Tag Archive | children

4/28/2015 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Down in a Coral Reefer

Down in a Coral Reefer

He woke from
dreams clouded
with anti-matter
where tree limbs
morphed to octopi
and the line
at the bank
twisted with children
who clogged
the path
to his car
which he never
did find
and stumbling now
feeling no
skeleton
his remaining arms
grab for a suction cup
and the black ink
of coffee
is the only thing
that matters

4/17/2015 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Tomb-Tomb

Tomb-Tomb

She already had one foot
in her grave, when we,
innocent children of the 60’s,
peeked over the fence
at old ‘Tomb–Tomb Nelson’
tending her garden
in her tattered slip again,
and controlled our giggles
so she couldn’t hear,
while our mocking breasts
swung over our shoulders.
Tomb-Tomb.

Guilty, but never caught,
we’re sentenced by breezes
to remember
grass fluttering
while caressing her knees,
the scent of the dirt
perfuming her hands,
the feeling of snickers
lying deep in our throats
choking the childhood
out of us.
Tomb-Tomb.

4/1/2013 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Swaying

Swaying

Don’t try to change
my mind
like God changes
the wind
when he finds himself
lying on his stomach
on a lazy summer day
longing for clouds to billow
and twist like earthly balloons
into cotton-candy animals
and dream of far-away days
when all he had to worry about
was forming mud-pies
into imaginary children
who could be his friends
instead of today’s looming
clouds of destruction
that threaten to blow it all
away.

12/10/2012 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – In a Perfect World

In a Perfect World

The world outside
where children giggled
and mothers shushed
was never kind
so her music
rarely left her porch.

Yet I longed to enter
her lavender house
through ribbons
that fluttered
instead of curtains
where I could see
her dance in purple
eating lilac cookies
with calming tea.

And we
could be the change
inside.

6/03/2012 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Dandelions

Dandelions

Summer offers
her warming light
so playful children
can butter their chins.

Finally going to seed
it takes only a puff of air
to tear them limb from limb
and send them flying.

Each little fluff

flies to a tender place
that welcomes it
and lets it grow.

And dandelions, too,
want nothing more
than the wind to lift them
and carry them home.

4/27/10 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Spring Deluge

(Many of you know that I have not been in the best of health for over a month. I am now on a medical leave, hoping for less stress, and more healing. Thank you for your patience. I appreciate those of you who I see still coming back.)

Clouded

Spring brings the deluge,
the pouring of sky’s soul.

Here I drip
many days’ deluge
finally feeling
ready to fall.

Iris

Watering Can

Eyes blurred,
I planted iris bulbs
crooked.

First shoots,
curved leaves leaned,
proved my pain.

Yet today’s stem
of tomorrow’s flower –
straight up.

Straight down,
a pint of past beauty,
for a bud of hope.

Screams Drift Up

Only her eyes moved,
darting back and forth,
my god, oh, my god.

His eyes open,
starring into the sky;
she knew him, dead.

They took him
in hushed tones;
she alone on the hill.

Her screams bent
allowing no words,
just agony.

Her body curled
sobbing with her softly,
then gut wrenching.

He took her life.
Even her pockets
were empty.

Push Me, Pull Me

I have reached for the tissues
more than five times
and the pile of my agony
still grows.

Tomorrow I will pick them up
and toss them in the trash,
but today the floor
is where my heart
will lay.

Somewhere around
tissue eight or nine,
anger will come out of the box
and I will cry

no more.

The Concert is Canceled

I have never been a fan of singers
whose voices lift
the spirits of thousands.

And, Wind,
I am no fan of yours.

You roll my child’s ball
making her run
far away from me.
You curl my shoulders,teasingly tossing my hair
to obstruct my view.

Every second I have lost
from seeing
my sweet child’s face
in playful laughter
can not be returned.

Wind,
do not sing
your beguiling song here.
The price you charge,
too high.


Thanks For Letting Me Know

Darkness hid every drop
of rain that evening.
I could hear only
the tiny pings on the roof.
I felt the heaviness
of pressured air.

There was no line
between day and night,
between calm conversation
and drips of cutting cynical words.

Unwarned came the torrents,
the angry cry of clouds.
Finally, when it returned to a drizzle,
soft and steady,
the rain became my comfort
as you went out the door.


The Night Hid the Fog

They all stood on this hill,
stomachs hungry
for more than the rinds
of day old bread.

Yet their voices are lost,
wispy like dying fires
after the dead coals
are stomped and ground.

We have not feed them,
filled their need,
while our own greed
has stolen their future.

Children can not play,
innocent in their day
when the sun only makes
cross shadows on the hill.

Trying to Find Myself

My large kitchen spoon
bent too easily
as I tried to dig
to China.

The top soil
was thin,
so thin,
barely covering
the rock below.

My mom
wasn’t impressed
by my efforts then.

I just kept
on digging.


According to Me

Please keep
those tasty,
tempting,
tantalizing,
thesaurus teasing
bites of you
in this place where
I devour them.

According to me
it is easier
to fight
the robot codes
that to fight
my weight.

I will be
the Biggest Loser
if you bail and post
where I can’t
read your words.


Do I Blame the Squirrel or Rabbit?

Yesterday, there was one leaf,
green and growing strong.

It was the promise
of one tulip,
the mystery
of its color,
red,
yellow,
pink,
growing by the base
of my tree.

Today,
chewed off, again.
Just like last year.

I could blame
Princess,
my white squirrel
who circus walks the top
of our cedar fence.

I could blame
the rabbit,
who doesn’t deserve
a name,
chewing his door in the bottom
of our cedar fence.

Or I could blame
the fence.

Selfishly
holding back
this year’s view
of the carried,
buried treasure
of my neighbor’s
tulip bulbs.


Sr. Mary Aloysius

Sr. Mary Aloysius,
fingers sliding
over pearlized beads,
keys jingling
in an unseen pocket,
bends down
to tie her black shoes tight.

Then a quieting finger
covers her thin lips.
She points to God
who apparently
was still looking
down
on us
even though we had already checked
our laces
and our manners.

I wanted to say
she was making more noise
than us,
but little girls
wearing tissues
for our missing chapel caps
already had enough

to pray about.

To Remember the Day

Somewhere around fifty
our brains shifted
from abstract thinking
about the events
of the day,
who is going where
and what they’re going to do,
to the minute details
of puss oozing
from our ears
and sciatic nerve damage
that radiates down our legs.

To remember the day
that meds our should be increased
while calculating
the effort needed
to climb a flight of stairs,
we need to shift
our creaking bones
to a place where we
remember the day
when we were too young
to care that we’d grow old.

Two Scoops

Just when I think
I know it all,
the electrifying
realization
of your 2 to 1 ratio,
proves, once again,
the magnetism
between my spoon
and a quart of frozen custard
is justifiably intensified
by the viscosity
of my tears
and the volume
of her breasts.

Two Wrongs

Global warming,
earth’s demise,
heating arguments
conflicting
with knowledge
we all insist
is true.

Scientists can’t cool
the fiery tempers
of melting icebergs
and angst filled teenagers,
floating soul sisters,
colliding
and damaging
their sinking feelings

hidden

below.

He Knew That I Cut Snowflakes

He is thirteen
seen forever
by sensitive souls
who pass his hillside,
who hear his muffled
cry.

Scissors.

Duck tape
wrapped around
his mouth
his nose,
his eyes alone
cry.

Scissors.

I drive on,
no scissors
in my car,
my radio,
just a little louder.

Even Solomon Loved a Sale

A piece of paper,
value kept,
worth
fifty percent off
any number
of items
needed,
desperately
needed,
has now died,
died,
an untimely death
with the flipping
of the calendar.

Expired.

Hoarders lament,
tearing their treasure,
each half
now fifty percent
of nothing.

Hairball Island

Only an old cat
can chuck up
a hairball,
stringy,
stinky,
slippery,
that floats
like an island
in a sea of slime.

Only me
left to wipe it up.

That old cat
and I
ebb and flow
with my paper towels
and his rough tongued kiss.

A Spare Tire was in the Back

Wheels spun,
rolling down the road,
screeched us to a halt.

Time was my enemy of love,
held a hand up,
prevented our crossing.

No opportunity
to look both ways,
longingly down the road.

Then my heavy breasts,
filled past love’s capacity,
rested before they got home.

Damn flat.

Washburn

Chequamegon Bay
quiet as the foaming
washing of rocks,
slow as applebutter
spread on toast.

Where lupines wave
their purple spires
giving seed to
crumbling
sandstone churches.

Barren blueberries
dust of pine
buckets of smelt
batter dipped
and fried.

Then brandy slush
it all till snow
covers the land
marking my trail
home.

A Writer’s Fear

Anticipating adrenaline’s rush
mingled with salty popcorn,
the script,
the first sacrificial victim,
heavy in the weight
of the writer’s agonizing
choice of words
falls
to its live or die
ending
with the first reader’s
ominous words:

“I don’t get it.”

4/08/10 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Science UN-FAIR!

Tessellation

PROMPT 8: Write a TOOL poem.

Science UN-FAIR!

Perhaps, it is because
I have never actually
seen one
that my creative mind
imagines
a barbarous, torturous device
so heinous
that every lazy-assed
good-for-nothing
12-year-old
runs screaming back
to their dining room table
finishing their project,
proving the combined
measurement of angles
will equal 360 degrees,
thereby creating
a tessellating design
equivalent to the twisted
mind of Escher
and pointed barbed-wire fences,
holding back cattle
and procrastinating children.

Assuming, of course,
that my dad actually
OWNS
a cattle prod.

Some theories should not be proved.

10/23/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Like Nobody’s Business – I Have Used Up My Allotment of Pixie Dust

Like Nobody’s Business

She could blame the caffeine
or the thousand and one
details and unmade decisions
that follow her
home from work
waking her up
at 3:07 to throw off
covers and expectations
of a good night’s sleep,
but she doesn’t.

She just stumbles
to the bathroom,
closing her eyes again
to the glare of the light,
only a sliver
squeezing through
while cupping her hands
trying to sip enough
to swallow an aspirin.

She lay back down,
dreams beginning
to slide again
into distorted cubicles
and his accusation
that work
is
her life.

When the alarm finally rings,
its sharpness
reawakens that throbbing headache,
and she finds only a dribble
of relief
rolling onto the coolness
of his side of the sheet.

She could blame him
for her pain
and her thirst,

but she doesn’t,

faulting only her skillful fingers,

unable to catch water

or men.

I Have Used Up My Allotment of Pixie Dust

Talking frogs
and levitating children
danced with mushrooms
in my imagination.

Fanciful sojourns
to mystical places
could hold me
spell bound
for hours at a time.

Then I grew
too busy for books,
my hands caught up
in other tasks.

Untethered,
I have flown
into the place
where exertion
and exhaustion
collide.

If a floating lady
with a sparkling wand
wants to make me
sleep for a thousand years,

then let her.

9/22/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections

Bridge Support

Connecting South Curry Street to North Curry Street,
the city begins its race toward progress
building a viaduct over the her garden
spanning three gridiron railroad tracks.

The coal dust settles as the trains roll by
with warning horns echoing off the concrete.
The cats begin to wander farther from home,
her concern for them not allowing her sleep.

Her fear settles on the train’s slicing wheels,
while her cats scurry from their grinding sound.
Their stomachs empty, no mice to chase,
rumble like the trains that scare them away.

She sings for her cats to come in from the rain
that nourishes the leaves of her buried potatoes
growing under the viaduct, not under the sun,
hardly producing a bagful to harvest.

The city waits for her elderly years to wither.
They want her land for a convenience store
where people can come in the dead of night
to buy their cats milk and a sack of potatoes.

Not So Black and White

Before being demolished today, the Skunk House,
with haunting empty rooms was an invitation to teens
who wrote on the walls and destroyed furniture
while stabbing a dressmaker’s dummy to death.

City officials, knowing my mother,
and thinking of possible items of value,
suggest she venture in to see what she wants,
perhaps there are books her children could read.

I beg my mother to let me go with,
not afraid of spooks or terrorizing ghosts,
or the stories kids tell of murderous men
and women who shriek in the dead of night.

I win her over with my false bravado,
so we creak open the door to let in the sun.
The boarded up house sighs dust in our eyes,
but it can’t detour us from going inside.

Dangling strings trip us from a smashed violin,
the sound of its music now dead.
Not knowing the price of the name
“Stradivarius,” we decide upon something else.

We go home with a chair between us,
brown plush material faded and torn,
nobody else to want it, or notice it gone,
or a book of poems lamenting the dead.

While our door is open, a white cat walks in
and I drop my end of the chair in fear
because behind it comes the Cat Lady,
a real living terror walking into our home.

Rushing behind my mother’s skirts, I reveal
my ignorance of haunting things
while my mother in her compassion,
hands over the kitten, unable to calm my fears.

Chalk Smears on the Sidewalk

She is small
allowing only eighty years
to peek out from her brown babushka.
She frightens us,
her language different, indiscernible
by children playing on North Curry Street,
so the taunts begin
with cruel slurs and chalk marks
that she can not understand.

She is alone,
save six cats who need her
swirling between her shuffling feet.
They gently purr,
with a language only she understands
as the rhythm of her snapping beans
waves her paring knife in our direction.
Rocking on her porch, she smiles
at the kids who curse her.

She is misunderstood,
save my mother who protects her
when she falls coming back from her garden.
My mother covers her,
with a coat and guards her from children
who laugh as potatoes roll from her bag
pinching their noses from the scent of cat
still swarming around her
till the paramedics come.

She is carried
from the viaduct to the safety of her porch
as the story spreads through the neighborhood.
We wait by her gate,
even without dimes promised by the mailman
who believe rumors of bones in the basement,
till my mother comes out to scold us.
The Cat Lady won’t shriek in the dead of night.
It’s time for us to go home.

9/09/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections

Thickening the Stew

Her eighty-three years were tired,
and I had to crawl up beside her
if I wanted to hear her voice
too soft to hear at the side of the bed.

She lay with her hands clutching
the blanket close to her chin,
smiling as she rambles of days
children like me have never seen.

A farm wife, she reminds me,
knows the length of the furrows
as well as her husband.
She can look at the sky knowingly
getting the animals safe into the barn.

Her fingers tap the blanket
counting again the sixty-three jars
of beans she canned that year.
Laughing with the memory
of the potatoes cooked too long,
then only good for thickening stew.

I heard of running chickens,
burnt pie crusts,
and her sweet children
playing in the wheat fields
till the reaper came.