Category: Poetry

Dimming Light


Is it still in me

This pattern of love and sharing

That seems so distant

Those long days

And endless nights

Of comfort

Sometimes even consolation

 

I’ve probably burned the bridges

And some fine part of my own damned soul

Right alongside them

Leaving me on this barren plain

With only the dimming light

Of memory

Left here to remind me

 

 

© Gayle
Force Press 2002

 

Retouched

I am excited to see this poem in Myths.


 

I saw you down the aisle

A row behind me and just

Past the middle of it

I noticed you because the two of you

Were leaned really far forward

So I think you saw me first

I’m pretty sure I hit someone

Or something with my elbow

Because when I noticed my arm later

It was puffy and sore

But all I could think about

Was finding you again

So when I left my seat

And grabbed you from yours

I didn’t care that intermission was nearly over

Or that your date,

Oh no, your husband!

Was waiting for you

All I knew was that I was

Suddenly desperate

And had to talk to you again

I don’t remember now

How we got to the street

Everything’s a blur

Until we reached the sunlight

And I could see up close

And feel with my own sweaty fingers

The face I’ve always loved

I cried so hard you tried to silence me

Though I wasn’t sad

Well, not only sad,

Also ecstatic and relieved

And your face!

Your face was still so welcoming

I couldn’t believe it

Then we talked and you told me of your life

And the gracious work you do

I had to ask because I didn’t know it

But what is your new last name

I suppose the joke behind it

Didn’t strike me as funny

No matter though

I just loved to see you laugh once more

But then your laugh became a song

And your voice was not your own

Instead I heard Roberta Flack singing

“Where is the Love?”

While you smiled and turned away

Setting out to silence the song

I’ll never enjoy again

I realized that turning around would be the admission

That I was now awake

With you again absent from me

And while I know I shouldn’t admit it to the world

At that grasping moment,

Just like now,

I couldn’t stop crying

© Gayle Force Press 2008

 

Remix America


Mestizo mulatto hyphenated hybrid

Mixed up creole cultural mélange of meaning

As who we are and what we used to be pale
next to tomorrow’s endless postmodern possibilities of

Perpetual people driven progress

 

All the ‘I’s and ‘US’s can become ‘They’s and ‘We’s sooner
than YouTube presents the next

Macaca spewing hate monger would be divider

Who unites us in disdain

For his antiquated rhetoric of race,

Religion and righteousness

The 3 Rs that used to keep the South backwards,

Black folks scared and the rarely compassionate
conservatives

entrenched in their oh so corrupting power

 

The beauty of the remix

And the America it is frenetically remaking

Is that all the little boxes

Will mean the very same thing in the end

 

More empty spaces we can fill

Exactly as we choose

 

© Gayle
Force Press 2008

 

 

Resurrection Day

Today is Easter
The Sunday of the Resurrection
And I’ve been told all day
In large ways and small
That I need to believe
 
I need to believe for myself
And I need to believe for her
For my mother who is now dead
In my eyes at least
If not in God’s
 
For me it’s still too hard
Since I’ve never been a joiner
And faith is a virtue
That eludes me
 
Sometimes I wish
I could share her spirit
The optimism, joy and laughter
(Oh, so much laughter)
 
I still can’t embrace it
Not yet at least
Because I just don’t know
Whether to laugh myself
Or to cry
 
Somewhere between her abiding faith
And my utter lack of it
May lie the truth
But I don’t think so
I can only believe
That one of us is totally right
 
I hope it’s her

 

© Gayle Force Press 2006

Oldest Sibling

My sisters don’t look like me

They are sharper

With brighter, yellowed skin

Both look strong and solidly

Inside their bodies

With large brown eyes

Serving to illuminate their clear

Beautiful faces

 

I run together

Dark skin

Nothing hidden

With densely thick hair

Nearly black eyes bridging

The narrow gap in it

And my face scarcely shines

As my brooding manifests itself

In the weary sag of eyes,

Face, back, hips and knees

Atlas’ burden pressing upon me

 

My sisters love joy

They relish and seek it out

Once sought, it loves to be found

For me it’s too much to ask

Which is fine

Because joy doesn’t fit on my face

 

© Gayle Force Press 2003

 

Anticipation

I love the sense of expectation

That happens in numerous ways, large and small,

throughout our everyday lives

 

I love looking at the clock

On frustrating weekday afternoons,

knowing my wife will be home in just a few minutes

I love standing out of a stretch

then stepping onto the court to shoot hoops

the same way I did as a kid

 

I love the space between the first and second

puff on an Onyx almost as much as the half second before

my students understand my jokes

 

I love the instant before Grandma recognizes my voice

And the time it takes my son to decide

if he'll squeeze me or mommy more tightly

 

I love sitting with a crowd,

celebrating today’s e pluribus unum

waiting for the last out of the game

 

I love all the moments that make me smile

even when I don't expect them. 

   

© Gayle Force Press 2007

Still My Girl

I realize the accident changed everything

Guess I still wonder why that had to be

You’d never quite answer me

Say instead something evasive or coy

What I wanted to know was simple

Could our marriage survive when they didn’t

Make a new start somewhere else

Me loving you, damn the rest

 

Feel our future pouring out

This breeze of tears on your face

Way after the sea snatched your parents

My life should be lived with you

Girl loves boy, but leaves anyway

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2008


The song My Girl was written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White