1-Iron
In raising my children I never heard their death sighs, years away…
Like a rustic faucet, of cast-iron, slowly was their false love dripping? Like worms gathering and crawling in a future nest of brooding, worms from hell, full of vengeance
I never saw their boneless hearts tell now, old age but, they were saying, “Wait, wait, we will grow older, worms grow you know…this is the tough time, youth!
“Then we will place him on the hook when his tissue is old and soft, we will not visit him, nor call: not even a minute one! All in time all in good time!”
Five children and I in an empty house watching fish swim around and around
flies buzzing in circles, outside by the light looking at old pictures now fading.
Their voices are always silent, as they appear in the form of children, not ever aging… children that turned sour, scorpions or bees trying to sting me.
Inform me:
why did you take that road? Out of what door should I crawl? Where would you have me lay?
2-They Told Me
Sun rays told me, hide from them; the moon said: they are like eels; the doctor held, love is not enough, tears will not help, nor extol nor money, nor gifts of any kind they do not wish to comfort you only to sadden you with hammer and gossip.
The toad told me, they are flat stones owls in the night; they are looking in the bug infested rubbish in the heat of summer, looking and hunting for something-
3-The Vision
I had a vision, a dream, I saw the shape of their hearts bigger than elephant’s, but darker than a rats, with less blood in them, than a mosquito’s- and the pumps made a loud nose.
I was under water looking up it was soft like a sponge, wrinkled like a mouse it didn’t fit in place, it had valves like toes! And it turned into an eel with fangs of a wildcat and it pulled out of its socket, and rolled about in thick muck it felt good, I think with its long wobbly legs puncture holes here and there and it liked to swim under the water sleek as an eel….
4-The Abyss
Where do the hearts go? To the gravel of the seabed (I was told by a mysterious voice). I looked and they were covered by hard marble stones, they looked as if they had been there quite long; it was their home away from home. And they twisted about like a vortex. Ask the sea-toad he knows, he saw from his leaf…deep into the sea… he told me “Beware father Lee, they live a grimy soaked shell, and if allowed they will simple nibble at your nerves, and punish your will.”
5-Betrayal
From the mouths of my children I heard their bitter and scorn it was getting old, and older, things I’ve heard before.
Like a rustic faucet, of old cast-iron, slowly was their false love dripping? Like worms gathering and crawling in a future nest of brooding, worms from hell, full of vengeance
Like wild dogs, they groaned snarled and wailed; twilight was against me, as was the deep eels of the sea, as was the houses around them whom whimpered out of gossip. The birds, dogs, cats all cried; their neighbors, like cows took their sides, in their bushes to listen as they hid, and wished I’d die! What small character they developed, what shallow songs they had to sing, what thick mud, they had to crawl out of… What kind of father are you now? You all live in ice caves dripping with envy, jealousy, and black-blood only the hypocrites here!
I’m tired, I’m very tired, all my bones crackle, so crack them more if you wish, you have anyhow! Only the winter now; you have drained the summer and spring from me- father fear, is no longer here, you have drained the love from his heart, now he has nothing to offer.
6-Perhaps Snake Oil
What kind of shape plays to a Mind that is recovering? Beckoning to do all it can for His children, through halls and hail and while standing still in a fag, trying to put one’s life back together; once scared, now scarred and perhaps a little phony…?
From the mouths of children things are seldom expressed how they can be, no vocabulary! Perched on my shoulders, I saw my boys flowing away; that coldness growing inside of them like dead eels being frozen (thus they became phony like me). They dropped me into a watery grave even though I did all I could to save what I could, sometimes it is worse, doing what is right, and being cursed.
This is the storm I have to endure pay the price for this and that, and all they gave at the end was unsmiling within themselves, things they never knew; as for my bones they still grew old, and the fire in my heart grew dim, and the seeds I once planted that sprung to life did not bud, butchered at the stem; Doom was already decided, for me and them, windows and doors now shut? House burning, new rage, now old rage, in their hearts, primordial tears, ongoing agitation and they all ran every which way-year after year.
7-Money and he Toad
Money, money, money came into the show, And when I was dying, they all stood by, hoping I’d die quicker than I would, go, just go…they think they hid this from the toad…but he always knew.
How stupid they can be, for the toad, he hides in the cool of the grass when no ones looking, and in the deep part of the sea; or from a branch in a tree, he doesn’t even leave a shadow…he’s part of me.
“Look, look,” he says “they are like ashes, falling through a dark swirl….” and I look, and yes, he is right!
8-When I was a Kid
I ran to the hill to see my mother (when I was a kid of eight or so) walking up it, walked with her side by side, full of pride, my eyes looking to the sun, she’d pick up a weed put it in her mouth, and I’d do the same as if I was a trained ….
On the foster-farm in the dark, I had many years to breathe and with my little feet, I climbed the little steps up to the bunk bed underneath me my brother slept, but I never hated my mother!
There was a light down the hall coming from the bedroom, like a fire-pit, here the owner slept, and other children wept. But I played big, I never did! And I never hated my mother!
In the morning light crept through the window light from the East came slowly over my blankets like snow…cool and refreshing in summer, refreshing and warm in the winter. And I never hated my mother.
I’d say to my brother, “Mom is coming!” As frost melted on the back steps that led to the horses, and pastures-it all melted like a fine haze, day after day, and I never hated my mother, thank God! And I’d say to my brother, over and over,” Mom is coming!”
9-The Years
There were several great years, in-between some winters, we traveled a lot, planes and trains and cars: those far-off memories, like roses kept swinging in the wind, above my head.
The festive times in Germany the kites in the backyard and playing in the woods, nights in Amsterdam, in the cafes and parks. The light moved slowly over our horizons, the beautiful surviving memories now over these old bones, their youth still swings back in my wind, for me to smell. The toad knows.
10-Their Troubled Souls?
Is it dark? Is it dark inside? Is it dark inside the dark? Movement becoming energetic unsettling? A vivacious logical will once amused them.
It will not happen again. Be quiet. You have only a while to wait, to get what you deserve, nothing…! Then I’ll leave. The toad knows.
11-Somehow the Roses
Am I not yet an old wound? The Sea-toad can vouch for me! He is the spiral that you cannot see. He tells me everything, pushes me forward shows me your heart, dear children…He whispers “They try to infect an old wound, leave them to their destiny; they have no room for comforting you!”
I am hunting or hurting, one of the two, the Sea-toad, says I am both, and you, yes you children are my protagonists, geared-up, to portray my soul of consciousness (animistic), but I am no fool…your tails flick like spiders running to their webs, to eat the remains of the fly, I know, your wish that I should die! -And I know you tried!
I can’t tell who you are anymore, the fish, the eel, the mole in the hole or the rat, the owl, perhaps you are a symbol of all of them, plus my obsession, to love and be loved, with respected! A frenzied activity lapsing like rain in your desert.
I dream of you two, the other three seldom, as in memories of when you were children somehow the roses appear around your frames “Papa” I hear you say, renewing my light, nothing essential to today’s reality, just old, old memories, buried in ambiguity.
Now you are all grown men and women, Your childhood long past, all mad silent poets, these are the only moments left I have, I have lost the spiritual quest, the ploddingly pursue.
Like a rustic faucet, of cast-iron, slowly was your false love dripping? Like worms gathering and crawling in a future nest of brooding, worms from hell, full of vengeance (The toad always knows).
