They know
a butt end
bread crust
torn in threes
not good enough
for me to keep
is left atop
fence posts
set out for them
my meager
attempt to sustain
all I need
the chittering
silver twitches
of defiant tail
misinterpreted
as thanks
but they know
the glass door
between us
only good enough
to keep me
from being
torn in threes.
Tag Archive | glass
4/19/2015 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – He Came Wanting
He Came Wanting
Softly woven
in discarded
string and grass,
he hides
his hungry babies,
and I hear him
chattering angrily
through the glass,
yet I have no time,
no stale bread
to toss his way.
My thoughts
are tied
to her clinic,
those time gorging
IV drips,
and no amount
of banging
my head
against the glass
can coax cancer
from her veins
and hand her
that small cracker,
that extra day,
that God refused
to give.
4/2/2015 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Last Call
Last Call
Languid
as a melting crayon
that colors
my judgement,
my words
ooze
Lombardy-like
as I pub-crawl
back again
to pick up
my empty glass,
and spit
my secrets in.
6/09/2013 – Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – Fran’s Woven Glass
Fran’s Woven Glass
There is a tapestry of life
with distorted dreams
and chaotic threads
that pull one day
into the next.
First one, then two,
then a blurring of a thousand
oil stained slats
that form a fallen ladder
holding up the train
as it fills the blue sky
with cheetah blackened soot.
And all the rubbing inside
can’t clear the outside
nor bullets stop the frantic love
that drove Bonnie and Clyde
to lie upon the dust
of a desolate road
deep in the piney woods.
So little Polly and I
couldn’t know our paths
as we made hollyhock dolls
and set them floating
first one, then two,
in a rutabaga platter dance
blurring a thousand dreams
of ours on Curry Street.
4/05/10 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – My Glass Was Filled Again
PROMPT 5: Write a poem about too much information.
My Glass Was Filled Again
Covers rolled over me
clouds billowed past
my distortion of day,
my mixing of night.
Dreams dropped the words
that slumber used to describe
my mixing of people,
my confusion of time.
Somewhere in the pillow
that holds my jumbled words
my poem was left in pieces,
my frustration wakes again.
I thought I would remember
all the feelings of the dream
my clarity of morning,
my forgetfulness of you.
11/10/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections
The Man in the Moon Has No Hands
I walk in socks
unwilling to wake
the sleeping
as I pass the window
showing multiple images
of myself,
distorted and untouchable,
in the blackened night.
It is easy
to slide quietly
between the pains
of glass
and into that darkness
where my regrets
leave an untouchable
mark.
I can stay in the shadows
as long as the moon
is on my side
and keeps
his hands
to himself.
11/09/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections – White Flag in Autumn
White Flag in Autumn
We weren’t gone long,
but the creek
is not the same.
Autumn
laid a healing
gauze of glass
from shore to shore.
Stick in hand,
I break the ice
letting the water
flow cold and fast.
Day after day
the creek and I
battle,
but the edge
where I stand
grows firm.
I should have laid down
my anger.
My stick,
now broken,
is tossed upon the snow.
Come spring,
two pieces thaw
drifting
away.
Long gone.
7/05/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections
Walking Across Cut Glass
I kicked my shoes off while walking along the sand
and my weight sinks me into summer
where warm crystals slide through my toes
as each step takes me closer to the water’s edge.
But after a few steps the heat becomes unbearable
and I must run to the relief of the crashing waves
where wetness changes the texture of the sand
and it becomes a firmer place to contemplate.
Here at the morphing edge I feel myself slowing
allowing me to see the accumulation of my days,
where I must look to find forgiveness
like broken glass smoothed by time and waves.
Eventually the sun must slip away to sleep
and I must follow its wisdom and walk home,
but moisture clings the sand to my feet
and holds on tight so we heal together.
The Cookie Cracked
The cookie cracked to expose my fortune:
Life is no accident.
So it must have been providence
that changed us both from thin to fat.
If that is so, we can’t be blamed for
those sneaky pounds that crawled up our ankles
to hide among our thighs.
If our waists were rolled like dice
by some higher power,
our destinies are pre-determined.
So if you need me to predict
what is next for us in life,
we need a divine intervention,
because we’re fat out of luck,
and cookies.