Mundane Haiku 1: Sparking Joy

                                                                                                        

                                                  

washing porch pillows

the machine dances dubstep

joy without balance

                                                                                                    

                                                  

Hot Guac

 

I remember a night 

we picked up party food.

Prepping in your friend’s kitchen,

we were bantering, and suddenly 

you told me to kiss you. 

I thought you were kidding because 

I believed all the times you 

told me you weren’t ready for something real. 

Weren’t serious. Didn’t feel. 

And our hands were full

of chips, limes, salsa ingredients.

So what I gave was the briefest.

But what I really wanted 

was drop the avocados

press you up against the fridge

and kiss you so fervently

you'd need to change your jockstrap 

every time you think about guacamole. 

Helios

 

I reach towards you gently
in the darkness before you rouse.
The briefest touch,
a whisper seeking warmth.

You wake up shining like the sun.
A certain slant of light
cast golden across the valley of our bed,
dappling my still closed eyes.

We come together then
in your dawning.
I open my eyes
and embrace the day.

Starbright

Every night

I look up at the stars

so dull and tiny as they hide

from the glaring city.

And it's like I take a snapshot 

of the ever darkening sky

and file it away in some secret place.

Where someday I'll make a flip-book in my head

of all the nights I sat alone

in my celestial tribute to you.

And maybe the blurring of the stars

as they whorl and dance 

around inside my skull

will be so magnificently bewildering

that I'll finally forget

that I did it all for you.

OCD

Imagine living your life always feeling like everything you see is

                one centimeter's distance

from its intended location. This overfilled grande caramel macchiato without a lid closer to your arm than expected.

                That brand new crisp white silk blouse already dredging through marinara.

Those tourists cartwheeling with selfie sticks off cliffs like bison mindless in stampede. Really think about how it would affect you.                                      The devastating effects of seeing a slight miscalculation. The panic of impending doom that would permeate your life. Each freeway full of cars crashing together like waves of metal on an asphalt sea.                 Every playground full of kids crying under jungle gyms with broken bones                                                                                                 from just missed rungs. All the buildings in existence ready to collapse (nails missing boards, joints not plumb) like houses of cards, flattening everyone inside. The screaming. The endless screaming. What would it do to a person, that feeling? A constant fear of catastrophe.                              The powerless frustration of everyone thinking you're crazy. Knowing all the wrongs could be prevented if it was moved one centimeter's distance.

Outlines

we are souls unraveled
genies cast from bottles
absence made manifest

we are shadows on the ground
stand behind me and shine
I'll do the same for you

 

Morning

we could wake up like this
every day filtered light
gold through slitted curtains
relentless calls of cardinals
morning wood pressed hard against
disheveled sheets soft stirring 
lips brushing necks
a quickening of breath
arms encircled hands on hearts
a slow stretch 
yawned goodmorning
offer of coffee breakfast
or should we stay here

all day

 

Omen

i see it

hidden in loose thread
sweaters unravelling dried
glue beneath faded wall
paper and cat hair
on black pants it's etched
in ringed cross

sections of trees the spray 

of satellite droplets
splash spilled soup 

patterns and scratch of 

dried tip on sketch 
surge between these
heart beats flash
of color behind
eyelids closed against
sun silence before 

breath passes larynx

eulogy for my mom

 Susan Paula Larson 

09/22/43 - 07/12/21

There’s a quote that says “A reader lives a thousand lives before they die…someone who never reads lives only one.”

Mom loved to read.

She began at an early age, spreading the newspaper out on the floor when she was still too young to hold it open. For as long as I can remember, she would be up at the crack of dawn waiting for the thunk of the newspaper against the door. Heaven forbid there be inclement weather. She would be out in the driveway in a blizzard looking for the idiot delivery person or heading to the store in her robe to buy one because they’re taking too long.

This love of reading stayed with her throughout her life, and she instilled it in each of us as well.

She started by reading us things like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Little Golden Books, and Dr. Seuss. As we grew older, she moved on to longer stories. She liked silly ones the best. Some favorites were Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Amelia Bedelia, or the books of Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein.

When Melissa and Dave had Lucia, “Gramma Sue” of course gifted her numerous books. She loved seeing Melissa reading books to her child that she once read to HER like Betsy-Tacey and Little House on the Prairie. She was SO PROUD to see Lucia grow into an avid reader – always asking for books on birthdays and Christmas, sometimes diving into them before any other presents were unwrapped. 

All of us were reading before we started school and tested well above our grade levels. She continued encouraging us as we out-read what we owned by taking us to the library frequently.  And she had a system. She would march us into the stacks where the paperback fiction opened into the children’s books, plunk down a doubled paper grocery bag (sometimes two or three) and tell us to “fill ‘er up!”  We would spend an hour picking out what interested us.

If we finished first, we could usually find mom over in the non-fiction stacks. For most of our youth, mom favored reading true stories – biographies and autobiographies, medical dramas, or other tales of survival. She would say, “I don’t need to read fiction, people have already lived such interesting lives!” Her preference would eventually change, but it took a couple of years for her to exhaust the Hennepin County Library System of their entire non-fiction section. 

Back at home, the bags of library books would go in the hallway at the top of the stairs next to a box. Anything we finished went into the book box so they wouldn’t get mixed up with our own or lost under a bed. We were encouraged to read at the dinner table as long as it wasn’t something RED like spaghetti. And we could often stay up past our bedtime by saying “I’m almost done with this book. I just have a few more pages” which usually meant we had 10 chapters to go. 

At any given time, at least one of us would be absorbed in a book. Even when watching TV. We would usually have one nearby for commercial breaks. We all read fast and it wouldn’t be long before she would be loading everything back into bags to return them and get more. 

Our personal collections of owned books grew through the years.  Mine includes some favorites that I re-read often. Others I keep for reference or to occasionally loan to friends.  And there’s always a stack of ones I intend to read that I haven’t gotten around to and probably will someday. During one of my moves, I laid out all the books that I owned and realized I had a six-foot cube.

But that was nothing compared to mom’s collection. In the last decade or so she had moved on to women’s romance novels. Authors like: Nora Roberts, Janet Evanovich, Robyn Carr, and Nancy Thayer. In case you aren’t familiar, these are very prolific writers that put out 8 to 10 novels a year.

Mom had a computer…
And an Amazon account…

You can guess where this story is going. 

In the last few years, we started going through her books. There were bags and stacks everywhere and it was time to reduce trip hazards. We went through them one by one to decide which to pass along and which to keep on display. Some sailed straight into the donation pile without a pause. “I don’t really like that author” or “the main character was a bimbo.” 

But then sometimes she would stop and read the first page with a far-away look and a wistful smile. Those she would lay gently in the keep pile. She said “Some of these are like special friends. It’s so hard to let them go.” 

At any rate, she ended up cutting her collection in half and gave away around 30 bags of books. We had to make …multiple… car trips to the donation center. 

If you hadn’t seen her in a few years, that’s why. 

She was reading.

There’s just a little more left of this service and afterwards there will be a reception across the hall.  On the tables and shelves, you’ll see some of her remaining books, some bookmarks she made, and several grocery bags. We ask that you take what you can. Read what you want and please think of her while you do. Then pass them along. Put them in little free libraries or donate them to shelters or your local thrift stores. 

Share her love of reading with others.


There is a short poem called The Reading Mother that’s a fitting conclusion to our tributes:

“You may have tangible wealth untold.
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I
you will never be.
I had a mother who read to me.”

771

 

you’re barely there

neither here nor

anywhere I go

you are and yet

already gone

you remain

until I go to

be with you

again and then

no more

One Mile Every Five Seconds

The passing storm
brought dreams
of you of lightning
bolts in hand with thunder
echoing from the East.
And in the space between
I hold my breath and count.

Suffocate

you still smell exactly the same
that was the worst part, I think,
sitting there next to you
the whole time
trying not to inhale

Wrecked

with apprehension

dripping words

you haltingly perspired

emotions tucked carelessly

in bag under arm

suffocating empty love testaments

and furtive collected moments 

made tangible in print 

and forgetfulness 

you walked out of the door

pursuing rapture

I stumbled through apocalypse

to find solitude at the center 

waiting 

in crumpled steel and steam engines

I find myself still holding on

white knuckled to your voice

Gravity

Gravity is my enemy.

No, I'm serious.

I'm always falling

one way or another.

It has become difficult

as other aspects of my

handicap

become apparent

to decide which is more painful:

a cement face plant from 6 feet,

or the slightly lesser distance it takes

my heart to reach the floor.

Big Mistake

You're losing me

faster than time

slipping through your fingers

each second harder to hold

the grains
falling faster

insomnia

I woke up last night
while you were still asleep.
I love these silent moments
when my gaze is free to wander
uninhibited in the night
in the shadow of your indifference.

Locked

I wish I knew

the combination 

of words to say 

and things to do

to prove myself to you

Unidentified

You show up briefly
three blips on radar
a solitary metallic ping
and then disappear again.

We're frantic with math
and telemetry
backup data
recordings.

The only evidence we're left with
are three winks of a little green light
and your echo.

Palmistry

If palmistry were truth, 

fate would be etched in flesh. 

If palmistry were truth, 

our fingers would be omens.

If it were truth, 

when we held hands,

we pressed our futures together. 

Masochist

Sometimes,
when I think
of you, I want
to rip open my chest
and let the sun
burn out my heart.

Minefield

Lines

when the call is lost

the wires cut

when I get disconnected

will the dial tone keep my pulse

Operator

Your voice comes out of darkness

whispered secrets 

modulated.

I’m wrapped around and upside-down

hanging on every word.

Push

I don't want to talk about it,
because I don't want to think about it.

I don't want to deal with it.
I don't want to look at it.

I can't have that elephant

pushed back through my aortic valve
into my left ventricle.

It doesn't fit in there,

it's too fragile.

Tabula Rasa

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