2006-2007
Poetry by Mary Kirkpatrick, copyright 2006 and 2007
Go to Poems 1991-2004
A Poet Longs for Sleep
House
Instructions
Boy
Life Folds
What is Kigali to Me
Prayer for Personal Peace
Kellie
American Woman I
American Woman II
American Woman III
American Woman IV
American Woman V
American Woman VI
American Woman VII
Us
I Wish
How
Tick Tock
Treacherous Folly
Fat Girl
Lying
Dancing in the Kitchen
Daddy's Deployed
My Friend
Are You?
Strong Women, Weak Men
A Poet Longs for Sleep
A poet longs for sleep
Eyes closed, images come
Sleep calls, but something
Commands her.
Write it down
Let it out
Find an inner voice
So loud it drowns out
The ugly sirens.
Flipping her world
Upside down, topsy turvy
She tries to see
Differently.
A Deep breath
Closing her eyes
She fends off sleep
So she can truly see.
A world floats
Where she can grab
An image, a feeling
Here or there.
Order, perspective
Perpetual hope
The dream that she
Will find new words.
Back to top
Four walls to call my own
A grassy patch that I will mow
A place for children's laughter
To echo through the halls.
A wing away from chaos
My house.
Refuge from a crazy world,
A womb to wrap me away
From angst, from the weary
daily grind
A place just for us
A home.
Instructions
When the darkness creeps in,
Take a deep breath
Breathe in the blessings
God has given you.
Exhale and blow away
The darkness and sadness
That threatens to consume
You and your hopes and dreams.
Peace will find you
In the light of hope
When you live in the blessed moment
And not in the fears of the past
and future.
Boy, you find yourself
Lost in a sea
Of men and games
You really cannot
swim.
Too good for this world
Or just confused
Sticking your hopes
On an outside force
Putting faith in the ephemeral.
Anger building
Blood boiling for the first time
Rankled and weak
From the sins you wish you'd
committed.
Life washes over you
Laps at you like a tide rolling in
Instead of fighting for air
You let the cold depths
Swallow you whole.
Who has witnessed this,
Who has seen a man
Extinguished, his light gone out
No one can see him to lend a hand.
Life folds
A fortune cookie ready to snap
Filled with hope
And magic numbers.
A potential message of prosperity
Or maybe a modern warning
The soul chooses
Channeling a source greater than
I.
One is the loneliest number
I is the loneliest letter.
But when spirit fills you
It matters not who you are
What you are, is insignificant.
Greatest anything
Comes from the ether within
Molecules from Creation
Pool in your human heart.
Waiting like fallow ground
For you to sow a seed
Let it grow, let go
You do not own, yet you receive.
A far off place
Where tribes wage war
So ancient sounding.
So much like history books
Distance, space, safe.
How many equals genocide
When brown skin means
You don't count at all.
We abandon you
We look away, pretend
to pray.
What does Kigali teach us
But words like Hutu and Tutsi
Names to drop at dinner parties
I would rather vomit
Than say those tribes names in vain.
And ok, by the way
Did you hear about
That thing in Darfur,
Such a shame.
Did you see Survivor
last night?
Quiet my brain
Whisper sweet somethings
Into the chasms
of my rocky dreams.
Let the tempest leave me
Lying on a sandy beach
Nothing but the stars
Twinkling down on at me
Frothy surf lapping at my toes.
Find me lost
In the center of this
Crazy maze
Reassure me, know the way through.
My quivering chin rests
On this stone dark well of life
Might you lift me up
With Your all knowing heart
Don't let me drop into my own darkness.
Sleep, dreams, waves of grain
Rolling golden fields
Hypnotic place
Let me lie down
Smelling this warm dry summer place
Free my mind from
Its earthly bonds.
This I pray.
Kellie
Wise beauty,
You astound
You stun
You steamroll life itself.
Friend,
You listen
With your eyes, your ears,
Your heart.
Grateful.
You shared your truest self
You gave us your all
We could not ask for more.
Stride away
Confidently finding
More wilted flowers to feed,
More wounded hearts to mend,
More spirits to enliven
Go wise beauty, go.
He went away from her
Just three weeks yesterday
Already his warm touch
Has faded, left her wondering
Why God joined them anyway.
He's floating on a warship
Locked in his coffin rack
Staring at the ceiling
Wondering how he let her
talk him into that.
They knew it would mean
Bread
And a decent roof overhead
But what they didn't know
Is absence makes the heart fonder
Or absence can make the heart wander.
So the babe's in bed
No letter arrived
She wanders and waits
Hoping to lose her heart ache.
And he's playing cards
With guys he just knows
Nobody talks about
Rings left under pillows
During hot smoky port nights
He wanders and waits.
Oh God has her heart grown fonder
Oh God has his heart wandered
Six months gone, strangers
meet again.
Looking in uncertain eyes
Small hands grasp large ones
She looks at him
He looks at her
Did they wander or grow fonder?
Only tonight will tell.
American Woman II
Home alone
Girl you wonder
How you'll wake up tomorrow
Knowing where to go
What to do
Close your eyes and pray
for you.
Rise and shine
Barely pull your hair back
Race around another day
Of this wifey mommy track.
Even if you could slow down
You wouldn't know what to do
Just hope and pray for you.
Wound up tight
Like a tin monkey waiting to play
Can't let go before
They crank you up again.
Just rules and ways
Of everybody elese
Dictating your days
Wonder how you even
Know how to do anything anyways.
Deep breaths,
Count to ten,
Anger management,
You've tried it all, everyday
But now all you can do
Is hope and pray for you.
Crying at commercials
Feeling others' woe
What good is empathy today
Without action tomorrow.
Write a check
To some cause far away
Beat back your guilty conscience
Til you find another way.
Another way to do more
Than remotely feel pain
To do more than pretend
You're on a runaway train.
You can't run off to
Join the Peace Corps
Or can you?
I don't know is not excuse.
I have a house, a babe,
A husband, a country,
How can I make a difference
By just being me?
Back to top
I can tell by the glare
Of the early spring sun
Reflecting off my monitor
That it is time
For me to go.
Go to the place
Where motherhood and childhood
Fracture into a million pieces
of Distrust.
Where I sacrificed him.
A glance across the
Dusky twilit room
A tousseled head turns
That look that says over
and over again
You came back..I was
afraid you might not.
Heart skips a beat
As he tightly hugs his
Head against my womb
Which bore him and only him.
How was your day?
I ask the same way
Hoping he'll never say
Mommy, you sacrificed me.
American Woman V
I used to watch her starve herself
I used to watch her binge,
I watched her painfully try on clothes,
I watched her cry.
She taught me so much,
How to blend into the background,
Watching life pass by,
Shrinking into the shadows.
She taught me how to be invisible,
That valiant silence was better
Than noisy protest.
That crying in your bedroom
Was better than telling the truth.
Passionate and loving,
Vivacious and free,
None of these wonderful things
Could she see.
And now her legacy of silence
Her cloack of invisibility,
Lives on
In me.
Steamy fumblings of fingers
Kisses with snake tongues
And other things
Stole me.
Falling down the tunnel
Of utter iniquity
The enemy held me in a vice
Not of pain, but numbness.
The enemy of life
Is to feel nothing
To give anything to hurt yourself
To feel pain again rather than,
Nothing.
Like a sailing ship
Becamed, without wind
I drifted, aimlessly,
searched.
Cheated and guilty all
at once
Where was my hope?
Whispered subtle words,
Godly gifts in the form
Of good people,
Confidence found in spirit
Filling, filling, filling
my empty numb insides.
A whole creature
Before God.
Blessings realized and given
Oh to pray that this
feeling will last,
That I have finally found
Faith.
American Woman VII
Atlas was a woman.
Only a fine female
Could handle the burden
of the entire world
Of wars, woes, and endless sorrows.
I can't shrug
I can't shirk
I can only embrace
I can only hold
Wrap myself around uncertainty.
My man is oblivious,
No furrows wrinkle his brow
He lives for each day
Awakens thinking
Only of himself, now.
My role is taken
And so I bend
Prepare for the weight
Self-imposed infinite pressure
I am Atlas.
I lost you somewhere
Along the myriad ways
We diverged
And on the dark lonely path
I sought a false glow.
I don't know
Where your path led
Maybe you saw demons
Maybe you reached out for me
I was not there.
Somehow in the tricky maze
We found each other again
Our tentative, fragile
Union, hides from darkness
Finding friendship.
Moving forward hurts
It helps too
Now I feel like we're
Being led by something
Greater,
Something bigger than
our own spirit of adventure.
I Wish
Light the candles.
Fragrant flowers perfume
Hanging softly in the air
Sheers blowing softly
In the late summer breeze
A hint of fall chill coming.
Imagine a warm
Embrace from behind
Soft kisses trailing
Down the gentle curve
Of a neck grown too
Tight with sorrow.
Eyes pools of understanding
Made to fall into
Without fear
Strong arms, not a vice,
But a comforting support.
Are these things
Too much for a woman
To wish for on a September
Twilight night?
Am I a hopeless romantic?
How can I
Be bigger than all
His fears
Sooth his anxious
countenance
Smooth his furrowed brow.
How can I prove
That God and His angels
Watch over us day and night
And how can I guarantee
His Daddy will return to me.
Whole, not blown apart,
Or drowned, or dead inside,
How can I promise what
I myself cannot deny.
That fear finds me
Each night
Riddles my faith with
holes.
Casts shadows of doubt
On my whole world.
Some nights like this
I stay awake
Listening to the frightful
Sounds.
And I allow myself to
ask How?
And cry out loud.
Tick Tock
This marriage works,
A fine oiled machine
Of pickups and drop offs
Good mornings
And good night kisses.
Paid bills
New window sills
No quiet fantasies
Imagined alone in
The shower.
A perfect yin
To his yang
My green van
To his sedan
We fit this picture
Just right.
Right. Backs turned,
Wide awake
Minds race.
Adding up the years,
Waiting for freedom.
Treacherous Folly (song idea)
Why do I feel
That if I fall into your eyes
The world would be alright.
Why do words fail me
When your gaze
Questions my very being.
I don't know you
Not your favorite ice cream
Or your life's dream
I only know
When you look at me
I don't care about anything.
Dangerous man
You don't know
Your effect on me
What will my fate be?
Treacherous folly...
A definition of masculine
Riding storms and brilliant
All the same
I'm speechless, not lost
But found in a world of desire.
Set me afire
With one look
You stole my morality
Captured my creativity
You don't even realize.
Dangerous man
You don't know
Your effect on me
What will my fate be?
Treacherous folly...
Fat Girl
The bigger I make myself
The emptier I feel
More, more, more,
Yet nothing can fill
This cracked vessel.
Broken by dreams
Unrealized and promises
Dashed with hopes
Too high, I reached too high.
Rolling Stones had it right
Can't get no satisfaction
Can't get enough anything
Not enough of my lover
Not enough of myself
I am the definition
Of not enough.
But funny how people see me
A rolly poly image
Of excess,too much,
Enough, should be fulfilled
But I'm empty
And keep making more space
Inside.
Never full, never content.
Oh I wish a pin
Could popme
Deflate my negative space
Make me beautiful
Whole and free.
Fill me up somehow
Oh God
Let me find some
Zero calorie, no fat
Love, attention, hugs,
Kisses, life, and
Oh, let it be enough.
Lying to Myself
I try to play a trick
On my own mind
Believe some silly
thing I think
Has been divined.
Not hatched by Nature,
Nor created by God
But my own fancy
My own desires
Gone strictly awry.
Is there a cure
Some treatment
Some dull scalpel
Which can peel back
The layers of misleading
The lies I've been feeding.
My own subconscious
Betrayal of self
How to turn around
From whence I've gone,
Am I too far
To be redeemed?
Dancing in the Kitchen
Remember....
The soft pressure
Of your hand on my hip
Spinning me around
From the steaming stove.
What music was playing
I do not know
But the look in your eyes
Told me love
was coming.
Your leg between
My thighs
Moving back and forth,
One, two, three, dip
And my laugh ringing
Out like a bell.
Made the children
Giggle and blush
Mommy and Daddy
Dancing in the kitchen.
We knew that
Love had come,
And it was ours.
Daddy's Deployed
He is gone
And I am here
Left independent, strong,
Vulnerable.
Trusting eyes
Watch everyday for cues,
Are we okay?
Rage. No. I
Am not okay.
I am alone.
Not by choice
But because of
Man's need to force
His will on the world.
A mother for peace
A wife missing her
Best friend
Rage fades to sadness
Sadness to acceptance.
But if he is not whole
When he returns to me
Who will quell that pain?
Who will help us rebuild
Our fractured world and
Make us all feel strong
Again.
You put me at ease
Kind eyes questioning
Concerned, with
Genuine caring
And depth there.
I reach out
And you never
think to turn away.
Even though some would.
Brought to me
A blessing
So valuable I
Cannot measure.
Thank you so much,
My world spins right,
Feels better
With you in it.
A bridge between
God and the spirit
Strength that quietly
focuses
Never judges.
I want to see
If you have suffered
And know
How you did heal.
A million questions
Frighten me
You do not promise
Answers.
Do I project
This role upon you
Or did God put you here
To show me
Truth.
How can I let
Such pure wisdom pass by
Without trying
To reach out, touch it,
And be healed.
You could reject
This total aching need
You could find a better pupil
Or you could stay
And explode my world.
Redefine my expectations
Let me discover what it is
In you I know is whole,
Let me see, let me learn
Who
You Are.
Weak men
Do not grow stronger
With the help
Of a strong woman.
Her help keeps
Him a child
And he who misses
His mother relies upon it.
And she may yearn
For him to grow up
To become the man
She truly desires.
But the yearning
Is insane
Because he is set
And will never change.
This vicious cycle
Weak men, strong women
Strong mothers, weak sons
Oh how will it end.
It will take
A strong woman
To realize
The damage she has done.
And walk away
Alone.