Category: Poetry

Next Door

  

I live near a house

With three garages

A lake and a little place

For the horses to sleep

 

Right next to this house

Lives a family I don’t know

But on Saturdays

When I drive past

I want to stop

And talk

With the people living there

 

Asking if they ever wonder

Why their house

Would fit on their neighbors’

Front porch

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2003

 

 

 

 

Bad Timing

 

Sitting alone at a three person round

Who ever uses that third seat

Anyway, between the clatter

And clank of bagel slicers, coffee canisters

with the clickety clackety clucking

From soft hands pounding

Hard on computer keyboards

I feel like a dinosaur

Wishing for a quiet,

Peaceful coffeehouse

In which to put my real life

Pen to real life

Paper writing my day

And my life

Straight out of my brain

Through my body

And into the ether

Of the world

Like an overcaffeinated dinosaur

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2015

 

 

The Rainbow Sign

 

  

Noah did not imagine

What his wooden ark would find

Of life he could be certain

Not so of the rainbow sign

 

The cleansing water fallen

An act of the great divine

Who spared the righteous Noah

And gave him the rainbow sign

 

God made a new beginning

Saying all the earth is mine

And sealed it with a promise

Bound up in the rainbow sign

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2002

Neptune

 

 

Some days

But usually nights

I feel like Neptune

Not the god of course

Since I can’t even swim

Instead the planet

Stuck on the periphery of existence

I’m large but barely visible

And that only with great effort

 

Moving here on the margin

I’ve grown cold and austere

Distant and unreachable

Now dark and forbidding

Which allows a certain freedom

Like Triton

The inhabitants of my own

Little universe

Linger gratefully near me

Scarcely aware of the world beyond

Since on the edge of inner space

Everything revolves around me

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2011

 

 

When Tomorrow Comes #2

I posted this poem just a few weeks ago but since the Recorder article about me and my son, Jake, just arrived, I'm sharing it again. I hope that it will help remind someone that America really is moving in the right direction. Fits, starts, traumas, abuses and all, we are moving toward a better future.

 

FDO

 

I'm seeing integration

expressed in the million different ways

that define America

in the 21st century

 

Neighbors standing across a fence

my almostkindabuddy

prodding the little girl in his arms to smile

while speaking to me

 

Sharing stories of dogs and kids,

potholes and the weather

The small, simple recognitions of community

That are welcome prophecies of transformation

Fleeting, powerful moments of joy and recognition

begging for sustainability and sanction

 

Oh, if only our churches

and clubs and families

would do the unthinkable, could somehow do

the impossible, next generation inevitable

hard work of embrace

 

Ah, the sweet embrace that’s waiting

To be given and claimed

By untold millions

And my own White son,

still learning to be a man

and fully human

 

 

Needing to be told over and over

You are not alone

because Michael Jackson was right

and you, my child and most precious creation

 

 

are the hope and future of our people,

of all the people

whose hard earned righteousness

will lead us,

must lead us, to the glorious shore

of a future

authentically prophesied

with love and deepest understanding

 

Mijo, you ARE the Dream

I only wish I could explain it,

without crying

 

I'm still worried you might confuse my tears

with sadness though really

its all joy

 

So much joy

for the man you will be

and the life you will live

 

My sweat mingles with those unavoidable tears

And my laughter and my envy

and my love and my joy for you

because I wish I could live to know it

 

Still, I am free enough for now

 

In the sacred vestment of love

I am blessed to be the poet

Celebrating the poetry

 

And I thank you for becoming a poem

Of the future

Even more than a prophecy

The clear vision of today

You will help to create

And manifest with your life

And your vision

And every tomorrow

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2015

 

 

Justified Use of Force

 

Every year there’s a new one

A Diallo, Bell, Brown

Ford, Garner, Rice or me

 

Clamoring loudly

Broken 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 2015

 

 

Raised Crossbars

 

I suppose I probably missed the train by quite a long time

It likely had already flung itself into interstate cruising speed

When I parked the Buick at the end of the row

 

I walked the interchange of rail and street

Hoping to feel the train’s last evidence beneath my feet

Cursing myself while staring at raised crossbars

 

Some passengers were sleeping I’m sure

Dreaming of the journey they were on

Misremembering the Wichita skyline

 

Others would have been tense and restless

Annoyed that catching a cross country train at night

Means sitting where you can not where you want

 

And I knew she was truly gone now

Though I should have asked once more

Knowing her answer, ‘For better or for worse’

 

 

 © Gayle Force Press 2007

 

 

The Other Half of Balki

 

I didn’t remember his name

No, that’s not true

 

Mark Linn-Baker

 

What a funny, unforgettable name

I didn’t care to remember it

I suppose

He didn’t matter to me

 

Really this Mark Linn-Baker was just there

Archived in my brain

Alongside Dana Plato, Ken Kercheval

Lisa Whelchel, Roxie Roker

And the rest of the litany of not quite stars

That worked so hard to barely imprint themselves

On my consciousness

 

The lot of them barely identifiable

as individual entities

Except as who they pretended to be

And like me

that’s the only important reality

 

The masks we wear for better or worse

Define us and allow us

To define each other

 

Whether the me you think you know

Or Mark Linn-Baker,

Cousin Larry

The other half of Balki

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2015

  

 

 

The Secret Multiplication

 

When I was a kid

My favorite store had an escalator ride

The magic of which was its mirrors

They were stationed both port and starboard

Encouraging me to look more deeply than I knew how

Showing me a new way of seeing myself

My own face reflected infinitely

 

Now that I’m sharing the escalator

I find myself looking at

The two of us

Gazing forward and behind

At the future and the past

At the one and the two

Holding both in a single present gaze

 

When two souls combine

Our identities can shift

Our foundations can be moved

Abruptly, permanently, perfectly

By this new experience of love

 

This partnering of souls is always greater than 

The elementary math by which we are numbered

Indeed the base choices should be altered

For addition generates only the vertical plane

Of one above another

We should speak instead of multiplication

Since it embraces the horizontal plane of relationship

 

That’s what marriage is

The reason for the multiplication

As well as the meaning

 

It’s us noticing Us

Behind and ahead

The like become love

The one become one with another one

Leaving a brand new one with two mouths

Sharing one voice

Two souls sharing one breath

The secret multiplication of love

One times one equals one

 

 

© 2008 Gayle Force Press