Dog (PAD #4)

she wants a dog but
her mother always says no,
so she barks at night

The Problem with Memory

Fierce eyes seared into my wasted soul
like water on heated sand thirsty for new
life,

seeking to green garden with sweet gloved
hard hands you oxygenated my flinty
topsoil turning over my years of walking away

walking from the sunlight but you were the new drug; the vitamin
D deficiency I had compelled me to wanna mainline you into
every vein, every artery, pumping you so far into me

I couldn't tell the difference between us, couldn't see
where the stem ended and the leaf began, you grew me...

grew me and then forgot to prune me, forgot to water me
and just left me in that wasted pot straining to glimpse the sun
heliotroping into this twisted, gnarled Bonsai that will
never look better than this

never feel better than this, never be greener than this.

Like Dutch elm disease is a blessing cause it will
cause me to wither and die, a tree better in my memory.
Not looking at all like I do in reality

The problem is that, Johnny Appleseed like,
I know you will do this again, be water to thirsty souls again
like some tragic Greek story doomed to repeat itself
there will soon be a forest of dead trees looking
never better than me...

Saint Bridget's Other (PAD Day 2)

You had the same nun the rich
girl had in eighth grade

they called her Bulldog cause she was so short
and grumpy

and you were no Grace Kelly, no
you weren't like any of the others

rich and poor they no longer
fought about being Irish or Italian

they fought over you, Nigger Boy
or Chuck, just another kid from the projects.

One of them or one of us? Which one
you quickly found out and after awhile

it no longer mattered who it was that
called you that name.

Your fist was your best friend, sainted
hand of retribution

Full of all the grace you ever
needed.

Day One PAD Challenge

A poetry test/
write one of these e'ery day/
be sure it makes sense