My husband's poetry

Category: childhood

  • at our daughter’s house in Locust Grove, GA

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    by

    cfblack
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    Daffodils bloom in January, a dozen cardinals gather on the lawn. When the back door opens, take flight and chatter in the woods. Mom would like it here. Dad would like anywhere he can watch the football playoffs undisturbed and fall asleep by halftime in a comfortable chair. I wait to be happy doing what…

  • QAnon childhood inoculation

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    by

    cfblack
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    squinting into nightfall pink/orange on gray clouds eyelids tired of trying gum grows tasteless throw it out the window mom said, Albert, if a bird eats your gum, it will expand in their belly and explode for a silly moment I feel remorse and then tell myself I’ve never seen a bird drop from the…

  • 4 poems on 1-22-23

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    by

    cfblack
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    01/22 – today is a day for reading and daydreams and capturing short unnamed snippets of poems that swirl around me #1 A young boy never sees a tree he doesn’t want to climb in his neighbor’s yard, the county courthouse grounds, grandma’s house, the gorilla enclosure at the zoo An old man looks for…

  • Do

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    by

    cfblack
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    Something in me always says I don’t have time to read the READERS WRITE section of Sun magazine so I pass over it. It must be some childhood trigger which causes me to do this so I continue to do this every month. It’s a habit and I don’t care. _____ When I get to…

  • Dreaming prime numbers 7,919

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    by

    cfblack
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    You climb Your favorite neighborhood tree from childhood. You climb until you can see Beyond the trees and houses of your neighborhood. Your neighbor does not want you in their tree And neither does dad. They call up through the branches. You stay still until they leave. On the way home, you rehearse a story,…

  • Cassie’s hat

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    cfblack
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    sunrise, thirty degrees, take your blood pressure meds and crawl back in bed 9 am, put on Cassie’s hat, grab coffee in a blue cup and walk to the park watch mallards rush to safety on the other side of the pond as you approach return from the park, your father’s voice demands to know…

  • Biopsy of fear

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    by

    cfblack
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    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…

  • 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…

  • Parking lot civics

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    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…

  • 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…