Tag Archives: poetry

Today is November 13, 2017. I am alive and well.

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…aren’t we more like pack mules/than gods most days, picking our way/across the desert or up a mountain path with avalanches/and the heaviest of loads are our grudges and fears/while poetry and beauty rest on our shoulders like fairy wings/or one of those pastries in a shop in Paris,/almost too beautiful to eat, but eat them we do/with their frosting of butter and sugar and eggs.   Barbara Hamby

The truth of our pain is all we have, it is the key to who we are.    James Baldwin

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.  Francis Bacon

I love quotes and thought these all related nicely. I write “the truth of my pain.” Maybe it’s true that “it’s the key to who I am.” I also believe my passions are the key to who I am.

My pain is deep and not preventable. Because it’s deep it rarely shows up unless I let it. It can storm and I won’t get wet because of my umbrella. Discard the umbrella, and I get soaked. It takes awhile to dry off. Living with pain with no barrier to disguise it can lead me to tears. It also leads me to people who share my same experience. They have made it through and I can too. I watch as a raccoon puts his paw in a jar to fish out a coin. With his paw clenched in a fist, he cannot pull himself from the jar. He has to let go of the coin in order to free his paw.

I have let go of the coin. I write about having schizophrenia. I write about multiple suicide attempts, I write about being alcoholic. Pain can attach itself to all three of these things. But I don’t stay there. I let go of the coin. I step out of the mud. Sometimes I get help cleaning myself off. Help is always there and it’s okay to accept it.

My God takes care of me. My God always has my back. The right people are placed in my life at the right time. My friends nourish me. I am passionate about loving them. I also hope I nourish them. It’s beautiful to watch my cats bathe each other. They are always clean, but they don’t go outside.

I go outside. I live a good life despite occasional falls. I also write about great things, not just painful things. My car still runs after 256,000 miles. I have the money to get my teeth cleaned. I fill the grocery cart with fabulous foods. I loved the same man for fourteen years without straying. Although we’re apart, I still do love him. I am comfortable in my own skin. I am passionate about flowers bought on Friday, about words falling in line with each other to make a sentence, a paragraph, a page. Life is here. Life is staying.

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Today is November 6, 2017. I am alive and well.

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For fun. Two prose poems by me, Kristina Morgan

When the World Turns Blue there is Little to Look at Outside of Water

Imagine. Black Converse sneakers laced to the ankle begging to meet the earth halfway between the dream and a next step forward. The next step forward is hard as stale toast and as necessary as lips. Lips blow horns, blow trombones. Saxophones. Keep food from slipping past the teeth. Console. Welcome. Say good-bye. Sensuality. Sweet. So sweet. Even chapped they will whistle. Lovely. Remember this when the next step forward places you below water and you need a straw to breathe with. And the moon rolls around the track in a fifteen minute mile. Slowly. I float head above water. Breasts. Midriff. Thighs. Knees. Shins. Imagine black Converse sneakers. Imagine God wearing black Converse sneakers in one of many incarnations. Imagine God.

A Wave in the Wind

She is not any bigger than a minute and is as flamboyant as a nun. Two ton Ricky waves her down from the bridge. It’s a long fall off the Golden Gate to the bay. He is afraid she’ll stop breathing on the way down. There are no tree branches to catch her skirt. The day is peach colored and keen. Breakfast at Lulu’s is a good idea. They crack the eggs right in front of you. She presses her ear to Ricky’s ear and hears the the same sounds as him. Who is to know he listens to grandma say “don’t you rot in the road?” A sidewalk is a powerful thing. It bends destiny enough that you don’t have to fall into the pothole but can stand with your elephant on a leash, opting to detour at the grocery store where all the nuts hang out in salt. Rally for the beautiful day that exists.

Today is April 18, 2015. I am alive and well.

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The poems that follow I wrote with Guy in mind when he was still in my life. Now that I have no lover, I wonder if I will  make one up and continue to write love poems. An imaginary lover would certainly cause me no  grief, unless of course I imagined he did. Ha. My intention is to have no lover in my life for a long time. I need time to just chill, as my niece would say. I toast to “chill in.” I can do this.

Love

She doesn’t know how the drapes came to be zippered shut. But they did. And locked. His light got tied behind his ears. The ball cap helped keep it in place. So when she met him that day for lunch, she was blind to the beauty he offered. No light pushed the sounds of love forward onto her plate of food. The meat was tough and the barbarian within signaled to her to take it into her own hands. Bite hard and pull ferociously at what remains outside the mouth. Just yesterday she accused him with small words of cheating. He assured her with bigger words that was not the truth. At lunch it became all too much and he cried tears onto wilted lettuce. They left for home without eating, her hand in his. She doesn’t know how the drapes came to be open.In tender light she lifted her skirt and invited him to come home.

Pre-Dawn

The sun has not dreamt itself awake, yet. Nor do I hear through the open window the excited nature of birds announcing dawn.

The microwave has quit its pulse. I hear you pull your bowl of oatmeal from its stomach the other side of the bedroom door. As with most mornings, I stretch my body the length of the horizon across the bed. Somewhere in the dark are the little dogs. I imagine their eyes open to the soft dark as mine are, wonder which God they embrace instinctively upon awakening. Breeze flutters through the window, stories my shin.

You crack the door, whisper “I love you” knowing I hear, knowing I pretend sleep, knowing you won’t resist that first impulse to tickle the arch of my foot…..you don’t . I laugh. Time pauses. And then there are birds, always birds.

Today is November 17, 2014. I am alive and well.

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I’m going to try a couple of poems again. I haven’t had much luck with poems. These two are short simple ones. The back slash identifies the line break. Hope they’re at least fun. Thank you for your readership.

One Man

He left his table and chair./The cushion jumped back to its swell/the table stood at attention on iron legs./ He looked back before gathering the steering wheel of his red car/as if he could see everything over the dash./He could see the people inside/laughing over lattes./ He was certain they were laughing at him/although he had dressed carefully/choosing colors that dimmed him./ His hair was combed flat./ He knew they still caught his fear/which he took with him/leaving his seat/empty.

Elevators are Somber Places

Three inches from my left hand/hangs the beeper off the belt/of the man with the silver tie./His boldness rivals the cameo chocker/of the skinny woman with large breasts/whose shirt dips in a V and knots at her waist./The beeper bursts into song./The six of us plus the seeing eye dog/continue to stare/straight ahead with vacant looks./The door opens on the third floor./The blind man leaves us/to study our reflections on the metal door as it closes./Our faces are grim; stamped portraits of people unconvinced that speaking/would be a move toward friendliness.

Today is October 9, 2014. I am alive and well.

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This poem was inspired by my aunt who is battling cancer right now and doing a good job of it.

One Last Croissant

My partner is missing from her desk that is joined to mine in a flourish of redwood. She is having chemo. The slow poison to catch cancer leaves her tired like a sprinter done with a mile, or a mother with twin babies. Her eyes are hard like peppermint candy, determined to toss this illness like she would a silk blanket.

Stacks of movie magazines tousle the floor. I am left to plank the distance between us as one does when walking the edge of a boat, wanting to catch the next raft with a whistle.

Beer is a buck a glass at the local brewery and for a minute I forget I don’t drink any longer.

I held her hair in my hands. Two pig tails and I teared. She threw a cap on and called it a day. Later I would catch her in the mirror, sullen, still, the breath of her paisley.

The coffee came to a grind. I finished the last croissant with plum jelly. My shoes slouched when I tried to walk away. All  I see today is dismissed light. Let tomorrow bring a flock of birds asking bread.

Today is September 8, 2014. I am alive and well.

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New poem.

Love

She doesn’t know how the drapes came to be zippered shut. But they did. And locked. His light got tied back behind his ears. The ball cap helped keep the light in its place. So when she met him that day for lunch, she was blind to the beauty he offered. No light pushed the sounds of love forward onto her plate of food. The meat was tough and the barbarian within signaled to her to take it into her own hands. Bite hard and pull ferociously at what remains outside the mouth. Just yesterday she accused him with small words of cheating. He assured her with bigger words that that was not the truth. At lunch it became all too much and he cried tears onto wilted lettuce. They left for home without finishing eating, her hand in his. She doesn’t know how the drapes came to be open before the window. In tender light she lifted her skirt and invited him to come home.

This poem is not my truth. Guy is never coming back. Nor would I invite him to. Third time cheating is quite enough. I will not become blinded by the love I still have for him. What we shared is over. It has been 6 months since I’ve seen him. I am free to shine in other places with other people. And I do shine. And I do love. My friends are fabulous.