memories

Behind the Myth

lillian17 Comments

The myth behind the woman loved by many,
richly layered flavors, cultivated to impress.

Miss Popularity, Miss Luther League
years later, a doctor’s wife
mother and choir member too.

Chameleon of many faces.
24 hours. 10 stories.
A runaway drama, no one really knew.

Instability lurked behind her masks
until the show of the week
forever changed her life.

Ripple effect
wider than a tidal pool.

Knife in hand, surge of passion
husband prostrate at her feet.
Murdereress.  A new role.

Impromptu, adlib,
shocked by the script.

Masks-01                            found

Prompts from WP Writing 201:  faces, found poetry, chiasmus. Found Poetry: scissors and newspaper in hand, cut out words and phrases and arrange them in a poem. Words from THE WEEK, September 18, 2015 edition.  Chiasmus: a reversal, an inversion (title to first line).

Life Regifted

lillian20 Comments

Angels here among us
dearest, stay with me.
Over and back you hover
return to earth my plea.
Extinguish not, like inifinity
deny death’s call and stay with me.

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This poem, dedicated to the love of my life. Life regifted for two years and many more: you came back to me. Thankful for every day. This poem is an acrostic:  the first letter of each line spells out a message (Adored). Photo from on board ship on a Panama Canal cruise.

Morning Aperture

lillian8 Comments

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Boundaries between this world and the next
blur as I stand in mist
feet upon the earth, arms raised
billowness seeping from the sky.

I tip my face into the hovering cloud
spirit worlds surround me
and you are here,
my cheeks moist from your caress.

Slowly, sadness comes with warmth
as sun clears the air, blues the sky
eyes tear to realize
I am grounded, and you
are truly gone.

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In response to Daily Post Challenge: Boundaries. Photos from dome car ride near Anchorage, Alaska.

Helen Cecile

lillian5 Comments

My mother lived with Amy Lowell.
Wrong preposition.
In, she lived in
a Boston housing complex
with a plaque.
Did you know her?
Amy, not Helen.
Tomboy turned poet-ess.
Way before Maya.
Not Emily.
Less famous.
Except there’s a plaque
where Helen Cecile lived.

AMy House Amy plaque Amy mom

Photos:  Amy Lowell Apartment Complex in Boston,  the plaque and Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925). Born in Brookline, MA won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry posthumously in 1926. First published poem appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1910. First published collection of her poetry, A Dome of ManyColured Glass appeared in 1912.  Maya refers to poet Maya Angelou; Emily to Emily Dickinson.  Last photo is Helen Cecile, my mother, in her last year of life. She was born in Waukegan, Illinois and moved with us to Boston in 1997 – lived in the Amy Lowell Apartments and died in 1999.

Memories in Black and White

lillian8 Comments

Phyllis Groat, Billy Behr and Timmy Drew
Francis somebody with Jimmy Fisher
and Mary Buckley too.

Black robed nuns that seemed to glide
feet and hair a mystery
rulers that reached a mile.

Lunch time stools swung in and out
from tables that disappeared
into Mary blue block walls.

Holy card for first place prize.
Priests mumbled Latin mass
and girls watched holy backs.

Third grade fell out of mother’s drawer,
a stained photo stuck between dried up pens
and a Tupperware orange peeler.

Three days after we buried her
in a Catholics only plot,
she made me remember
what I deliberately forgot.

uniform      communion

Photos:  3rd grade class photo mentioned was tossed….but these were also in the drawer.  Me in my 3d grade Immaculate Conception School navy blue uniform  and my first communion picture. I actually won a third grade competition to see who could learn the altar boy responses in Latin first (our third grade boys were lagging in this important task — it was thought this would spur them on). Silly me – I thought if I won I could be an altar boy. See that word?  “Boy.”  Nope.  I did win a gold embossed holy card of St. Francis of Assisi and the boys all went on to assist with Mass.  Memories…..

Color Their Love: cherished series, opus 10

lillian5 Comments

Their love never showed itself
in word or touch.
It simply travelled
through a colored atlas
of their own making.

Sunday rides in a battered Buick,
state highways traced in orange.
Twenty-fifth anniversary in Hawaii,
circled in pink
like their matching floral shirts.

Retired early, she insisted,
they sold all their worldly goods.
Left a three bedroom colonial
for a small motor home,
and rambled through forty states.

College towns starred in blue
for the young at heart.
Green highlights for favorite parks
and the Grand Canyon’s purple X,
the greatest site of all.

Now, in a pastel assisted living center
map of colors upon her wall,
she gazes out the window
at red and yellow tulips,
his ashes beneath their blooms.

With quaking hand
she touches coffee cup to pane,
then slowly to her lips.
This, their morning kiss, a ritual
now the road is still.

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Home Then or Again?

lillian10 Comments

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Scuffed Red Wing leather boots tread across forest floor. Trekking poles swing naturally at my side, two more points of contact to the earth. Closest thing to being four limbed.

Sun filters through leaves, beams on stands of gooseberry red, chokecherry orange and fiddlehead green. I walk through scrubby tree roots, climb over rocks to cross a stream, carried by wind and sun and bird song in the air.

Last week’s hike swirls fading as I maneuver city streets. Blue suit jostled, surrounded by tall grey, red brick towers that block the sun, save corners where green lights mean go. High heels comply, stumble from curb to pavement, and my feet ache again.

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Written from a September Challenge prompt: juxtapose opposites in a more subtle wording of contrast.  A prose poem.

Cool Waters

lillian5 Comments

I lie perfectly still, face to sky
on a clear plastic air mattress
plumped with my breath.

Sea breeze ruffles tendrils,
flutter-touch my forehead
warmed by afternoon sun.

Softly bobbing near the shore
fingers trail in cool waters
while ocean croons its song.

I drift, eyes closed
through barriers of time
afloat in my mother’s womb.

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This was a challenging prompt in my September 21 Day Challenge course: Use description but notice the difference between language that shows the reader a world, and language that tells a reader what you (or your speaker) think about it or feel about.