Cars are driving fast again
cursing detour signs
sprouting like COVID masks
Now Normal
A Pandemic Series – My Red Lipstick
A Reposting of the Three Red Lipstick Poems, in Sequence
These three poem-videos belong in this sequence, not in the reverse order in which the blog displays them below, based on when I initially posted them.
1
My red lipstick is annoyed,
muttering behind my mask,
wanting an escape.
2
My red lipstick explains
shyly,
she is not annoyed;
she is afraid.
Afraid I will permanently abandon
her, and my rings,
and the new dress fluttering on its hanger.
Now –
and for all the roiling days
masked in the fog
of an un-normal future.
3
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My red lipstick mourns,
huddled in her drawer,
as I mourn, too,
bare-lipped behind my mask.
Now – I groom for “meetings”,
my red lipstick appears,
digitally
trying to represent who I was.
I yearn for, mourn for,
the times I touched, hugged,
and groomed for,
locked away now,
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My red lipstick mourns,
huddled in her drawer,
as I mourn, too,
bare-lipped behind my mask.
Now – I groom for “meetings”,
my red lipstick appears,
digitally
trying to represent who I was.
I yearn for, mourn for,
the times I touched, hugged,
and groomed for,
locked away now,
like my red lipstick.
My Red Lipstick Explains
My red lipstick explains
shyly,
she is not annoyed;
she is afraid.
Afraid I will permanently abandon
her, and my rings,
and the new dress fluttering on its hanger.
Now –
and for all the roiling days
masked in the fog
of an un-normal future.
My Red Lipstick
My red lipstick is annoyed,
muttering behind my mask,
wanting an escape.
Layered
I glance at the dead squirrel by the curb
and think of sparrows …
falling.
God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little ones,
I know He loves me, too.
We are layered, like the crumbling red rock
cliffside with paths
by the creek of my childhood,
like the flat chunks of
shale scavenged by my parents
to create the high backyard wall.
We are layered,
DNA and birth order threaded through
the earth of our birthplace,
the winds and rains of our times,
the maps our minds draw
to trace our path to the barriers
that contain us.
We are layered
wearing rock-filled backpacks
we strain blindly to reach into,
trying to pull out
the easy changes hidden
and twinned with
the deep-rooted invasive
infective twists.
We are layered:
the work of living
tripping us, shackling
our hopes for freedom
and joy,
as we pray for the tender view
of a sparrow-watching God.
When I Lost Myself
When I lost myself:
I am extinct.
No part of me goes forward.
I am ashes
Underground.
My stories silenced.
My mutating memories
dismissed.
My sorrows and joys erased:
blankness bracketing grief.
When I First Returned
My death still bled
into a suppurating
numbness,
and terror.
It didn’t feel like a choice:
study the wound
or disappear.
I agreed to look.
Now
I stand beside the river
I came from and will return to;
I look into it,
still learning to swim.
The Memory of Smoke
The burn of the morning sun,
the memory of smoke
soften my shoulders
as I walk past,
not thinking of death
yet,
till
one almost resembling
the one I knew
(years ago, in my youth),
walks by, and
my memory blurs
as though I see through tears.
“I Am”
Remnants of other lives
invade, infest, infuse my life,
enlighten me, cling to me.
drag me down, lift me up,
surround me.
I persist
pushing the furniture
of my past,
clearing space
so I can see.
We Are Temporary
We are temporary,
fragile and vulnerable,
compelled to walk forward
in this dark culvert,
death ahead and daylight behind,
with only a small light, and
everything that we are.
***
*Composed after watching “Cardinal”, a series based on Giles Blunt’s Novels
Learning Living 