My husband's poetry

Category: childhood

  • the vanity of underachieving

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    by

    cfblack
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    Send me 21st century Proverb to hang my hat on; push me to do more My adolescent self found Ecclesiastes and I have been too lazy to go beyond “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” I have two decades left and need to make up for 70 years of underachieving So send me a 21st…

  • Thread

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    Because we didn’t have money to throw away, mom would use pieces of thread to sew shut holes in our storm door screen and keep the flies and skeeters outside Because I don’t have memories to throw away, I will find pieces of thread to sew shut holes in our back porch screen and keep…

  • untitled memory

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    Your band played a frat party near campus You told her you’re a university student She said she was a freshman there, too Monday in the hallway Outside your high school cafeteria You see her talking with her friends, Go up and say Don’t I know you from somewhere And smile She looks away in…

  • school maze

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    I wander hallways looking for classroom doors of teachers who believed in me even when I didn’t, who kept trying to encourage even when I was disrespectful, who tried to mitigate my angry spirit even as I called them names, but all the doors are closed and locked, and the teachers have all gone home;…

  • First of August

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    cfblack
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    In the half dark after prayer lost in meditation I fall back asleep and wake to mom calling from the kitchen, “Who left the milk out?” I can’t decide whether to admit my guilt or pretend I’m still asleep and hope one of my siblings takes the blame. 8-1-22

  • haiku memory

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    by

    cfblack
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    fig newton Friday’s only take two – sneak one more childhood payday treat 9-3-22

  • Momma said

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    by

    cfblack
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    Momma said, Take your shoes off on the back porch, I just mopped the floor. Leave you muddy clothes out there, too and keep your dirty hands off my clean wall. Momma said, Come eat, clear your plate before TV, quit picking on your sisters or I’ll beat knots on your head. Momma said, It’s…

  • Parking lot civics

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    by

    cfblack
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    Last night, I dreamed of the old man who used to rest his hand on my head while talking with dad in the parking lot after church. He lived in an old clapboard farmhouse where gravel turned to blacktop and subdivisions grew among the corn. Rooted in old settler stock, he ran for state legislature…

  • a one-sentence letter to my dead mother

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    Dear Mom This morning, I watched birds flit and flutter about our yard, remembered your love of birds and decided that next spring, in your honor, I will ignore the childhood ear worms you implanted in my external auditory meatus canal and no longer will obsess about cleaning windows, because clean windows reflect sky and…

  • Biopsy of fear

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    Old man steps out his back door into darkness, Shivers with apprehension that borders on fear, Childhood bogeymen who lurk in the dark. He gathers himself, reaches down for old habits: Steps off his porch, walks towards the woods, Finds a darker place among the shadows, Closes his eyes and waits for fear to become…