Friends, Let's Pray

A little something for Suzanne                       

You say we meet, but

we contend and compete.

Not knowing which is weed

and which is flower, we crowd

each other and vie for power.

The roots of our agendas

grow, tangle and strangle

as each of us takes more

than we did before.

Pushed aside, a few decide

to yield and watch instead.

Un-noticed, they share the bed

and discern the urgent need

that drives each to succeed.

What happens next, I do not know. 

That’s as far as I dared go.  But

light might dawn if they keep on.

“How?” is the mystery.  

Those who stay will find a way

that those who leave won’t see. 

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast

To My Masks, Goodbye

source

 

I love the masks I made and hung

upon the wall, but those of you that

made me? You that came as I

had need, piecing yourselves into

life rafts and duck blinds so that I

might both survive and thrive, do I

love you?  I thank you.  I even

pour forth libations in your honor.
But you should expire! 

Instead you hang in and pop up

as if still welcome, and though

I take you off and off and off

to be naked and transparent,

there you are, multiplying

in so many variations

that I feel like Bartholomew

with his five hundred hats.*
Did I need you all? 

I’m fascinated by your agency,
your beauty and your number,

but now I only want to look
once more before I release you.

So, line up along the wall.

Let’s have the retrospective.

And then let me un-hang the show

or--you can stay there upon the wall.

but rest, please, cease to enthrall.

For my prompt Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Masks

Revised 7/23  (The comments are from before the revision.)

*"The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" by Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast

Who's Behind the Mask?

We know who is behind the mask:

Zorro, Batman, and Spiderman—

males who characters don’t recognize

though TV viewers can.

Dramatic irony gives them

to us wiser watchers, we whose

identities mask truer selves

after years of endless practice.

“Peek-a-boo, I see you!” is

the first of many games we play

to distinguish what can’t be seen

from identities we claim.

“It’s me!”  Is it?  Words come through

our masks, though they may not defraud.

We think that we control the mask,

but we are the mask of God.

For my prompt Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Masks

My blog poems are VERY rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast

Ode to Frequent Dying

I die again and again.

"You're killing me" “I could just die”   "I'll die without . . . . "

The idioms of quick death flow through us like cartoon characters who, 

crushed and flattened, peel themselves off the pavement with a pop 

and go full steam ahead, still fuming, having learned nothing.

I’ve slipped out of worlds—sometimes before I know I will—

leaving relationships, quitting jobs, changing my faith.  

And this latest death.  The one where a brother acts like I am dead, 

and I finally agree to die, to live without him.

I’ll tell you what this dying is like. 

First there is trying to duck under the pain of becoming 

the flattened Road Runner.  Or Coyote.  Victimized or defeated villain, 

the crushing feels the same.  

And then there is peeling up and floating above—not embodied—

suspended and looking down at yourself in that situation.

Up there you are cut off, adrift, a shell of a boat with a useless anchor.  

Dead.

And then there arises (like a lump in the throat) a desire to live again.

Re-entry hurts like a short PING if you get up and walk away,

but like a very long slow FIRE if you think you’ll stay and try again.

Fire.  Embers, then ashes.   

Eatable.  Wearable.

If you become part of the pattern, if you choose to re-anchor 

instead of hoisting sails and flying 

or simply floating away.  

There is loss either way--loss of limbs and organs.

Tears fall, but for no reason

if you have been blessed with forgetfulness.

In these frequent deaths it’s hard to tell where the blessing lies.

Is it in the experience before dying?

The dying? or the resurrection?

For me, each has had its poetry.

Poets United Poetry Pantry #362

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast

Having Died Once

Carousel by József Rippl-Rónai (1987)

I died once. At age 12

I entered a coma and saw life

swirling from a set point beyond all. 

Looking down, I saw Mom crying at my bedside,

and I fought my way back to the pulse of heartbeats,

days turning at the pace of home-made carousels.

Family’s embrace pushed me higher and further

out from home and on to claim rewards from success,

images of backyard games and swings in my head.

Perhaps you were also caught up in hummingbird energy

constantly beating wings, achieving flight, height and love

in service, in money, in steady rewarding commitment.

Then how now does slowing down at life's end feel to you?

Does it seem (like to me) a death-like distancing from real life,

or do you welcome time at turtle’s pace, staying out of traffic?

Do you clutch your ticket to travel in fear that you’ll lose it?

I grip my memories in both hands, harness them to my mind’s

horse power and urge them to move me as fast as my neighbors.

I fear re-entering coma-view, feeling that remoteness

separates me from joining the bustle, forgetting I am not

in exile but reaping the rewards of a well-traveled life.

Let's speed up, take corners with courage, abandon, bravado
and forget to take pills prescribed to regulate blood pressure--
Let's not wait to slow down, not witness our bodies going on without us.

#

(This is half here, my coma vs forward movement story.  
I'm thinking of cutting the second to last stanza. 
Or maybe the one before it.  Any thoughts?
BTW, I'm using dactyls and anapests, not iambs,
reaching for more life.) 

For Sumana's prompt 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Movement

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast

Trap Doors, Rabbit Holes and Temples

Divine light(by Andrew Kudrin from Novosibirsk, Russia via Wikimedia Commons)

I am present at the endless

wedding ceremony—Nature

and God as bride and groom—

complete with flowers, ritual

and happiness, my tears aflow.

          I always cry at weddings.

I am present at the twin birth—

Nature and God become siblings—

rebuilding their relationship

with help from human growth and breath,

welcome ceremonies and love.

          I can’t always tell you apart.

Weddings and births and funerals

punctuate sacred points out there—
but here I see daily movement

of kin together and apart,

brother, sister, mother, father.

          May I call you Nature and God? 

I enter you through skin and womb,

trap doors, rabbit holes and temples,

windows, prayer times and night-time dreams,

through work and play and holy books,

prophets and wisdom.  Traditions.

          Must I note the difference?

Tell me your stories of wonder

and I will record them.  I'll wake,

attend to what is present here,
moving and mysterious.  I'll 

be hand and eyes; you be the light.

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast