Exploring the Intriguing
Category: Poetry
Such a welcome, warm surprise
Like the first day each year when it’s clear that Spring
Has arrived at last
When the air smells different
Morning rain is no longer unpleasant
That was your visit
Yielding my new discovery of you
As well as the us I’d almost forgotten
Used to exist
Your absence, as Persephone’s,
Always leaves me aching
But now I believe we’re casting aside
Winter’s last snow, revealing ready soil
Soil ready for Spring
And pleasant rain
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Here's a re-print that feels appropriate. Merry Christmas.
Christmas Crossing
It’s Christmas Eve and my wife is napping
At the other end of the couch
Dreaming in a Santa hat
Tonight when she wakes
And after tomorrow’s presents
I’ll try my best to remind her
That my life is more complete
Better and more real
Than I could have imagined for myself
Her presence animates my life
Not in a slavish sense of duty
But through the constant commitment of love
Densely defined and elaborate
Telling as the Rubicon, broad as the Nile
I have fully crossed over
© Gayle Force Press 2006
…the words here deployed are equivalent to blanks in a loaded gun: they make the same sound but do not pierce us in any way.
I have begun feeling this way about my poetry. The only folks who seem pierced by my poems are the ones who hear them from my lips or, lacking proximity, in the voice their minds’ ears have labeled as mine. Either way, it’s about connection. Connection with me, not the words themselves. Knowing me and believing they understand the genesis of those poems allows the words to matter.
Maybe this just means my words are not the right ones. Perhaps it means that most of us only allow people to pierce us; we don’t allow ideas to do the same.
FDO
Bright sun bathes the world
In light
But still
No warmth
Glaring ice and snow
Open sky above
Each word a cartoon
Bubbled
In steam
© Gayle Force Press 2001
Winter shields the earth from us
Keeping its treasures buried
For a little while
Safe from we who need too much
Who need everything there is
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Things are fine, really
I’m a little bored
But mostly restless
With lots of pent up energy
Needing release
Sitting at a desk doesn’t help
The light isn’t quite right
And the room is stuffy
Mostly because I don’t have any burning need
To write or sleep
Or even to be awake
All that artistic suffering
Doesn’t amount to much when the fridge is full
And even the rain is warm
© Gayle Force Press 2002
Every year there’s a new one
A Diallou, King or me
Clamoring loudly
Faces on TV
We ask so many questions
But no one’s forced to answer
With sympathy’s short half-life
Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop
And the questions to disappear once again
Just like us
In our lives
And our deaths
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Once again, Black folks in California are publicly distressed about a police shooting. This time, the victim was Oscar Grant, a 22 year old Black man who was shot and killed by a White police officer in a subway at the beginning of 2009. The officer was convicted of the shooting (involuntary manslaughter) and given a 2 year sentence. The frighteningly short sentence is the source of the protests. The officer, Johannes Mehserle, will probably be out of jail by Memorial Day 2011.
The CNN article linked above is indicative of the attention that's been/being paid to the entire situation. Grant's name does not appear until the 11th paragraph. 10 paragraphs before this dead person is even acknowledged by name.
The basic outline of the shooting is tragically familiar. White officer kills unarmed Black man. Momentary outrage. Down the memory hole. Wait a little while. Repeat.
A few years ago, I wrote about this cycle of police violence but I wasn't bold enough to follow it to the ultimate conclusion for so many young Black men, death. Instead, I wrote about the violence that wounds, heals and scars. Today, that doesn't feel like quite enough. It's not quite enough for me. It's not quite enough for Oscar Grant. But it's all I can give him now.
FDO
Yellow orange green gold red
And nearly brown
Coexisted on the third full day
Of Hoosier Autumn
With tall, thinning pines
Swaying in the background
Our sweetly deciduous forest
Shimmers cleanly, clearly
And warmly
Much warmer than the winds themselves
© Gayle Force Press 2004
Each moment
Deserves the special place of privilege
We hesitate to allow
Ourselves to acknowledge
For since we are not gods
It must stay unknown to us
In which of these moments
Our lives will be transformed
This is the power of the sacred
And the sacrality within each of us
That our lives and world may be changed
In the blink of our human eyes
© Gayle Force Press 2004
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