Sandy Day's Blog, page 14
January 25, 2018
A Valentine for the Brokenhearted
Revised, re-covered, and re-released, Chatterbox, 2nd Edition, is available just in time for the dreaded chocolate-filled holiday in the middle of February. Inspired over the course of a tumultuous year, told in a four-part sequence: Chattering, Cracking, Craving, and Knocking, Chatterbox will entertain every cynical heart. Raw, honest, irreverent, and tender, Chatterbox Poems delve into life’s losses: divorce, abandonment, infidelity, and faith.
Order in paperback from the author or Amazon. Also available as an ebook at your favourite online bookstore. Click here for links.
[image error]Photo Credit: Tony Hicks
December 30, 2017
December 23, 2017
Buckthorn
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“See that tree?” My sister motions at a nondescript tree, with leaves – a deciduous tree among the pine and spruce and fir.
We are sitting on the back deck at happy hour. That’s what she calls the afternoon interval before dinner when she drinks a couple of glasses of white wine. Happy hour.
“That tree,” she continues. “Gets covered in little red berries…But they don’t ripen…They take so long…Not even in October…They’re finally ripe…So then the leaves fall off and you can see the berries, dark red, all over the tree…And the Robins come…They must be Northern Robins, because they haven’t migrated and it’s October! The robins come and eat all the berries…which must have fermented in the tree because the robins get drunk and then drop down and splash around in the birdbath like drunken idiots.”
My sister’s deck chair faces the Buckthorn; it is directly in her view. A hummingbird hovers by the Bee Balm at the edge of the garden. It’s high summer. There’s a long time to go before fall.
November 14, 2017
Interview Nov 14, 2017
[image error] Answering these questions was fun. (Click on the photo)
Is there anything you’d like to ask me?
March 26, 2017
Spinning
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I have been spinning
my poor-me’s into gold
for all the days
I can recall.
And using that gold
to buy everything
that I can hold.
But there is more to spin
each night
Rumplestiltskin.
I am standing in the rain
wondering when
you’re going to show up?
Cold, and soaked,
with all this gold
in my pocket.
And I am only going to wait
another hour
or two
then you can go
and get your gold
from some other soul.
To all you fools
who didn’t buy,
my outrage is screaming
from the tallest tower,
naked and bullied
and ashamed.
There
I’ve told you,
now you know my name.
~
From Poems from the Chatterbox
photo credit FreeImages.com/Ear_Candy
January 26, 2017
Safe Word
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Hands bound, spread eagle
America murmurs a safe word,
Liberty
but the rape
(consent now withdrawn)
commences.
America struggles
gagged
her eyes pleading
as lawlessness spreads
and permissions fall
slapping her faster
than vanishing web pages
With each angry thrust
she sputters a safe word,
Equality
but another jab tears through her
sending millions of huddled masses fleeing
Oil gushing
Carbon belching.
America whimpers a safe word,
Justice
but this plunder is just getting started
He twists her over
like she is nobody
rams his hateful missile
into her exit
his puny but deplorable hands
on her neck
he squeezes
as her children run sorrowfully
down her cheek, bleeding
Mercy
she gasps, pleading.
Clout
She is out
Stars and stripes swirl into darkness
Safe word, Hope
Safe word, Pardon
Safe word a lie.
November 12, 2016
Words
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I’m haunted by words I said yesterday
they won’t let me go.
Promises, vows, intentions,
blowing the curtains on a windless night,
but they’re just the soul
of a dead decision.
I’m afraid
nothing is so simple.
To fall in love
was dead easy
but not simple.
The ghost is numbing, dumbing, humming.
And I am boarding up the old house.
The weeds will grow
and the ghost will stay
but I will go
because my heart has learned new words
that I am dying
to say.
From Poems from the Chatterbox
November 8, 2016
Walking the Garden Streets in Fall
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Walking the garden streets in fall
colours kaleidoscope in misty tableaux
burnt red of dogwood, yellow ash.
The fog clings to a thousand depths of green.
Blossoms of beet juice bloom impossible dahlia blades.
My eyes drown in the dreary beauty
walking the garden streets in fall.
November 4, 2016
Business
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I am going to take fear out back and shoot him.
Stand him up against the shed
and blow his fucken head off.
I want to see his brains scatter
gritty and grey
like a cremated body.
I am so sick of fear
want a divorce
from this decrepit old man.
Sick of listening to him
waking with him
feeding him
tucking him in at night.
Courage is not the absence of fear
but moving on
dragging fear along behind.
So maybe courage is the creak
of the rocker on the porch
which continues even as the wind blows
or when I sit to contemplate
what’s what?
If I keep one toe to the floor boards
there is courage
creaking as I rock.
The mound of earth
by the shed
which worries the dog
none of my business anymore.
From Poems from the Chatterbox
October 30, 2016
Silence
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The long cold silent winter
stretches out like a thin blanket
on a loveless bed.
I trust that
there is life there –
a barely beating heart
in hidden leaves and sunken acorns
frigid bulbs.
It’s the silence that deafens me.
No birds
no dogs
no screen doors slamming.
No ribald teenage calls
at two in the morning
from the bus stop across the way.
No songs
ringing out on six strings
sung with laughter
and too much red wine.
The sun colours the sky as it rises.
The bleakness blushes
and I am reminded
that this too shall pass.
The patience taught by winter
cold but not frozen
nor forgotten.
From Poems from the Chatterbox
