Blight by Patty Paine
Newday
“It’s Thursday again” –
and I’m thinking, yeah, once a week,
but it was the tone,
OMG, what’ll we do, tone.
First, I laughed, then,
I seriously considered again’s.
Hurricane season,
Thanksgiving, Morning Joe,
dental visits, colonoscopy,
emptying the dishwasher,
great sex, BOGOs,
birthdays, of course, and Covid.
I awake again,
it’s a run-on sentence,
with not much editing,
and no punctuation.
Before, after, now, – the story
loses context without an again.
I need to move on,
maybe call it Newday,
stick it in on the weekend,
avoid cliches and further-mores,
celebrate it by toasting yesterday,
feast on a glazed roasted tomorrow
Everything
I’ve got a lot of things,
stuff I haven’t looked at in years,
jewelry, which I never wear,
and with a few exceptions, can’t identify.
Navy blue leather chair, great chair,
doesn’t face the TV, never gets sat in.
Marble top chest, heirloom armoire,
it’s all just furniture.
3 overcoats, 4 jackets, no winter in Florida.
In the corner of the office, a dozen golf clubs,
won’t make it to the bag,
haven’t been hit in decades.
I hear others discuss it, hoarding,
an altruistic need to provide a home,
a need to have more,
be surrounded by old and friendly stuff.
Thin it out, organize,
Swedish death cleaning?
Is there a perfect balance,
between everything and nothing?
When you hit the number
a bell rings, and you win more stuff.
Yesterday, subconsciously,
everything, would have been great.
Today, consciously,
I’m leaning toward nothing,
almost nothing – family, friends, soul mate,
and the clothes on my back.
Overwhelmed
Nobody has ever measured,
not even poets,
how much the heart can hold.
– Zelda Fitzgerald
Just below the surface,
a salamander under a rock,
by the creek, seductive red spots,
may sun herself, or the water rises,
maybe something moves the rock.
It’s a chance it’s not safe, then what?
There’s a frost-bitten wall of crackled,
crystallized caramel,
immense, fluorescent,
breathing mass of stoppage,
deliberately picked at, bitten,
a mazed cleavage, to an inebriated calm.
Perched on the peak of a continent,
head raised to orange vaudeville clouds,
hesitating the leap,
she’s reminded of Hegel –
grasps with green swollen fingers
at a crack of ego.
Perhaps, a grappling hook,
a boost from the moon, a flapper tune.
“Good heavens Sayre – I said write, not drink.”
Perhaps a muse, a tablet,
perhaps a bauble of patience,
a measure of what the heart can hold.
Favorite Thing
So, what is your favorite thing?
Not person or pet, not pizza, lemonade or trees.
A specific thing, your thing,
you miss it like it was a deceased fun uncle,
or you don’t want to be too far from it now,
maybe keep it in a special place.
Marooned Tom Hanks had Wilson.
Boxer Bruce Willis had his father’s watch.
My father rebuilt a Royal Enfield motorcycle,
let me drive it around the neighborhood,
up and down the alley, I was fourteen
and thought I was Steve McQueen.
There was Dee’s Mustang convertible when we
first started dating, 289, navy blue, white top,
had it to 110 on Mountain Road.
And there were the olive-suede
tassel loafers, made in London,
that our chocolate Lab, Brandy, tried to eat.
That prized possession you are attached to,
uniquely you, that you don’t want to do without.
And now everyone’s favorite thing
is all the same thing, and it’s not the Mona Lisa,
in fact, there’s no aesthetic at all.
They’re not all black, but mine is.
We wouldn’t admit to it, no one will answer
the question even having thought of it,
but unless it’s charging, it’s our connection
to our world, a companion at our fingertips,
or perhaps in our hip pocket, butt-calling on speed dial
our favorite friends, or Mom if she’s still around.
About the author:
Craig Kirchner is retired, and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves the aesthetics of the paper and pen, has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a hiatus he was recently published in Decadent Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Wise Owl, Chiron Review, Dark Winter, Spillwords, Fairfield Scribe, Unlikely Stories, The Main Street Rag and several dozen others.
In the artist’s words:
Patty Paine is the author of Grief & Other Animals (Accents Publishing), The Sounding Machine (Accents Publishing), and three chapbooks. Her writing and artwork have appeared in Blackbird, Adroit, Gulf Stream, Waxwing, The Common, The South Dakota Review, and other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and Diode Editions, and is Director of Liberal Arts & Sciences at VCUarts Qatar.