“Relitious”, by Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Yes, yes
I made up a word
Something you have
Never heard

To me it just occurred
If you really like a food
Gluttony to the point
You’d hoard

By all means
Get on board
Gorge yourself
With abandon fork

Pineapple on pizza
Many don’t like
Relitious to me
I’d eat day and night

Chocolate on strawberries
Or maybe layered cake
Barbecue chicken wings
Your taste buds sing

That bacon cheeseburger
Is your thing
Relitous with tons
Of onion rings

Maybe that pile
Of buttered crab legs
Or a hot spicy Italian sausage
To get you out of your dregs

Relitious so much
If you got stuck on an Island
If it were your last meal
You’d be fine with dying

Relitious is anything
You like to eat
Never get tired of
Don’t mind to repeat.
(end)

“Relitious” is a word I made up to mean you like a food so much you could eat it every meal 3 times a day and never get tired of it.

How You Make My IQ Drop, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Like, You Know, You Know
Like, you know
Like, you know
I want to , like
Punch you in the nose
You know, you know
Like, you know, you know
Like, you know
I want to, like
Punch you in the nose
You know?
(end)

One of my public speaking teachers in community college drilled it into my head that filler words make you sound stupid. This is based on that teacher’s attitude.

Sonne’s Song, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

There is no mourning
In a mushroom cloud
The end of all seasons
Of nothing we should be proud
Since the time
We first walked erect
We dreamed of rival’s death
And the earth cares not
Of our pettiness
It can be far, far
Far more ruthless
And we are oblivious
Estranged and clueless.
(end)

Every so often another poet will inspire me to write a poem. “Sonne” is the name she goes by on Twitter. She says “Sonne” means “sun”. And she like I see the short sightedness of our species and our violence and wars as pointless and a dangerous distraction to our survival. Thank you S.G “Sonne” for inspiring these words.

Surveillance, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

The idea of
A cosmic surveillance camera
Never sleeping
Watching every moment
In shower or intwined
In amorous acts
A being that treats us
Like lab rats
Keeps the ones he likes
And burns all the rest
Is a frightening prospect
But I think John Lennon
Imagined far better.

#vss365

You’ve read the prequel
If not skip down, come back
First, is first, last is last
There is an order to this, my mom would insist

My prior stanzas, seemed dark and grim
My anger at time, robbing me, taking her
But ultimately resigned, knowing she’d
Be angry If I dwelled and drowned in sorrow

I know she’d be proud of the things I’ve done since
Traveling to Australia twice, she knew my fear of heights
And turbulence. I know she’d be proud
I tore down my old house, and had it replaced

But I also know, even with that, other things
Would not have changed. “This goes here, that goes there”
Why are there things on the floor, why is there pollen
All over your screen door? And those blinds are broken

Replace them. Put that dvd back in it’s case
Put it back in the book case, that’s where it goes
And shave damn it, you know I hate 5 O’clock shadow
Shave, shave, shave, now, now, now

Why does that lamp have no lamp shade?
You klutz, you broke it didn’t you?
Go buy a new one, it is bugging me
Fix it, fix it, I demand of thee.”

“Um, mom? It is my house, you are just visiting. “
“I don’t care, just do as I say, I am your mother”
Don’t argue with the dead, they may be gone
But just don’t argue, don’t even bother

Yea I hear you, as silent as you are
I still wish you were bugging me
Pestering me, lecturing me, nagging me
I know it means you care.

And those collections of rubber duckies
In my kitchen watch over me
Smiling at me, and I see you
I see us at the dollar store

Hunting them down
I buy them for you
You can be young at heart
When you want to be mom

You ask me to climb
The cell tower to change the light
You know damn well
Heights give me fright

And why did I open my trap
In the examination room
I told you of the medical poster
And sealed my doom

That finger put where
The sun don’t shine
I had to mention that
To you, at the time

And after that
In the van’s rear view
You wiggled your finger
Made that joke linger

Time, that cold selfish taker
Greedy and full of gluttony
Eventually will take, even me
But it will always be itself, lonely

You can take her, time
There’s nothing I can do, true
But as long as I am alive
On her death you’ll never dine.
(end)

Watching my mom take her last breath was horrifying. I was in a deep depression for almost 3 months after. Fortunately my friend John snapped me out of it, and like any good friend told me my mom would not have wanted me to wallow in a depression forever.

My mom was a stern authoritarian when I was a kid. We were nothing alike, and we butted heads as I grew up. As age is unavoidable, eventually I moved down to live with her to take care of her. The fussing over our differences didn’t change at first. She was always fiercely independent and hated asking for help. And there is lots of truth to the parent becoming the child and the child becoming the parent.

But there was one huge change in her, that I deeply appreciated and wish I could have had that mom as a kid. All of those superficial things she used to go ballistic over growing up, slowly evaporated between us. We still fussed over it, but it was no longer life or death or a power struggle.

And she grew to have a sense of humor with me. She was an old school parent I’d say. You tell your kids what to do, you teach them to be serious because life is serious. That melted as she got older, and I began to see a silly woman able to laugh at herself too. But oh boy was she an opportunist too, just like all of my friends.

She loved to tease me about my fear of heights and every time we’d pass a cell tower she’d ask me to go up to the top and change the lights. An once, we were at the urologist, and there was a graphic medical poster depicting a prostate exam. Yea, that is just what a son needs to be looking at while sitting next to their mother. So I did the wise thing and told her. Note to self “DUMBASS!”

But I don’t know how it started, but one day we were at the dollar store, and one of us picked up a rubber duckie because it looked silly, so I bought it for her. The it became a competition for any dollar store we went into after that. We’d buy a new one that was different than the one’s prior, and our respective collections grew over time.

But that neat freak in her never left. The few times she did visit me in my house, she always told me what to do and where to put things. I smile at all of that now, and those last days were certainly dark, and for a time just after very dark. But my mom would have been pissed at me if I had stayed in that stupor and self blame.

Her Voice, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

I remember her voice
Of certainty, of finality
When she told the doctor
To send her back to the nursing home

I screamed inside “NO NO NO
I NEED YOU, DON’T GO DONT GO”
But I knew it was her right
Her decision, and nothing I could do

Isolation, fear, but especially guilt
Why am I so scared, she’s the one dying
Not me, but I knew, I knew
She always took care of me

The days that followed, filled with fear
The nakedness of loss, a knife in the gut
The what ifs torture your mind,
If maybe I’d done this, or that

Time is never kind, takes every kind
It has no sympathy for you, it marches
Ticks and tocks and takes and takes
That fucker, selfish fucker, took my mother

Damn you time, you are never charitable
You tease everyone with your promise of more
Then you sabotage all bonds, ripping them to shreds
No sympathy for the dying, they soon will be dead

You can torture me, with your harsh reality
You may have her, and keep her, but fuck you
She is still with me, no, not in a superstitious sense
She is not elsewhere looking down on me

But her voice, her voice, would be mad at me
If I had stayed in my dark dungeon, self shackled
Paralyzed with fear, she was no longer here
To care for me, protect me, to be my pillar

Three months in a mourning stupor
Her voice, her voice, would be angry
“Damn it Brian! Get up, get up!
You did nothing wrong, but it is time

Way past time my son, my son
That you wipe those grateful tears
Tackle your lonely fears, remember me well
But live your life well, and move on.”

The earth has made 5 orbits since
That dreadful day she took her last breath
The sickly sight of her stillness, motionless
Body, but I still hear her voice today,

“Clean your house Brian! It is getting messy again”
Then I roll my eyes, and smile, and now the memories
Bring fondness and joy, and the pain while never gone
Has no refuge knowing she’d be pissed at me if I stayed

In that dark dungeon, self inflicted stupor
Time is thoughtless, uncaring, an arbitrary thief
But it can never rob me of the time it gave me
And my mother’s voice is what saved me.
(end)

I was in a very deep depression the days after I watched my mom take her last breath. It was a slow horrifying process I could not stop, she had made that final DNR decision. I was screaming in my head when she told the doctor to send her back to the nursing home, “NO MOM, NO, I NEED YOU, I NEED YOU”. But that was the selfish irrational side of me. I knew I had to let her make that decision for herself.

But even in her last days she was brave, stoic, but had clear moments of fear calling out my name, as others reported to me when I came to visit. I stayed from the pre dawn till sometimes after midnight, but there were no sleeping quarters for family at the nursing home so I had to go home.

My biggest fear was to get that call in the middle of the night, and not be there. But I look back at those dark days, and I can say without a doubt, my late mother would have been pissed if I stayed in a deep depression.

I hear her voice today, not in any real “great beyond” context. I am an atheist. But I do imagine in my head what she would say to me if I didn’t put something back in place, EVEN IN MY OWN HOUSE.

Mothers do that when they visit. I can smile today and imagine her visiting me telling me to put the book back on the shelf, or take the DVD out of the player and put it back in the case. Or ask me when the last time I dusted was. Or why I have broken window blinds. I smile, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I damned sure miss that.

My best friend John snapped me out of my stupor. But I can honestly say I did not slip back into it because I know my mom would have been pissed at me, slapping me on the head, telling me to get out of bed, get up and do something and shave, oh how she hated stubble and shadow.

Brick Wall, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrs37 on Twitter)

The words, seeds
Pollenated by observation
Participation, aggravation

Inspiration, wall, wall, wall
Stall, stall, stall
Ring, ring, voice chat call

Dog barking at dusk
TV graphics, screen saver
Bright colors my eyes accost

From across
My mind is quickly lost
Racing fast to recover
My thoughts, my thoughts

They run from me
Outpacing me, lapping me
Vanishing, vapors of what could be

I step on the pedal
My furious futile efforts
To save the structure

I turn the corner
Almost clutch them
I jump the curb,

Slam dead on
Straight into
A brick wall

The poem is DOA
There is no way
It will make it to the E.R.
(end)

Another Plath inspired poem. This is an ode to her poem “Stillborn”. It is about my own writer’s block, or even just losing a line here or there, and having to scrap the idea of the entire poem.

There literally is a dog barking right now as I type this. Between that, and the screen saver in the corner of my eye on my big flat screen TV is a distraction.

In other situations on other days/nights, the distractions can be insomnia, neighbor’s noises, birds chirping, my ankles swelling, my feet on fire. Lots of things can distract me, and I have an idea for a poem, I get started, but hit a brick wall and often give up on that idea a the moment because I am not feeling it. I can’t force myself to write when the mood isn’t striking me.

I just read for the first time Sylvia Plath’s “Stillborn” and it is amazing. It is about her juggling her stress, depression and having writer’s block. It is a must read for any poetry fan.

The Last Page, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Darkness comes
So does the end
But this isn’t to fret
It is simply a chapter
With a last page
The slings of life
That muddies your shoes
Do not have to be a bog
Or quicksand
Darkness only wins
If you let it.

Reflection, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Oh how exact you are
You show my stubble grey
My pot pig belly, my hernia
And that I do not shave

I hermit between your twin
I know I’m dwelling within
The master and it’s kin
The light you’re swallowing

The camera with no lens
Shows my spider veins
And my sagging jowls
And my crepe skin

You say you are truthful
But to a brutal degree
You do not censor yourself
For me or anybody

Ivory squares
With wedges pointing upstairs
Give you aid to face me with age
But I can flip them down

Sedentary sentry
Always lonely mostly
Except for that of vanity
But of me you need not worry

The prune is shriveled
Unvarnished you’ve revealed
Purple blotches have not healed
That thinners don’t congeal

It you sit there and dare
Say you do not judge
You’re just the umpire
Calling sags and strikes

Oh you are no friend
You look deep inside my eyes
You follow me until I’m out of your sight
I turn off the bathroom light

And for you, that’s goodnight.
(end)

This poem is an ode and a response to Plath’s mirror. “Ivory squares” are referring to the light switch plates and switches when I look in the mirror and see them behind me. or next to me on the wall, depending on which bathroom I am in.

I hate getting old so no, I do not like looking in the mirror. I have never liked my looks growing up but getting old and out of shape doesn’t really help that. But I am being a bit sarcastic here too. I know there is nothing I can do and the rational side of me knows getting old is part of life so in the end, I do accept it.

The one good thing about getting old is that you don’t have those bullshit raging hormones and horrible mood swings of going from love to lust to despair to rejection. When you get to be my age, you get to say f—– it. And that is a good place to be. No I do not like losing the shape deal, but nothing you can do about getting old.