My husband's poetry

Category: childhood

  • Fourth of July

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    Cousin Billy lived across the backyard fence. We’d play army in the Summer, crawling through bushes and back yards our parents did not own. Both of us wanted to be Vic Marrow so we took turns in charge of our combat platoon. High school came and went. Billy went off to Vietnam, came home a…

  • Holding hands

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    by

    cfblack
    in

    My first heroes were my sisters, just the three of us, before three others came They walked me to the school house door when I was only five We are knocking on eternity’s door, aging out, falling apart and I must journey home, hold their hand and walk them to the door 6/3/24

  • ‘Mr. Binkley’s Crab Apple Tree’

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    Running through the neighborhood, crawling under bushes, hiding in Mr. Binkley’s crab apple tree. Playing army, believing a tree, a bush, a fence or the corner of a building would protect us from death. Kids fighting imaginary wars with plastic guns. No politics or religious ax to grind. We were undefeated, waiting for the ice…

  • ellipsis of the soul

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    Who! Who! Who! 3 am, owl in the trees asks and I do not know. I do not like my dreams. The anger and fighting – everything unresolved. Who! Who! Who! 4 am, owl in the trees asks and I still do not know. Restless sleep. I remember failure, the young who died and we…

  • excuses are for the weak

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    rainy mornings I’d stop and save the worms drowning on puddled sidewalks picked them up threw them in the grass check marks on my report card told my parents I was late they would not understand saving drowning worms so I took my punishment and moved on 5-5-24

  • in an Indiana woods

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    by

    cfblack
    in

    there is a space in the woods on a hillside where I would go to hide up under the roots of a tree the ground had fallen away and roots hung down as thick snakes I would hide among the roots for hours wait for my stuttering and tics to stop and I could speak…

  • preschool

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    by

    cfblack
    in

    barefoot in wild violets and clover blossoms little brown bees make more than honey learning Murphy’s Law before I could read Momma pulled the stinger out 3-21-24

  • neurodivergence

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    For those of you (like me), who grew up before they did the proper testing, who realized late in life you were neurodivergent You learned survival skills escaping solitary confinement again and again and again. The scars never really heal. Often you wake with blood on the sheets of your dreams, catch your breath running…

  • The partisan

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    mother used to send me to dig dandelions from our neighbor’s lawn with a meat fork no amount of pleading would convince her seeds could parachute in from several yards away I would collect fluffy seed balls from the school yard help them infiltrate the airspace above our lawn forestall and frustrate her battle plans…

  • Foam bubbles

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    the smirking yuppy mural on the wall reaffirms your feelings of inadequacy to the tasks life has set before you and never changes its expression you wish you could sit one more time at your parents’ kitchen table let mom tell you how important it is to lose ten pounds, again listen to stories of…