Permanent Record

Dying seemed easy
one last breath then release
taking the hand of one who is sent
to guide me through the final steps
to where St. Peter sits atop a podium
waiting with others listening for his call,

I hear my name, he opens his book
to look at my permanent record,
the one the nun’s warned me about,
all previous actions determining my eternity.
I feel a panic, can I plead to go back and do more?
Release me let me return to earth, let me soar

back to physical world where I used to live,
let me tell my loved ones I love them
and ask forgiveness for all my sins,
let me gather them around,
kiss their faces, wipe their tears

let me walk on solid ground.

Let me smell the flowers,
taste my favorite meals, hold hands with my husband
talk into the night, while listening to our favorite songs 
recalling all the good times and those that made us sad
watching the logs burn in the flame,
saying our prayers, calling out His name.

St. Peter does not offer that option
I must wait with all the rest,
some squirming at what the record book holds,
others sitting in quite expectation, knowing
they will be blessed and welcomed into
heaven’s fold, while I wrack my brain
borderline greatness, with mistakes along the way
did I not love enough? Did I stop too soon?

What will St. Peter say?

A Baby Was Born

I could hear it in his voice

a warmth that comes from

holding a sleeping baby

“Guess what?” he said,

“Annie’s brother has come to live with us
his mom couldn’t care for him either,
Annie is so excited, even at eleven months
she seems to know he is safe now

and has been talking up a storm.
Didn’t know she had so much to say.
The other kids are excited too,
each one wants to take a turn to hold him.”

Alicia, their adopted one see’s
her place in the family and seems
to reconcile to the fact her own mother
gave her up, taking turns with the others

to hold the little infant
All this before the winter rains
as part of season’s greetings
the baby's cry fills the room

lusty and healthy and full of life
and on that Christmas morn,
a star was seen in the sky
when a baby was born. 

Antonio, Antonio

I remember when I was young
visiting my mother’s Uncle Antonio. 
He sat in a dark adobe house 

with his second wife and her sister. 
They all sat on worn-out chairs,
my mother got up to clear a space,

clean the table and fix a meal.
He licked his lips when the aroma 
of chili, eggs and fresh tortillas

filtered into the living room.
The kids were served plates
to eat outside, while my mom

sat at the table with the man
who beat her, made her life miserable
with his alcoholic ways.

I wondered if she hoped he would choke
on the little pieces of meat she fried
into the chili sauce, or did she spit

on his plate, let her salty tears
flavor the dough he so gingerly tore
before he took a bite?

I always kept watch at the window
listened to the conversation
mostly the tones ‘cause I couldn’t

understand the words. Did they talk
about other things, never mentioning
the days of terror when she was a teenager

under his care.

Grandpa’s Garage

It was a maze piled from ceiling to floor
no one allowed in but grandpa.
Occasionally I would sneak in
to take a peek but if I touched anything
he would know, so I only stood
at the doorway and stared 

trying to make out the kinds of tools

on his work bench or looked
up in the rafters where he stored
the Halloween decorations
making out black bags, and occasional
hands or feet of a skeleton,
a witch's pot, a bloody rubber arm.

One day I will be big enough
to be invited in to his mysterious lair
to rummage through his box of electronics
actually touching capacitors, transformers,

wires and old vacuum tubes. 

Learning to read an oscillator

and other electric meters
not to mentions his cache of weapons;
BB guns, cross bows and sling shots.

He also has a variety of games,
left-over from the church bazaars 
and company pot-lucks
all horded into dark corners
of his garage.

When he finally cleans it out 
and moves from the family home
years of waiting for the time
to explore his stash uninterrupted 

but strangers will also be allowed 

to rummage through it
his insanity will be revealed 

or maybe the wishes of a curious man 
who put others before his own desires
and now that he has the time
he no longer has the interest.

The Molasses Flood in Boston

It was an unusually warm day
after days of winter freeze
nature’s invitation to come out and play,
do some shopping, mill around,

gossip with friends in downtown Boston
but then a loud pop and then another,
suddenly a flash flood of molasses
oozed from the large storage tank

with waves over fifteen feet high,
knocking buildings from foundations
burying paper boys by their stands,
along with horses, buggies, and automobiles.

All covered with the sweetener used in rum.
The horror of that moment logged down
in history, seared in memory
for witnesses of the tragedy.

Boston police, cadets from the USS
Nantucket, American Red Cross
and members of the Army 
tried to help where they could

pulled survivors out of the sticky goo
cleaned up the streets searched
through rubble, tried to set the city
back to normal. Purity Distilling Co.

was blamed for the disaster,
overfilled their tank, made it with shoddy rivets.
The company argued it was the sudden change 
in temperature and not their fault.
Families of the deceased and the injured
were awarded judgments, 
and life went back to normal

but ninety years later,  
on hot summer nights, the smell 
of molasses still fills the air. 

Peasants Before a Revolution

Working in the fields, the kitchens, the stables,
service to the upper classes who are refined, cultured, educated
contrasted to their place in society; dispensable, humbled, invisible
herded and bred like cattle, with folk stories and superstitions

to keep them in line, as long as the master is strong
his alpha position assumed they submit
to their miserable lives going about their daily tasks
preparing their children for the same life of misery.

Wealth brings boredom when life and death
are no longer a burden, then gossip and back biting
become the only threat to their social standing
when the rules of the aristocracy make it a gilded prison.

Marriage is a barter for wealth and position,
where love is not even part of the equation
but when the passions are stirred
and animal attraction unleashed

all the systems of organization
tumble to the ground, leaving the master exposed
his position of authority undermined
when the peasants see his weakness they rebel.

It happened in France, in Russia, and England
across the Middle East and beyond,
statues of leaders toppled,
castles invaded, riches dispersed 
and lifestyles ravaged.

The Dark Side of Positive Thinking

I always thought it was a sham;
people who suffered much but put on a smile

acting as if everything was fine,
research has proven the discrepancy
in their thinking about their reality

creates a gap… a dark hole 

which happy thoughts and happy words
can never fill. By not acknowledging the truth
they’re quick to anger and aggressively force
circumstances to fit their pictures 

rather than to face what is really happening in their lives.

There can be no growth, if failure is never acknowledged
nothing can change if pretense and make-believe

cover-up the truth with sleeping pills and mood adjusters

better to suffer what there is to suffer,

get strength from the bottom rung of life

make decisions and get moving 

to make the real changes the heart desires.