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Where I’m From (added
2/28/05)
I am from a granite boulder seawall
and cotton candy at Paragon Park
I’m from blackberry
stains and beach rose petals
catalpa beans and
bamboo
I am from my father’s eyes
after he saw the holocaust at Buchenwald
and the nape
of my mother’s neck
where white pearls hung
before her
thyroid surgery
I am from Hail Mary full of
grapes
midnight mass and pennies in the poor box
I’m
from the unlucky luck of the Irish
the old sod and Southie
before there were gangsters
I am from A your Adorable
B
you’re so Beautiful
God Bless Mommy and
Daddy
Jimmy and Kathy
Colleen and Danny
Sherry and
Johnny
Joey and Bobby and Trish
I am from the salt of the earth
One if by land, two if by sea
John F. Kennedy and
Fenway Park
even when the Red Sox are losing
I’m from ice skates and alphabet
streets
jump ropes and black and white TV
I’m not from
the farm or the city
I’m from plastic flowers in the
village cemetery
and horseshoe crabs with blue blood
I’m from my grandmother’s
picnic basket
sleeping on curlers in baby doll pajamas
kerchiefs, bobby socks, hoolahoops,
and the twist
Dear Diary today is Friday
I’m from a one pot New England
boiled dinner
from steamed clams dipped in real butter
and playing monopoly during a hurricane
by a kerosene
lamp in our kitchen
This poem is inspired
by George Ella Lyon’s poem of the same name, from
the book “Where I’m from, Where Poems come from"
and Fred First’s Blog fragmentsfromfloyd.com
Solstice Poem
From a luscious scoop
of moon
at the Milky Way counter
the stars have
spilled over
in an icy cold night
Summer Slug
My ambition rises
in a sluggish
summer day
to the number of squash bugs
in my garden
Death by squish
is not for the
squeamish
but I’m the mother of butternut
Out of my
way! |
Jim
and Dan:
The 2nd Anniversary of Their Deaths
My brothers live in
photo albums
They wear Red Sox shirts
and eat
watermelon in summer
They go to casinos
and hit the jackpot
Sing karaoke
and drink beer
when they want to
From exotic places by
the ocean
they watch girls in bikinis on the beach
Or
go out to concerts and baseball games
and watch the
weather channel on TV
My brothers live like
postcards now
I write, “I wish you were still here”
on
the back of each one
No stamps
No
addresses
Their eyes don’t blink
They wave perpetually
from the places they have been
or put their paper thin
arms around me
They still have
opinions
and loud Boston accents
It must be hard for
them
to be so quiet
to live like rumors
and in snippets of dreams
that those who love them
write down and save
They live on paper
now
like money that can’t be spent
And I am like a
teenager with a pop star crush
who kisses their 8 x 10s
My brothers would
laugh out loud
at how odd it is to be dead
staring
endlessly out from their glossy prints
while I am staring
in
(This poem is on
the last page of
The Jim and Dan
Stories)
Lust
I cruise the
Thesaurus
to pick up words
for an intercourse
of
language
to loosen the Muse's
inhibitions
for a poem's strong desire
to be written
Indian
Summer
The neighborhood
dogs
are sitting out October
Like wallflowers in the
corner
they're overdressed in fur |
