What Did You Say?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did you say?

I cannot hear you

Please

Turn the volume up

On the TV

Cannot hear what anyone is saying

Either

Never mind commercials

 

It is called

Sudden Hearing Loss

Suddenly my left ear

Was like

Plugged

Far off sounds

Filtered through

Crazy     weird

Ah

But the hearing

Test

Did not lie

Suddenly

There was     indeed

Sudden Hearing Loss

In my left ear

 

Well     okay

Things could be a lot

Worse    a lot

Worse

photo credit

What is Wrong with You

 

 

 

 

Tigray     of Northern Ethiopia
Ukraine     borders Russia

They have become the background of
My hours
Hours
That seep into my
Days
Hover over my
Nights

What is wrong with
You
Abiy Ahmed
Vladimir Putin

I have deposited you
On the scrolls of
Infamy
That haunt memories

From
Millennium to millennium

Your bombs   your tanks
Your soldiers
Willing to follow your
Commands
To destroy     Life
As every woman  man

And child
Once Lived it

What is wrong
With you
What cancer
Devours the essence of your
Humanity

-April 18, 2022

Hands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandmother is old, she is frail

I am one-hundred years

She says, though only ninety-seven

Her fingers trace patterns on the lap robe

And she watches as they move

To the right, to the left

I am nervous, she says

I am nervous

Then her hands lie open

On her thighs

Palms touching the blue wool

She lifts them up, then down

Slowly, again and again

I sit in a chair

Close to the one that enfolds her

Cover her hands with mind

And feel the flutter of her nerves

Like a thousand butterflies

That struggle for release

From their cocoons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Written 1982, from 2001’s Poet’s are the bravest.

With Nana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a memory of childhood

She leans over my bed

She lifts the blanket cover

And puts her hand between the sheets

Then

Flutters her fingers in the darkness

Where I sleep at the bottom

 

It is Wednesday

The nurse has half-day out

Nana comes to wake me from

My nap

Pulls up the window shades

Sees the place near my pillow

Where I tear the wallpaper

Off the wall

Says nothing

 

The peacocks

At the Lincoln Park Zoo

Wail

I cover my ears with my hands

To muffle the noise

She takes peanuts from a paper bag

Holds one in her fingers

Between the iron bars

And waits

The ducks come to snap the peanut

From her fingers

Like the cook jabs potatoes

With a fork for baking

 

She says I may have a peanut

To feed the ducks

Holds the paper bag open for me

But I am afraid to put my fingers through

The iron rails of the fence

She laughs

Says

Don’t be a goosie

They won’t bite

 

It is Wednesday afternoon

At the Lincoln Park Zoo

She wears a woolen suit

And ruffled blouse

Her gray hair under a feathered hat

I remember the feel of her cotton glove

In my hand

And the sound of her shoes

On the pavement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Written 1982, from 2001’s Poet’s are the bravest.