Wordshow Poem - Night

Dangerous was the night
That danced before me as a million stars
Nightmares hiding in wait behind the glassy quiet.
The air remains undisturbed in its glistening.

Sedgewick Randolph Speirling

A character developed from 20 traits of a tin of Rosebud Salve

I understand why poets use water as their inspiration. Matt Arnold is one I really remember, with his dissatisfaction in humanity compared to his lover, all found in the calmness of the sea and the shimmer of the moon. Tonight, despite the reflection of the moon shimmering more than it probably should, I too appreciate it as lovely.

I never came out to this bridge enough in my youth. Now I’m old and grouchy and don’t have a chick to make out with. I take another swig from my flask.

“Why did I never do THIS before?” I drunkenly groan at both of the moons, the real one above and her reflection below.

I’ve never been one for alcohol; my father was an alcoholic. He’s messed me up more than he knew. What’s funny is that I’m not even that drunk. One thing for sure, that old man could manage his liquor.

I’m observing myself from my mind’s eye as I take swig after swig, each one bringing me closer too…

Why did the war not take me? So very many others went but not I. The speakeasy doctor. The worthless piece of trash with no family of which to speak, past or present. The one operating behind the lines and yet keeping them going, moving forward. I should have died.

“Fucking government,” I hear myself mutter.

Down the hatch it goes. Watching, I realize just how fruitless this getting drunk thing is.

I squint and St. Louis is perfect, just the way I remembered it to have looked. Just the way it was before everything else. It’s practical for the end to be so much like the beginning.

The water rushes soundlessly below me. Only in these times of utter despair do I remember myself. So surrounded am I by the problems of others that I often forget who I am. Busted up cops, friends, Germans… This is who I am now. All of it and the contents of this tiny flax I’m putting down easily, calmly. I look around to realize that I’ve sat down.

With effort, my past pushes me up and over the polite wall I’ve created, but which is, in reality, a green and rust covered barrier.

I see myself falling from my mind’s eye.

Finally.

“The sea is calm tonight.”

Shut up Arnold. 

Ducks

I like how a duck’s quack sounds like a laugh.

As if he’s mocking us for not being a duck like him.

He waddles off

Leaving us to ponder his peculiar message

And to rejoin those worth his time.

But what makes his message true?

I have two legs, like he.

I eat breadcrumbs with savage delight.

I breathe and swim and live

Just as he does each and every day.

He can soar into the sky

On wings broader than any man can manufacture

Or art portray.

He is free to explore land, water, and air.

I look longing at his feathered frame and think:

You’re dinner, duck.

Whim of an Instant

In honor of Blog Action Day (and Zoe of course), this is my poem concerning the North American mentality towards water. 

Swelling, crashing, flowing,

In a seemingly endless line

From drain to river to sea.

It is truly endless; why else 

Fall from the sky in torrential downpours

And sweep away the bad?

It is endless still with the turn 

Of a tap, flick of a switch,

The whim of an instant

Never appreciated in it's importance.

The line is being severed.

Not the line from ocean to house

Just all the ones in between.

Swoosh.

My bathtub is full, overflows when 

I sink my careless frame in,

Humiliating the trickling rivers,

Disgusting the impoverished, 

Delighting my soul.

Why would the glass be half empty,

When it is always full for me? 

Janice and Steve

Once upon a time there was a period named Janice and a comma named Steve. 

They didn't like each other at first. Janice thought that Steve was weird with his deformed period shape and Steve thought Janice was too uptight. But time changes everyone. 

Throughout their years at high school, they began to see past their structural differences. On one particular occasion, Janice and Steve discovered that they liked causing breaks in sentences. Janice preferred a sure stop, while Steve, ever the free spirit, provided breath.

They graduated, talking to each other when necessary, never really realizing their true desires.

It was a sign to them when they met once again at Enjambment, a hip new restaurant in town... They had both come alone.

From then on, they were inseparable. Everyone knew they were perfect for each other.

Soon, Janice discovered she was pregnant. The happy couple was delighted and made preparations.

They mutually liked the colour yellow.

Their child was born healthy and, to their delight, was a compromise between them. The semi-colon was born. Not a full stop, not simply a breath. They named him Francis.

High hopes were set for Francis, due to the use of his parents. But, sadly, the population has rejected him, declaring that he was too neither which way.

But he's always there, when his parents are aging, to allow related independent phrases to blend together and unite, while still maintaining their independence.

Janice and Steve and continually proud of their boy

The End.

Where the World Began

I never knew the concept of good-bye until then.

Not until I saw him pull away and leave me in my puffy coat and red cheeks on the shore of the stagnant harbour did I finally understand. It was then, not when Starfish the gold fish jumped out of her bowl and I had to say goodbye as the water took her away. It wasn’t a real good-bye; she was just a fish.

But he’s not a fish. I didn’t flush him away.

Instead, he's a sailor. He was swept away, kit bag and all. Except his kit bag this time was larger and filled with things to remind him of me and the two others. “Pack all your troubles in your old kit bag” they used to sing. I was a trouble he had to pack away, temporarily at least.

This is when my world began. With the uttering of goodbye and the camera zoom on my tear stained cheeks. No, not the uttering of goodbye. To utter goodbye would not have been a proper farewell for an eight year old. I yelled at the ship as it pulled away. So did many others.

My tiny bird voice was absorbed by the pounding of the receding waves, but I’m positive he heard.

That autumn, we didn’t go apple picking. Instead, mom sliced her finger bad on my pumpkin.

He wasn’t there to prevent it.

My uncle came to help her stop the gushing blood. I pranced soullessly around. It just wasn’t the same.

There was a call on occasion. You would know when it was coming. Mom got all tense and waited for it. I’m sure she thought he fell off the boat.

The phone would ring and I’d neglect all possible rules of bedtime. I knew. I just knew.

“Hi Daddy.”

“Hi Sweetie.”

“Mommy says don’t fall off the boat!”

“I won’t.”

Holding the phone tightly, I’d run around as if I was holding him from half a world away.

Kaela would cry some nights when there was no call. She was younger and didn’t fully understand like I did. My world had begun and I knew absence.

We made him packages of all the things he was missing. There were tapes of us reading (by this time, I was pretty darn good at chapter books while Kaela struggled through the simple stuff). Once, we even made seahorses out of beads. We kissed them before we put them in the box to make sure he didn’t miss out on too much. Pictures were put in at random like postcards of exotic places he could only dream about.

That Christmas we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa by train. My first train trip ever. Zipping past town after town, the Christmas lights blurred into each other, an endless stream of shooting stars for me to wish the same wish. That was at night. During the day, I was restless. Halifax to Ottawa is a hefty trek by train. I was insatiable. First

colouring, then a book, then food, then the observation deck. Five minutes later and I’m done with the observation deck: there’s no colouring there. And no shooting stars.

Christmas was odd without him. Grandpa tried his best by making more food than we could eat. Grandma let us decorate the tree, reminding us not to touch her Pointsettas. But we were only with Mom. He was further away from us now. We moved west while he’s still chugged steadily east. By Christmas, I already had a notion on how wide the world was: we charted his progress on our map, plotting each point ceremoniously, hunting him down to bring him home. This trip to Ottawa simply expanded my borders. Canada isn’t just Nova Scotia, the world isn’t merely a stage anymore. Grandma and Grandpa tried to keep us entertained, with the pool and the snow and the pictures, but the only thing I wanted I had wished for on the first star of every night.

I say my world began when he pulled out of port because that is when I knew that the world could take people away from me, that change was bound to happen. My mom was only a smile with her lips. The teeth were missing. She was missing a part of her. And I was missing more parts as everyday I become more accustomed to the lips-only smile.

We get pictures too. There he is with some camels, and there he is with the sea and the sky blending into each other to look like one big blue canvas behind him.

One day, we received stuffed animals. I have a bear, Essa, and Kael has a hippo, Happy. The bears were like the telegrams we’ve never gotten: DEAR GIRLS STOP I MISS YOU STOP ALL MY LOVE STOP DAD

Before we even know it, the countdown drops below 50. The thumbtacks on the map begin to falter in their course East. He’s coming home.

We make a huge banner with the other families who have gone through the separation. I smear my hand in red paint and carefully examine the banner. I need somewhere to put my mark that he will see from the ship with his sea eyes, accustomed to blue and bad. I select a location and Kaela’s blue print joins mine. Mom signs our names for us and we look at the banner covered with handprints of all sizes and colours that say just one thing: Welcome Home.

We sight the ship first because we aren’t at the dockyards. We’re waiting for him like we would if he was returning on a plane and we were waiting in viewing lounge. Here is better with the saline breeze and room to run and wave and race the boat back to port.

It’s hard to get back into the car when I see him. 

The ship pulls in on the exact opposite day as when it left. Instead of drizzle and cold it is warm and sunny. I’m wearing my reversible hat with the bubble printed side up. Kaela and I run about the banner. We beat the ship here.

And now I’m running back into his arms. I’ve returned to where my world began. To where I learned that the good bye happens but it’s not the end.

I drag him away from mom and show him my handprint.
“There,” I say, “There is my hand print. I made it for you.”