The child takes us Mason-jarring
out where the backyard meets the woods
Soon each jar contains a nondescript black beetle
of uncertain entomology duly given
a name such as ours
At supper call we two adults assure
that Mike and Ike and Lucy are released
back into their usual less confining environment
and forgotten
Freedom is a simple gift to give another
yet if I were to be kept anywhere
I would prefer a grownup girl’s memory of me
to a Mason jar
as like Ike Black-Beetle
I crawl the world’s backyard
under or over blades of grass taller than me
hiding from sun and sparrow
– Russell Rowland…
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The role allows him to charge into windmills
with a sly smile: was it a mistake?
He cultivates this persona
with people who don’t expect much from him,
this clumsy gentle giant with soft brown skin.
And when he messes up and smiles
they all laugh:
“Oh, Monster.”
And help him with his errors and work.
Monster cultivates this persona
with people who don’t expect much from him—
they happen to always be White—
because Monster knows they can see his size and skin
in two ways: threat or pet.
He chooses pet
because it’s something he knows
because he doesn’t know what he is with others like him but not
because he doesn’t know what he is
and the idea of being himself,
not acting a part, even as a fool,
is terrifying.…
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After a certain point . . . when? . . .
it seems we age at different paces.
See Parkinson’s effect on Don:
scientist, revered professor,
he struggles to say hello
or even hold a fork.
Then there’s dementia—
see what it’s doing to Jan:
once a nurse in the military,
her sweet smile belies her absence.
Supporting them in countless ways,
their spouses hover, preventing a spill,
stopping a fall, pulling them halt-
ingly into our conversations.
Granted some uncertain reprieve,
the rest of us reside in a separate…
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When dating, I’d love to watch my partner
drop her credit card from her tanned hands
and attract the male Spanish-speaking servers.
She’d get frustrated they skipped her
Hawaiian name’s too-many successive vowels.
She’d adjust her inherited Hawaiian jewelry,
declaring her identity and anger at them
for jumping to connection with her Spanish last name
and not knowing Pelayo is Spanish from the Philippines.
Oh the struggle of mixed-race names
the ones that have stories behind them,
stories that are never read.
I loved her frustration, that impotence
you feel at being unheard but loved.
Love that makes it impossible to complain.
When we married, she took my last name,
hyphenated ethnicity and confusion.
With the added punctuation, she became
less of an individual
more connected to me.…
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You walk the beach at Nazaré
and carry for your granddaughters
the shells and pebbles they’ve discovered –
each a treasure – until, hands full,
the girls must now decide again
which to save and which to return.
Walking, stooping, passing judgment,
they assay each piece, then keep
or toss or simply leave it in the sand.
For you, time’s the treasure – moments
measured by these pebbles and shells.
Climbing closer all the while,
massive waves break, run,
and tease the girls’ feet with foam.
This tide keeps an ancient time –
past without beginning, future
without end, indifferent to hands
full of precious moments, gifts
from these children just for you,
grandparents treasuring time.
– Douglas Twells…
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For my brother, one of the old stock who plays guitar and sings
What will happen when all of the real men are gone? The ones who can build, install, plumb, lay, and fix all manner of things with their own two hands – a dying breed of the old stock, they say. What will happen when all of the real men are gone? Will no buildings be built, no cars fixed, no oil changed, no lights installed? Everything broken and in disarray? What will happen when all of the real men are gone? When finally all of the hammers grow rusty, the wood rotting from their handles for lack of use. When nails fall from our shelves, and we just sweep them out into the ground for we know not what they’re for or from where they’ve come.…
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Let’s say you’re on your last thin string
of hope your kids are hungry
you’ve lost
your minimum wage job with no benefits
your 2006 Chevy needs a new muffler
two rear tires an o-ring
for the oil
leak and your left wisdom tooth aches like hell
Your string of hope frayed and a little wet
is in your pocket one early spring
morning
as the sun rises on the first robin you see
Let’s say you smile Let’s say you feel
the face of the world slowly turning toward you
so you
warm your hands on a cup of tea and begin to sing
– David James
Author’s Note: I wanted to write a poem of hope since I found myself writing mostly “end of time” poems as I got older.…
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