it's almost like having you here

[freedombecki]

learn the simple way
count each finger as I do
that makes it easy

ha, that works for you
unfortunately after ten,
i'd be wearing shoes


​

 

[freedombecki]

of a quiet morning's glory
missive appeared writ in neatness
like a simply stated story
few words said but of such sweetness
violin's reverberation
swelling slow as inspiration
touching strings not played for ever
senses silent sans quip clever
to word said with no pride on it
far more dulcet than a sonnet
just like birds inside a cage
hearts can be jailed by one page
what could ever be more fine
friend delivering sunshine
decent and short words of boldness
healing pain and leaving wholeness
​

 

[gordonkessler]

Wow, Fredombecki! You really are quite the poet. Fun stuff!

 

[freedombecki]

hearing laughter in the room
pushes out most nagging gloom
one may need not know its cause
to know it's a helpful pause
other times, joy quietly
claims a better space to be
granting spirit boundless cheer
gentle silence has no peer

​

 

[freedombecki]

fibro

while others pray together
no matter through all weather
when bound to four walls ringing
with cheerful angels singing

a friend should have no dismay
it is just bad dna
but i would not risk giving
such sickness to the living

so will bind myself to here
knowing God is always near
therein folding contrite hands
believing He understands

so bright the cross is calling
in spite of clumsy falling
quilting pieced red white and blue
comforting God's poor ones true

Deuteronomy confess
warm the sad and fatherless
i regret it took much pain
this knowledge in wisdom gain
​

 

[freedombecki]

thought there was a cure for the light he always brings into the room
tried to turn away to avoid putting heartstrings near anybody's loom
but when he tapped me on the shoulder
i no longer felt much older as i danced around the floor
as i close my eyes and reel in the warmness that i feel
as i run for any open door
hoping that the ground will hold me
as my paradigm unfolds me
like wings on a small bird lifting and flying
whose melancholy song is barely heard
for thinking there's a cure for the light he always brings into the room
what is it of delight that brings on terror and fright?
separation anxiety seems to have a hold of me and i cannot fight
think i'll just pick up my stuff realizing it's enough and have face to save
going back to the safety of my woman's cave
the only trouble is i can only say, gee whiz,
i love the light he brings into the room
​

 

[freedombecki]

More from 1982 files:

tat, tat, tat, tat, tennies toe-tapping out rhythms on gravel roadsides,
jogging past plum groves aflower in rose-pink shades
toc, toc, toc, toc, even-tempered measure on asphalt shoulder
now among floral roadsides in small whites tufts, yellows, and violet tones of spring
tat, tat, tat, miles of old wood and wire fences, unkempt fields, rotting sheds, trees scattered as though planted by a dice-roll.
tik. tik, tik, tik, tik, tik, skipping past bicycle rack pipes, faded paint chipping away
schi, schi, schi, hm? schi, schi, rain drops starting to fall
up concrete stairs encased in flat rocks into dry-dock campus lobby, long hair dripping and huffing deeply the clean air
back out again as sun peeks out and tik, tik, tik, tik, tac, tac, tac, tac, tat, tat, tat, tat, all things glistening as they do after rainfall​

 

[freedombecki]

wildflowers dance upon a grave in deepest forest cover
as spirits of a fallen past they dazzle like no other
they blossom forth a day or two becoming fruit and seeds
that bring into another life so rooted in good deeds

o bury me close to a tree its sustenance to be
for cemeteries are so full and lose their memory
but plants keep giving o'er and o'er
a bit of food or beauty
please place my body in dirt poor
for enriched soil duty

​

 

[freedombecki]

pleasure point is where green fields
shake with butterflies, flowers
rising sun and berry yields
playful birds sing for hours

breezes carry fresh pine glow
bunnies escape their mother
calling world and thither go
scrapping, chasing each other

male frog croaks a hasty song
a female watchfully hears
if he sings a note that's wrong
she intently disappears

clouds release raindrops too big
mellifluous dragonflies
buzz beneath the budding twig
where security sure lies
​

 

[Mr. H.]

I'll be the judge of that

I give you room, you take my hat
You give me little
I stand aback.

I give
you take
my thirst
unslake

Denied, defied
Prejudged with grudge
No tit for tat

This jugde of that.

 

[Nosmo King]

None of us spoke. We just grunted 'hellos' as we passed beneath the old Consol Energy sign at the end of the parking lot. The rain filled West Virginia sky swirled with grays and whites as I shuffled into the locker room. It's funny, but when I think of it, five days a week I see the sky for no more than fifteen or twenty minutes a day. The drive to and from the parking lot.

Squeezing into the same elevator that lowered two previous generations of miners, we all seem to light our helmet lamps simultaneously. It's not rehearsed, but it always happens that way. The rusty cable lengthened above us as we started our decent.

Our helmet lights now glistened off the walls of the shaft. We appeared as diamond eyed Cyclopes as the air grew cooler and damper and staler. Jostling forward and back and side to side the elevator car creaked and squealed and finally shuddered to a stop. We had reached the floor of the mine.

Most people have a work day. I never thought of my routine as having anything at all to do with day. It could be high noon yet the darkness never changes, other than a glimpse of a headlight on the loader or the occasional flicker of a cigarette lighter in the safe zone.

I know what I'm supposed to know. I hear what I'm supposed to hear. And that is all that I will ever know or hear so long as I work two hundred fathoms beneath the surface of the earth. Neither light nor knowledge, the things most cherished by some, ever get to me and my comrades underground.

 

[freedombecki]

who would e'er be mean to you
when you've more skill than lash larue?
some fem fatale with rubber band
she pulls to snap your kindly hand?
an office friend who wants to be
your boss whose loss would make you free?
some of us here are not so hep
and so i'm sending you a rep
in hopes that such a tiny balm
might bring a bit of caring calm
​

 

[freedombecki]

None of us spoke. We just grunted 'hellos' as we passed beneath the old Consol Energy sign at the end of the parking lot. The rain filled West Virginia sky swirled with grays and whites as I shuffled into the locker room. It's funny, but when I think of it, five days a week I see the sky for no more than fifteen or twenty minutes a day. The drive to and from the parking lot.

Squeezing into the same elevator that lowered two previous generations of miners, we all seem to light our helmet lamps simultaneously. It's not rehearsed, but it always happens that way. The rusty cable lengthened above us as we started our decent.

Our helmet lights now glistened off the walls of the shaft. We appeared as diamond eyed Cyclopes as the air grew cooler and damper and staler. Jostling forward and back and side to side the elevator car creaked and squealed and finally shuddered to a stop. We had reached the floor of the mine.

Most people have a work day. I never thought of my routine as having anything at all to do with day. It could be high noon yet the darkness never changes, other than a glimpse of a headlight on the loader or the occasional flicker of a cigarette lighter in the safe zone.

I know what I'm supposed to know. I hear what I'm supposed to hear. And that is all that I will ever know or hear so long as I work two hundred fathoms beneath the surface of the earth. Neither light nor knowledge, the things most cherished by some, ever get to me and my comrades underground.

Cool. That's like something out of a Gustave Flaubert's novel. Bravo!

 

[Nosmo King]

None of us spoke. We just grunted 'hellos' as we passed beneath the old Consol Energy sign at the end of the parking lot. The rain filled West Virginia sky swirled with grays and whites as I shuffled into the locker room. It's funny, but when I think of it, five days a week I see the sky for no more than fifteen or twenty minutes a day. The drive to and from the parking lot.

Squeezing into the same elevator that lowered two previous generations of miners, we all seem to light our helmet lamps simultaneously. It's not rehearsed, but it always happens that way. The rusty cable lengthened above us as we started our decent.

Our helmet lights now glistened off the walls of the shaft. We appeared as diamond eyed Cyclopes as the air grew cooler and damper and staler. Jostling forward and back and side to side the elevator car creaked and squealed and finally shuddered to a stop. We had reached the floor of the mine.

Most people have a work day. I never thought of my routine as having anything at all to do with day. It could be high noon yet the darkness never changes, other than a glimpse of a headlight on the loader or the occasional flicker of a cigarette lighter in the safe zone.

I know what I'm supposed to know. I hear what I'm supposed to hear. And that is all that I will ever know or hear so long as I work two hundred fathoms beneath the surface of the earth. Neither light nor knowledge, the things most cherished by some, ever get to me and my comrades underground.

Cool. That's like something out of a Gustave Flaubert's novel. Bravo!

Madame Bovary and I thank you! My teachers in college always compared my style to Salinger. I must be maturing.

 

[Nosmo King]

Mama always said "Your memory is in your nose!". I guess so. A whiff of burnt oil, the aroma of sulfur or the stench of sweat always puts me back in the mill. Noises can't compare. Nothing sounds like a blast furnace when a heat is poured. There are no sounds quite like those made by a fountain of molten steel hitting the base of a cauldron. But the smells happen with a serendipity found almost anywhere.

There's an old house on the hill that still has a coal furnace. Just about every other home is heated with natural gas. In mid October, the residents fire it up to brace against the first frosts. Coal smoke curls from the chimney just as it did from the old coke batteries. Acrid and sulfurous, the smoke clings to my sinuses just to remind me that once I was a steelworker and the future was all laid out before me like a carpet.

On parent teacher night I met with Chuckie's science teacher. The chemistry lab had an amber pallor and smelled of sulphuric acid. "These ten lines produce 27% of the stainless steel used in the free world." That's what my foreman told me my first day. Steel that would one day become kitchen sinks and clarinet keys. Window frames and linings for dishwashers. Medic Alert charms and scalpels.

All that steel was pickled and annealed before my very eyes. Blasted with shot to remove scale, drenched in sulphuric acid to remove the carbon. Dragged through a bath of oil and rolled to the thickness of a dime. All that steel was processed and wrapped and shipped with my help. And the aroma of the acid reminded me that it's all gone now.

My nose is not my friend. My nose is a means to put me firmly in my place. Mama used to wipe the soot from my upper lip. The air was visible when the mills up and down the valley were working twenty four hours a day. The snow would fall not virginal white, but burnt orange after being filtered through the Pittsburgh atmosphere.

Today the air is clear and clean and absent of the odor of steel and money.

 

[midcan5]

pieces of a day

I am standing in line waiting to purchase non-fat milk at Wawa when I overhear an elderly man explain to the cashier his daughter married a Mexican - the girl exclaims rather loudly - why did she do that - somewhat nonplussed the man answers something about he has nothing against people of other... this was unclear and the girl asked another question - I wanted to say I was a bit mixed too and so are all of us but I went about paying as this was only about buying milk....

 

[freedombecki]

pieces of a day

I am standing in line waiting to purchase non-fat milk at Wawa when I overhear an elderly man explain to the cashier his daughter married a Mexican - the girl exclaims rather loudly - why did she do that - somewhat nonplussed the man answers something about he has nothing against people of other... this was unclear and the girl asked another question - I wanted to say I was a bit mixed too and so are all of us but I went about paying as this was only about buying milk....

My grandmother had a saying "Some people say more than they think."

 

[freedombecki]

scattered footprints on dull green hills
walking away, walking back
sometimes they disappear then reappear miles later
each one has a purpose not known to anyone other
walking away, walking back
like a spirit breathing warm air on a longing neck
and about the time the good feeling is understood,
it vanishes leaving
scattered footprints on dull green hills

​

 

[freedombecki]

there's a new day breaking on the lovely earth
there's a breath of fresh clean air about
there's a cooling on the surface of the lake
there's a dulcet song of bird on ear

there is no arising of a misted cloud
there is no grieved anger anywhere
there is calm reflection on mirrored surface
there is rustication pastoral

when exploring each face of the countryside
where spring flow'rs adorn a widened path
when ducks softly quack their sounds enchantingly
that's a morn revealing life is good
​

 

[freedombecki]

o solemn tree of green leaf bearing
who at thy trunk with axe is tearing
thy sap flows slow like tears of wearing
stay strong of heart within this sharing

thy bark is thick but patterned rightly
thy fruit is sweet but also sprightly
ye shade the earth from sol so lightly
without a word ye talk politely



​