must have for anyone who enjoys her poetry.

Poem - Legacy Of The Red Admiral

© 2005

He floats on a string of blue mist.
As high as his wings will take him.
Higher and higher
and higher still.
He hasn't caught on to his insignificance;
too small in a world too large.
Riding the swell,
he'll live and die with the rest.
But he will live gracefully.

Published in Westward Quarterly Spring 2006