Ashes Given to the Wind

Bless the Child

Deep inside my sweetheart

Dwells a little her
Concentrated, distilled, pure
Exactly as she came off
The finger of God
Sometimes she comes out to play
A splash of laughter
A kiss for just nothing
A dance around the room
She comes from deep inside
To bask in a moment of safety
Jesus, bless the child
For though she
Cannot be cut by swords
She is so easily slain by words.

Dawn and I had such a good time

Reading poetry this morning
So that I girt ip my feet
Rather than tied my shoes
That I might make war against
The beauty of death
By raking the leaves.

Enchanted October

We did Rome,

In October
It was just a vacation after all,
Enchantment is for April and for youth
We had the settled-ness of age
But something happened to me
In Italy
A kind of etymology
After all, "Rome" is the root of "romance."
And I fell madly in love
With you again in that great city,
In Italy.
 

For Dawn at Bushnell

 There is no one word,

For a look out the window.

The lush green!

How can green have so many colors?

Promise in every leaf,

Of an orgasm of beauty come fall;

That long peaceful sleep after.

 

The scurrying animals.

Hoover the Chipmunk.

Squirrel and the birdseed wars.

Raccoon with his bi-polar image,

Malevolent masked robber, cunningly cute.

 

The Rainbow of feathers.

Delicate the Hummer,

Mosquito of the birds.

Red the woodpecker,

Feeding his mate on the side of a tree.

 

Looking out the window memories

Leaning back on the pretty but painful wicker couch

With you, reading a good book

Or The Good book. Interrupted!

Laughing at the antics out the window.

 

Oh how much more impossible it is  to find one word,

When I turn to look into your happy eyes.

 

 

 

 

I Am Yours

Valentines Day 2003

 

It’s good to have some coins within the hand

And better yet some money in the bank

To purchase this or that

A comfort here or there

 

But when it comes to counting up my wealth

My power to purchase comes the very last

My greatest treasures be

The things that purchase me

 

The beauty and the depth of your dark eyes

Compassion that you hold for all the poor

These greatest treasures be

The things that purchase me

 

And best of all the greatest of my wealth

I hold and never have to spend

So love is as it ought                                      

By loveliness I’m bought.

 

 

 

God-full awe

 I awoke this morning

God-awful tired

But exulting, "Oh what  a night"

I will not say if it was my God or my girl,

That left me thus exhausted,exaulted,

Won't tell what I felt or heard or saw,

But believe what I say,

It was God-full awe.

Either way.

 

 

Love in the Ruins

 I was so young at fifty

When we talked about infatuation and love.

Poor girl; she didn't know what she was getting,

A mime lover

Who could flail his arms

And churn his legs

And make his face be whatever was called for

In a pantomime dance

And the answer was

I love you like a tiger

With a roar that makes the jungle mute

But I can't find your language . . .yet!

And you can't guess my pantomime.

 

 

 

 

The Ceremony of Love

 "Tonight," she said.

I took her meaning with a smile

"Tonight" would be set aside for

Our ceremony of love

I couldn't stop thinking about later

Taking a shower

Warm water pouring over my head

Full of what is about to be.

I confess, I am only thinking about thinking about what will be.

The ceremonies of love are like

those facing mirrors

In which you can see hundreds of yourselves

But every one of those thinking about

Thinking abouts is a capsule of the pleasure

Of what the first thought was about.

And, if truth be told,

It is always the latest act of making love

That is the beginning of the next

And everything in between

Is a kind of pre-foreplay if you please

And if the truth continues

The first think about it

was a memory of that last act

Remembered within seconds of it

And that memory becomes the thought

That is thought about the hundred times

Between the ceremonies of love

 

 

 

My Worry

 I worry about high blood sugar

You can just pass out, you know

And I get real dizzy

It might be my heart pumping too fast

I checked, it was.

And there's this tingling

And tintinitus, that's ringing in the ears

My legs go weak

And I taste sugar on my tongue

What's that mean?

I've been keeping up a list

And I got it narrowed down

To every time we've kissed.

 

Oh God

Lover of all you have made

Let me love alike

All I have been given

To love myself the least and last

For loved by you is good enough

So You have said

It's in my head

But that is just the start

You have given me a girl to love

I think I've got it halfway down

A principle to underscore.

But practice, Oh I need much more

My faux John Wayne

Is Herman Munster in much pain

And God you know

It's all our male human race

Though some few state

That  they're an ace

The rest all think they're out in space

We don't know what to do or say

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.

 

Ordained

You are the shine of my countenance

A kind of anointing with oil

Like the dew of Hermon

That fell on Mount Zion

I am ordained to the ministry

Of loving you

 

 

Ours is an old and comfortable love

It is like the Mississippi River

Sometimes rampaging

And roaring, overbursting

Its boundaries

In its exuberance

Sometimes as docile as a farmer's pond

But it never dries up

Just keeps on rolling down

Toward the sea

Grand-children play in the shallows

Along the sandbars

And there are treacherous waters

In some of the depths

Only God knows about the wrecks That lay down there

Our love is like the old man river

The Mississippi

A love that is long and deep and wide

Just keeps on rollin down

Until it reaches the sea.

 

 

 

Ain't Love Grand?

I've been asked to help marry two different couples come this May. Here is a poem for the grooms. Sometimes mixed messages are the true message. Think about it, son.

Submission

 Look at your woman, son

God did good, didn’t he, boy
When he formed that pretty creature
In the middle of her mama’s womb
Did God make her second rate, son
Second rate to you?
Is she somehow different flesh
Weaker flesh, woman flesh?
And you are?
What?
Her master in this marriage bond?
Does your love condescend, son?
Do you love her like your dog?
Is that what you think?
 
Look at your woman, son
God did good didn’t he, boy.
So she is the handmaid of the Lord?
Are you more than the butler?
God said she was a helpmeet.
You take that to mean, then
That you are not?
Well . . . ,
God told her, submit
And you to love
You take that to mean
That she gives in and you don’t?
Then hear your meaning back
She‘s got no mandate to love you, Jack
Only yessah massa
To your back
Ooo, Ooo, Ooo
What are you to do?
 
Look at your woman, son.
God did good didn’t he, boy.
Look in her eyes . . . up close
And listen to your heart.
 

 

Curt Mortimer

Acquainted with Sorrow

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my wife, Dawn's death. She had emphysema for over ten years. She never smoked but might have had some contact with 2nd hand smoke. In a Father's Day Card, she signed it, Your sister, friend, debater, lover, and wife. I loved that but she was also my poetry editor. Most of all the things I miss are the times we would work on a poem together. Apart from several grief poems, I haven't written any poetry this last year. Here is a collection of poems about her being sick.





The Doctor Said


My honey and me, we went to the doctor
He said her lungs were not the best
To say the least,
And me, my heart, that part
was way behind the rest of me,
And I had best slow down.

"But between you," said that wise old man,
You make one good healthy person."
And that is just what ought to be, said we,
For she, she takes my breath away
And I, I have her heart
So more than just the marriage bed
One flesh, we are, like Jesus said.

 

 

The Artist

 

I have been painting in our room
with prayer.
Painting over, to be exact.
A wide smear
To hide the bed
in which you lie retching
Stark photograph of my fear.
Pray painting a better picture
impressionistic hints of
My lady awakening, stretching
Beckoning for a kiss
For prayers are dreams
And dreams are hopes
Sketched on tomorrow's wall
I don't know what to do
So please, dear God I call on you,

 

 

Heart Stopping Love
 

When you are sick

I am the guardian of our journey
A clutching miser of joy
Like a new father
Cradling a fragile newborn
Checking frantically for normal
For better, for worse.
Neither knowing nor caring
For anything less than this
Caressing with shaky tenderness
On guard
Keeping from terror
Counting the breaths
Careful the error
Of dropping
My baby, as they say.
You are my Baby
In every way,
And this is
Heart stopping love.

 

 

 

In these days of your sickness

8/26/12

In these days of your sickness
We have said we'll take
Each moment as it comes,
We'll make the best of it,
And I will love you all ways.
 
This is a wilderness journey.
There's always been room
To slip between the trees and rocks.
Let danger loom,
We'll take the knocks together.
 
Take my hand.
We'll talk
Like we always have.
We'll walk into the next . . .
But here's the unwriteable text:
Grief is a doppleganger of devotion,
A double goer, a phantasm,
An old acquaintance 
Coming unannounced for dinner. 
 
I have forgotten Grief
In these years of joyous loving,
But now he appears
At the edges of my vision,
Crouching like a gargoyle 
On the ledges of my fears.
Stay away, 
Set a while more old friend,
I'm not done loving yet. 
 

 

Someday

 
Some day if you die before me
I'll cry at movies, every frame
Reach for your hand in the dark room
And mornings I will say your name
Before the rising dawn
Embrace the pillows where you lay
Temporarily insane with saddness
They say that grief will pass on by
That time will heal the fiercest pain
And so my cheeks may dry some day
But I'll still want you back again
Like Him a man of sorrows be
I'll sigh and play the waiting game
My treasures safely sealed and signed
As Jesus came He'll come again
With you and Benji close behind.
If you should die before I do.

 

 

Acquainted With the Night

 
We have become acquainted
With the night
As with an enemy, familiar,
An everyday visitor
Who opens up his coat
To share his wares
He is an exhibitionist
In ecstasy over what he has to sell. 
Hell has no goods for us.
We will not buy.
Though the shadow try and try and try,
For we have lived and loved and laughed,
In glorious day. 
 
Beautiful
 
I remember when I told you
That I thought you were beautiful
You said, "Oh I never take
A very good picture "
Checking out the teeth
Of my horsey compliment
You said, "You are just smitten."
Well yes, that was the point!

And now when we are older
As emphysema robs you daily
Of your breath
You give a gift to me
I am allowed the intimacy
Of rubbing lotion
Into your legs
And washing your back,
Clipping your nails
I think how precious this skin,
This bone, this oxygenated blood
How beautiful!

I loved you
Because you were beautiful before
But now,
You are beautiful because I love you
And I am smitten more.