DISRUPTLET

From notes to kids with Christmas and birthday cards:
To Patrick, the smallest disruptlet: I’m glad you’re not a quintuplet, One little Pfad-Quad’s enough Five would really be rough!

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Fuzzy fingers of fog offer cool comfort, A respite from the rush….. But I must go. At the wheel a soft helplessness envelopes me. My eyes grope for the familiar shape of things Forming a tenuous attachment To the armored knight ahead Who from behind his windshield Plunges bravely onward…. He turns away, vanishing instantly Swallowed whole by the durry fod dragon Windshield wipers beat in syncopation With my thudding heart. Im left to face alone The dripping jaws of canivorous cloud Forsaken by all but cat’s eyes And broken lines….. At last I am home Alive to the light and warmth Which is mine
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IN HONOR OF OGDEN NASH

There once was a fat hippopotamus Whose appetite was gastrononimus. When she tried to run People laughed and made fun Of her weight and her very large bottomus. One night after dining on greenery, (She’d finished off most of the scenery) She lowered her bulk In the water to sulk And to ponder on people so meanery. She vowed she would start a new diet, But the zoo-keeper said “I won’t buy it. Folks aren’t going to look at A hippo who’s not Fat”. And he simply would not let her try it. Soon the poor hippo’s weight was unbearable. She looked like she’d swallowed a dirigible. When she got the urge To completely submerge There followed a flood. It was terrible! By the time all the water subsided The people who’d laughed and derided Were soaked to the skin. “If she wants to be thin It’s O.K. with us,” they decided. So our hippo went off to the sauna. She ate neither flora nor fauna, Till she had such a shape Boy hippos went ape, And her bottom was almost all gauna.
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GENTLE DEATH

Come gentle death and while
I lie deep in capsulated slumber
Send me a dream of a peaceful tender world
Where it is always Spring and never Summer:
Where hope is fulfillment
And truth the only consequence.
Come gentle death on softly feathered feet
And pull me under…..
Turn the key in the door to nowhere.
Lock in on the mindless limbo,
The sterile void where nothing is o do:
Where anything which looms alarmingly
Fades sweetly at needle point
Into tomorrows’ unmade bed: and where
A tangle of sweat drenched sheets
Hides this desecrated flesh
Laboring only toward the next breath,
The next heartbeat, the next sleepless sleep.
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The Gift

Teresa: Grandma, let’s sing a song,
A ping-pong song.
You be the Ping and I’ll be the Pong.
Sing, song; ping, pong; ding, dong

Grandma: Since you’re only five,
And I’m Fifty-two
And I’ve been around
Much longer than you,

You should be ping
Just learning to sing.
Life’s just beginning
And ping rhymes with spring.

I’ve sung my song
forever so long,
I can be pong.

Isn’t it fun
Singing in rhyme?
Younger and older
Sharing a time?

Let’s sing together,
The stone and the feather…
Ping and pong sing a song, swing along…

Teresa: Wait, Grandma.
You can be ping if you really want to. I don’t mind.
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TRIP

It’s time for your turn on the Super Space Special.
Sailing high in the sky is super celestial,
On the latest toy train shiny and new
Fresh from the package and waiting for you.
Fly high in the sky on a round endless track.
With a one way fare you need never come back.
Fasten your seatbelt, hang on to your soul
Turn in your ticket, we’re ready to roll.
The train’s getting steam up, slowly it’s gaining.
Speed’s on the upgrade, engines are straining
Merry-go-round music is endlessly screaming.
I’m dizzy and dazzled and mindlessly dreaming.
Faster and faster and faster we go
Brighter and brighter and brighter the glow.
Higher and higher and higher the sky
Longer and longer and longer….. to die
Something’s gone wrong.. The toy train is slowing.
The battery’s dead and smoke isn’t blowing
The merry-go-round music so endlessly screaming
Is only a whisper……. I must have been dreaming.
It was only a toy with tracks made of plastic
And now that I’m down not all that fantastic.
I’m only a child with bare melting feet
Walking alone on an empty street
Surrounded by strangers silently staring
No one to meet me nobody caring….
I look for the faces, the young happy faces
Full of the joy of finding new places.
Where are they now, are they still flying high
On the Super Space Special way up in the sky?
Or are they here watching, (with nothing to say)
As I’m poked and prodded day after day?
I still hear their voices, inside my head

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X MARKS THE SPOT

X marks the spot
The x in Xmas is an empty leaning cross
Hung with tinsel.
X is the unknown.
X can be true, in small squares.
X often determines our sex, marital status,
And other impertinent information.
X can win or lose the game.
X can mean a kiss— but then
O can mean a hug, or nothing.
XXOO

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REPRIEVE

Above me as I lie dreaming of the sky
Strong roots, sharp as silvered glass
Pierce my skin, fasting me to the earth
My shroud grows warm with spring sunshine.
Through a small wormhole in my coffin
An almost-breeze gently nudges.
What wouldn’t I give to feel that warmth again
Instead- all time stretches before me.
Endless eternity winks from the dark night
And smiles from the steadfast sun each day,
My strength I could have given and my love
Even my life, but I gave nothing.
My strength lies here with me, my love,
My life all shut in a bow,
Intact and useless, in suicidal supense.
Only my soul flutters weakly in the spring
Grass above, borne there somehow
By the memory of a gentle breeze and released at last from the prison of me.

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TINKER TOY

The whirling carousel tries to fill the sky
With pull-apart people who want to fly
And Tiddly-wink tractors plow the ground
Digging tiny graves for the little seeds
Who will never blow around
On a rising wind, never learn to fly
How beautiful; the sun shining on the carousel,
And on the evenly plowed earth,
And on the great clouds forming.
How beautiful the rain putting out the sun fire
Quenching the thirst of the small trapped seedlings
In their tiny graves.
How beautiful the one swift shaft of rain-fire
Darting through the benevolent storm
To ignite the long trailing fuse
Tangled around the earth by the whirling carousel.
Here it comes, crashing through the sky,
Splitting mountains, scorching earth,
Destroying all who fly:
Burning little seeds in their tiny graves,
Killing even you… who never die…

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