If it is depression,
it comes and goes.
You know that.
Sometimes, like a cat,
it takes its own sweet time leaving.
It glides slowly out the door,
threatening to run back inside every step or two.
It changes its mind and returns
And reverses again.
It seems particularly fickle
when there is rain or snow.
[1]
Note: this is a creative account of events, some might be based on some truth.
Another note: I have been obsessively listening to John Prine for a couple of weeks. He finally broke through here. Yes, you can sing this to a good number of his compositions. And you should.
Kate is a little bit different.
Her brain is wired inside out.
She thinks when you garden topless
it keeps peaches from drying out.
She proved it with a picture
and peaches freshly picked.
Kate’s 5 foot 2 and through and through
She knows those farmers’ tricks.
Chorus:
Little hippie farmer
standing by a pot plant
in the middle of her garden,
out behind the barn,
smiling at the camera
and the fresh fall sunshine
in a little black something,
just tryin’ to stay warm.
I sent her seeds though the mailbox.
I know it was a federal crime.
But she could grow anything, ya know,
Like she was back in the olden time.
So, along about the harvest
She sent me back a little pic.
It made me smile to see her smile,
By a plant of 6 foot 6.
Chorus
It was green with heavy blossoms
But it was skinny as a rail.
It promised good things would happen
If we could stay out of jail.
Then suddenly it was legal!
All our sins were washed away.
We’d grow our own and we’d stay stoned
From now until Judgement Day.
Chorus
May 2 Story
Once upon a time, I started a WORDLE puzzle with the answer to the previous puzzle. It threw me for such a loop that I failed to solve it, thus, seven words for this WORDLE poem.
FORGO
ROMAN
ORALS
SAVOR
SHORE
SCORN
(STORY)
I had to FORGO my ROMAN holiday.
I had failed my ORALS.
The depression forbid me to SAVOR the flavor of fruits,
The smell of the SHORE—
All but the SCORN of my professors.
The scorn of my cohorts is a different STORY entirely.
The game, starting officially tomorrow, May 1, 2022, is to use the words in your WORDLE solution to serve as a prompt for a poem each day. My addition is to strive to use the words in the order used in the puzzle. But surprise! On this puzzle I did a 2! If I don’t use the start word in the poem, that leaves me with only one word, the solution. Start word: EARTH, solution: TRASH.
Earth Trash
It seems we can go from
EARTH to
TRASH
In one long, slow step.
A very early hominid
stood barefoot
near a fire
and discovered
good
beneath the limitless sky.
A very late hominid
kicked off his Crocs
near a fire
and cut his foot to the bone
on beach glass
beneath a sky interrupted
for low latency internet access.
An idea emerged kind of organically on Brett Axel’s FaceBook page. The idea was to use one’s WORDLE words as prompts for poems. Further, we (at least three of us) resolved to do this daily through May for some potential book deal later. I put another layer of “rules” on the experiment in that I will endeavor to use the clue words in the order I used them in the WORDLE puzzle.
Book or no book, it’s a fun experiment which I have begun. This might be the first keeper.
Schrodinger’s Kitty
So, they threw me in jail
like a THIEF.
Locked me in a box
and left me.
Pitch dark, silent.
It smelled of tin cans
and ESTERS of cardboard glue.
No room. Could take no STEPS
left nor right.
I do not mind.
I take RESTS.
I admit, after forever,
I panicked
and let loose
lusty howls and
ZESTY yowls and
whimpering mewls.
With each breath,
all of what is/was/
may never be
outside the box
winked into and
out of
existence
.
And now the bulb is poised to pop.
And now the seed trembles in the soil.
The rhizome simmers sugars
Surging through cells to crush through mud.
And now the bud swells pregnant
And now the leaf grows shoulders in the bud.
The sun, the rain, the wind thrust,
All tremulous.
And now the yolk shivers in its sac.
And now the worm uncoils in a lurch.
Copulation is insistent and frequent.
The hive quivers its fertile breath.
And now the spring’s fidget returns.
And now the death must dither.
The rut is unopposed.
Even churches cannot begrudge a flower.
As the number of my age
Rises by increments
regular as a plow horse
scratches furrow by furrow,
I look forward to the time
when Brenda and I
will soak in her hot tub
and drink strong drinks
among the stars.
In her voice,
the East Texas
will still subvert
the Arkansas,
Her tones,
(husky-sweet,
like Southern Comfort,
but only a little murky)
taking the time,
lingering in her mouth like earnest work,
Its presence palpable,
before it comes to me.
She bids me, “Breathe.”
Then lays that laugh on me, like light to a moth.
Nothing breaks
a grandfather’s heart
more completely than
even-toned news reports
of bombs being thrown
on children.
It breaks his heart,
then breaks the pieces,
then pulverizes the little pieces
then grinds the scraps to dust
then throws the dust in the littered gutter and burns it.
Young Poets
are certain they see and know
all the things wrong in the world—
all the various injuries and injustices—
all the shadow forces at work on the human condition.
They bring hearty lungs and hale voice
to bear with lusty demonstration.
–
Old poets
know
treachery and
deceit and
iniquity in hearts and
the crushing weight
of patience.
Caution: frank talk of suicide. Not a plea for personal help.
There is a moment every morning
when I decide not to kill myself today.
It might be after making coffee, not always.
Or after the under-blanket stretch which brings
a shudder of bladder awareness.
It might be after toast,
after email,
but sometime in the morning,
I elect to to go on with the mundane
and put off the ultimate until tomorrow.
I may be lazy—
just can’t get motivated to finish.
I may be forgetful.
It often doesn’t even occur to me until nearly afternoon
by which time it would be irredeemably irrational.
Why go through the mundane start of another mundane day
only to end it after News at Noon?
I may be fearful that leaving such a mess for someone else
in full daylight would be an act of terror.
And some days it’s too cold to go outside. Or too hot. Or raining.
By the time dinner is over,
there seems no point in doing more than going to bed
in service to Depression.
No one gets out of bed to kill themselves.
Behind closed lids,
I listen to the background hiss of the universe,
which I just discovered doesn’t exist.
My doctor says it is tinnitus.
I also learned the sense of hearing
may last beyond the loss of consciousness…
meaning
it is possible to hear your own dying breath,
if it gets past the tinnitus.
I do not get out of bed
except to pee.
No one commits suicide in their sleep.
Maybe there should be a prime time show
where the sleuth sets off to find
why the old man committed suicide
in his pajamas,
or his boxers,
or with his wherewithal hanging out.
I never think about suicide in my sleep.