Fall surrendered, snow fell, and Ruth’s mother bought a blanket for her daughter’s seventeenth Christmas. It wasn’t a very expensive or spectacular blanket; it was extraordinary only in the fact that it hadn’t been picked mindlessly from a Christmas list but had instead been chosen lovingly and thoughtfully. She knew her daughter was forever chilly and would love the blanket’s fleece side, and she laughed to see that it had snaps just like the blanket she herself had spent her evenings cocooned in when she was Ruth’s age. So she wrapped the blanket more beautifully than the other gifts and set it gently under the tree.

The sun stretched, adults yawned, and Ruth opened her mother’s gift on Christmas morning. At the sight of the blanket, her grandmother’s eyes welled with memories of Ruth’s mother, looking almost identical to how Ruth looked now, wrapped up in her own blanket with the snaps. Ruth admired the gentle color of the blanket’s slick side and stroked the fleece side against her check before setting it on top of the rest of her gifts. She thanked her mother enthusiastically (she’d always been acutely aware of her reaction to gifts in front of their givers) and laughed good-naturedly at her grandmother’s hovering tears before hugging them down her face.

Naked trees shivered, frost iced the landscape, and at her mother’s suggestion Ruth spent the winter with the blanket layered beneath her covers. She nestled beneath it every night, but felt guilty when she couldn’t love it any more than anything else she had in her room, and she never snapped it around herself as her mother had done. She’d tried to wear it like that the day she was given the blanket, but it had made her feel uncomfortable and constrained. So instead she slept with the blanket spread flat beneath her sheets through that winter and into the spring.

Spring sprung, flowers bloomed and Ruth bounced for a moment on her toes before diving headfirst into his eyes. The weeks passed for her not in hours and days but in giggles and kisses, and she was surprised when her usually analytical, suspicious mind released her heart and allowed it to love recklessly and entirely. Making her bed one giddy morning, Ruth stroked the soft, fleece side of her blanket and then the slick, smooth side, and she thought of sweet picnics and stargazing from quiet hilltops. She folded the blanket and kept it in her car in preparation for any such spontaneity.

The moon beamed loudly, prom streamers fluttered, and Ruth danced with him wildly. Her classmates all felt just as immortal, and everyone laughed and spun and anticipated together. When they finally left the dance, Ruth’s body was still coursing with the night’s excitement, intoxicated with young love and the bright eternity that stretched before her. He brought her to a small hilltop where she spread the slick side of the blanket against the grass, and the two lay trembling there beneath the stars. Finally, he wrapped his mouth and his heart and his body around hers, and her innocence leaked slowly onto the fleece.

The moon slid drunkenly behind the hills, birds began to wake, and Ruth flew home on her own audacity, leading the dawn behind her. In the dim light, she noticed the garbage can her father had brought to the curb the night before, and she decided to spare her mother the pain of discovering the once soft fleece now stained with rebellion. Quietly, she lifted the lid and dropped the blanket inside. Its snaps scraped loudly against the can for an instant, but then the morning quickly swallowed the noise. By the time the lid banged back down, Ruth was rushing back to the house, her blanket already forgotten.

Passover or Easter or Happy Any Ole Thing, Sam I Am

she
asks me good naturedly
which to wish me - a happy this or that
and a poem’s immaculate conception is instant arisen arising
hot ****

rueful smile and unruly reply
a solid out loud Ha!

neither either or he writes and so believes

for I am a god loving man,
whom we’ve -Him/It/Me have agreed
that I may call
Sam I Am
and the answer to your question is
why not

for most quests and questions can be well-answered
why not!

my genes my historical beings my ancestors and my issue
all declaiming that I am a jew who left egypt, no defaming, a slave to no man who cannot love another like his own self

but some in all that I write, this deity boss slips in quietly unseen in one of his jokes-on-us-disguises like singing ave maria

and thus whose to say
his rightful name, is not
Sam I Am

my choice and the big D
     (a self-employed informal his choice, nom-de-guerre)
has agreed via his acknowledgement in his normative style of
low volume taciturn tacit acceptance

so wish me a u happy
anything you want-to-call-it-day

don’t matter. but know this u were there
when, all on that happy day where, @ the manger,
when this Sam-Approved-Appeared
poem was born and Sam blessed it with a
hot ****!

she laughs, tosses back in my face, some schematic I
prior penned that I can’t recall the when or where or my
nom-de-guerre employed but fits this ex-slave perfectly

“there are no lines or lies in my writings
there are no definitions and
perception is only your truth”

A Long time ago,
I was far from home,
Far from good food,
company
and familiar sights.
I was washing my bike,
Hoping for my neighbor's
sweet daughter
to come out
on her Balcony
Light up my day
with her sweet smile
My neighbor
My landlady,
Had a family of six
Beautiful daughters,
Who had no father
This churned my heart
I went soft for this family
But had no Intention
to ruin
Disrupt their peace
Nor interfere
In their daily lives
I kept my feelings
bottled in steel
but smiled
Good naturedly
at them all
and stood guard
against
any male that threatened
their gentle citadel
They treated me
with snacks
and their gentle
smiles like I was
the Orphan
and I was well fed
with my sacred
relationship
But their smiles
created pangs
in my young heart
which good breeding
stifled with iron hand
Until one day
I espied
my contractor
make eyes
at the oldest
This enraged me
Lit a fire
(I thrashed the man
Ah, the strength of youth
Knows no bounds)
into an inch of his life
till he begged
for mercy.
This fell on the ears
of my superiors
who in their enthusiasm
to please
their clients
had me transferred
2000 kms
from home
I waved goodbye
with tears in my eyes
my six angels
and their guardian
who had grown
to like me as well,
That day I swore
that no girl child
would come to harm
under my watch
without her will
and some times even
with her will when
her delicate youth
made her stray
into harms path
I would slay the dragon
of temptation
at the cost of
my reputation
among friends of
being a Casanova
I wear my disguise well
To Please God and Man.

There was once a little boy, who liked a little girl

and one fine day, by the beach, he found a little pearl.

Thinking of his sweetheart, he picked it up & took it home

and he polished it all day, throughout the night until it shone.



The very next day he put it in a velvet box;

went out whistling, thinking of her golden locks.

He kept thinking of how her eyes would gleam;

how the pretty pearl would make her beam.



He found her swinging on a mighty big swing,

How his heart fluttered when he heard her sing.

The wind catching her hair and tossing it all about;

he thought she was an angel without a doubt.



He clutched the velvet box and took a step forward

then stopped because suddenly he felt like a coward.

What if she spurned his advances & didn’t accept his gift?

Or worse, she thought him funny and had a laughing fit?



His mind in turmoil, his little heart pounding away,

He thought about fleeing 'coz he didn’t know what to say.

Glued to the spot, his prospects sure seemed grim

when suddenly, she turned and looked straight at him.



With no apparent escape he smiled at her tentatively

and like a miracle, she grinned back, the sight so lovely.

Encouraged, he walked up to her and held up his gift;

She reached for it shyly and his spirits started to lift.



As she slowly opened it with a smile upon her lips,

he watched her, fascinated, his heart doing the flips.

When she beheld the shiny pearl, her eyes opened wide;

her obvious pleasure in turn, had him feel overjoyed.



She looked up, her brown eyes warm and sparkling,

cocked her pretty head to the side and kept on looking.

Then after what seemed like ages she finally said,

“It’s really beautiful. Thanks, you are very sweet, Ted.”



Amazed that she knew his name, he said happily,

“It is not more beautiful than you dear Emily!”

She smiled, then laughed good-naturedly at this,

then came closer and gave him a sweet kiss.



His happy heart about to burst, he held her hand;

his love conquest a success, he felt so grand.

He had found his playmate, his first love ever,

his friend, his sweetheart, his life’s pearl forever.

Bili’s one of my two best chums. She's exquisite, cagey and ferociously funny - compared to her I’m tomboyish.

Her hair is a straight corn-silk that shines like black-enamel. When we watch movies, I get to brush it. Her heritage is Japanese, she has perfect, warm-ivory skin, but she’s as American as sarcasm or gun-violence.

When she talks to me, sometimes she’ll be flirtatious or motherly, but always jocose. She bullies me, good-naturedly coaxing and chivvying me onto the trajectory she selects.

I’m jiggered - I enjoy being treated like a pet. I’ve been so harried lately that it’s somehow calming. I think I’m going to spend the rest of the summer, blithely letting her arrange me.

laughter, tears
It's all the same
a washing of the soul
release of the dam
it was under too much pressure
gotta let off a little steam,
no shame in that.
She looked beautiful
tired as she was
and complained the dress was too tight
but it showed off her legs well
and there were leaves on her chest.
Waiting for the taxi
we bickered good-naturedly
and laughed about our old lady ways
in young bodies.
We were late, that's okay
we're the eccentric ones,
they wouldn't expect anything different
from the two young, old ladies
with the same first name.

For forty-five minutes today, I refused to look at my phone.

That's an accomplishment by the way, my phone is new,
shiny rose gold, with a fingerprint scanner and a high res camera
sometimes I find my fingers just playing with the screen
a familiar caress to calm my breathing and lull me to a sense of dulled security
I cheated a few times, I looked when my mom texted me
saying she'd be another fifteen minutes late, and another

But other than that, I wouldn't look
I looked at the people instead, the trees, the cars
Sitting under the pink awning of some random storefront
I challenged myself to look the sidewalk goers in the eyes
and smile

Some smiled back, there were some awkward how are you exchanges
with people I've never met, some glazed their eyes over and pretended not to see

I saw the most unhappy looking women get into her blue car with her bags from the pharmacy
I watched a older man sit in a spot on his tablet, listening to the radio
I wondered if he was just having time to enjoy himself when his wife came out of the store and the started arguing, good-naturedly
'What else do we have to do?' 'I don't know' 'Do you want to walk around?' 'God no, I hate this town'
Me too sometimes, me too

Everyone here is in a rush
It is a grab-everything-in-sight town
A material, self-centered town, with prices that pay for it
It's odd for a girl my age to stop, slow down and watch people
To smile for the almost-spring breeze, for the cute siblings across the street bundled into matching winter coats
To smile for the sake of smiling

My cheeks burned self-conscious with the thought of how I must appear to everyone
I touch the phone in my pocket
then push it further into the lining of my coat, along with the fear of being me

For forty-five minutes today, I lived authentically

when you can barely
put these thoughts
into words?

I am intrigued.
In the daytime I’m happy and nothing seems to bother me too much.
I go about my day good naturedly and laugh and smile a lot.
When night comes all the things my thoughts come back and I become sad.
Everything that makes me upset jumps around and shuts out my joy and it’s really overwhelming.. No matter how happy my day was.
This happens all the time now.

I do love my life.. It’s the foul black night that tempts me.
Yet I still somehow love the night..

Still i must strain to see through blurred eyes, my Creator is cradling me under moon and sun.

good night earth

A little girl with golden ringlet curls skips up the stone path
Tucked under her arm, she carries a white box tied together with a red, elastic ribbon
Come play with me she pleads, pulling at my shirt
My mind is elsewhere, and though I wasn't expecting a visitor, I laugh and let her drag me over under the big willow tree
She cuddles close, her small heartbeat familiar, almost
Her muddy brown eyes sparkle with excitement
I want to show you my toys she says, pushing her box to me
Open it! she orders
Good-naturedly, I tug at the ribbon
It is tough, almost muscular to touch, but I wrestle the box from its grasp
Only to realize how beautiful the box itself is, a rose and thorn pattern carved into its bone-white ivory panels
Go on the girl prompts
I push off the lid, and smile at the girl before looking inside

The girl claps her hands and laughs as I gag
Acidic tears burning in my eyes
Aren't they lovely? she sing-songs
She shows off her puppets one at a time, squeezing each by their broken strings
And I recognize them all

There is an elementary school teacher, a hunched and frail grandmother, the piano man, that boy from my town who jumped off a bridge,
my dad
All of them so very, very
Dead
My own personal collection of ghosts dangled before my eyes

The left side of their chests are stained rust-red, a gaping heart-shaped wound hacked into the fabric of who they were

I stare at the girl wide eyed, shaking with rage
What are you? I whisper
She blinks up at me and then, I recognize her
I recognize myself
For this little girl is me as I was, before I met the boy,
The boy with endless eyes
Before I met-

The little girl lunges into my face
Baring her small, perfect teeth and red, red lips in a controted grin

He says hi she hisses
And a shiver runs through my veins

She stands, pushing her way beyond the weeping branches of the willow tree, clearly done with me
Over her shoulder she calls the words
You can expect a visit soon
Before skipping down the stone path, box in arm again
Until even the gold reflections of her hair are swallowed by mists

I shudder, wishing I could close my eyes
But I see her box every time I blink, with my dead all meatly arranged in a line-
I go and chase the sunlight
And it gets a little better
I feel safe enough to breathe

But still, in the back of my mind,
I know her warning resonates true
Expect a visit soon

Somehow I'm never ready when he comes.

He walked to the gate while the soft summer wind stirred the oak,
and the sun reflectively smiled in the ruts on the road,
to greet his brother Ted who’d languidly move across
so that Vic could companionably lean and look at their cattle
grazing under the Breckland pine, and reflect.

He drove his tractor and tended his fields,
enjoying the changing seasons but moaned about fen blows,
and unexpected showers which slowed the combine,
good naturedly grumbling with other farmers
about the price of fat cattle, the return on wheat,
and how many potatoes are in a packet of crisps,
when at Bury market on a Wednesday.

He’d sit to the left of the door of the Cricket Club
contentedly watching Lakenheath bat,
and readily smiled when they’d hit a six,
bringing his big brown hands together
to join in the ripple of applause.

He’d bring his prince of a Yorkshire to where
his grandchildren drooled ready for turkey
with all the trimmings, and fresh vegetables,
hearing the microwave hum, cooking the pudding
whose brandy sauce bit, before heading the evening games,
candidly laying a domino, announcing to all concerned
"Another fifteen."

He’d talk about the little black pony he drove as a youth
over top Maiden Cross Hill to Brandon,
with a cart full of produce, hating the finicky woman
who always made him eager for home.

He hoed his little bit of garden, and happily cut a lettuce for his tea,
another to pop round a neighbours' with a hand full of beans,
and a third to lay with the sack of spuds waiting for his children.

He watched the Weakest Link, and commented
on the stupidity of students, and foolish woman
wishing to spend a thousand on a handbag, and reckoned that:

“If there were more men like brother George,
who was straight and true, the world would be a better place.”

He laid in bed in the moonlight, listening
to golden oldies of yesteryear, and Victor Palmer,
the father of five, my dear Father, a gentle giant of a man,
a man of the soil, dreamed of his garden…