DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Plucks Out a Nose Hair

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Plucks Out a Nose Hair

An hour, maybe two,

Since the alarm slightly coughed.

But he’s not moving.   A to-do list

Sits folded on a desk, some ten feet way.

And thin-crept dream pours into dream:

A face of a childhood love with their mouth torn and missing,

Then, struggling to move his possessions out of a casually crumbling house.

With one final effort,

He guides the loom which shapes the scenes.

But it’s still wrong.   Still wrong.  A freckled, curvy

Sculptor enters. She smells like cinnamon.  They make

Love, unhurried and sure.  With an awareness of the frail and the glory.

And then she dies. So soon. She’s stricken with cancer,

And the dream flashes to a dimly lit bed,

Then the footnote of darkness.

And he’s awake. 

A chorus of sobs.  

Not ready to start.  

A widower of fantasy.

As a reflex,

He reaches with his right thumb and index finger,

Finds a nostril,

And pulls.  Hard.  Sharp.  No time to reflect or stop.

A crack of sensate shivers echo,

And a long, twisted, black hair is collected.

He smiles. Breathes again, ragged but alert.  All is reset.

He lifts the covers.  He finds his feet.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Howls At the Moon

Hey,

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem. 

A Divorced Dad Howls at the Moon

The moon,

She’s a bone-white eardrum

Stretched bare across a littered sky.

A confessor,

A bolt of crinkled paper suspended in quiet,

A discontinued firemen’s net  -

 Scuttled by the grave of time.

He’s in the backyard,

Stripped to the waist.

Sober.   The weekend toys

Lodged neatly in plastic tubs.

Feeling the downy grass on his bare toes.

It’s one am.   And yet, he can’t stop living this day.

There’s more action to be made.  Exaltations,

Dream-seeding, corners to clean.

There’s an itch. An implacable itch,

He fills his lungs with twilight air,

Deeply, and then,

In stark surprise of himself,

He barks.  A feral, joyous, cry.

Moon-bound.   He, he is saying:

Hear me, you lunar mistress.

I am living. I, I  am slowly getting fine.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Makes Faces at a Baby in an Olive Garden

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Makes Faces at a Baby in an Olive Garden

Meals at The Olive Garden,

Like all other workaday tragedies,

Aren’t planned; they’re the epilogue

Of a series of tiny, innocuous mistakes.

The conference was out of town.  He didn’t

Know anyone.  Wasn’t about to grab hot wings

With the Tri-State sales team at Hooters.  Only real choice.

Minestrone soup comes cold and tastes like the East River,

Beyond the meaning of the word “salty”, with some half-hearted

Rubbery shapes – could be celery, could be parts of an old tire.

But he’s starving, so he smiles, faintly, sips quietly.  Cuts the acrid taste

With forkfuls of his dry salad and a snatch of breadstick.

Just then,

From the table to his right,

A baby begins to sob.

Not a tantrum, or a cry of mischief,

But something more portent.  Fear, an awareness

Of death?   A grip of resolute sadness?

He nods.  Makes sense.  It’s the Olive Garden.

We’re all feeling that way.

But the baby won’t cease.  His family’s lost

In their chatter, cooing over their glossy dishes with too much cream,

Baby’s cry is lost but for this man.

So he rises to action. Cleans his soup spoon.

Wets it lightly with his tongue,

And places it, gingerly,

Atop his nose, balancing it there.

Then opening his mouth wide like a bass.

The baby turns, surprised, cries softer.

The man continues.  Drops the cutlery,

Plumps his cheeks until they’re wide

And flush as balloons.   Baby falls silent.

For his finish, the man seizes two breadsticks,

Crams them artfully into both sides of his mouth,

And claps his hands, an eager walrus.

Baby howls and giggles with delight.

And sometimes, that’s enough.  Sometimes that small,

Connective gift for a stranger – that’s the rivulet of mercy,

To forget, for a second,

That you’re a man alone in an Olive Garden

On a Tuesday afternoon

Not so much eating food as enduring it.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Lights a Match in the Dark

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Lights a Match in the Dark

What happened before, it’s uncertain.

Some conjecture could be entertained:

Maybe he was powering the microwave

And the fridge from the same Pre-War socket.

Maybe a squirrel, eager and naïve,

Made itself into a mortal circuit, up on the

Power lines.   The author, the author of this poem

Was running late.  Missed a train.   The world does not

Cotton tardiness,

And sometimes all that’s left for the belated are fragments, antecedents,

The custodians of memory.

There’s a box on the ground, and two spent sticks.

Perhaps he struck the first phosphorus….

(the author pauses, frantic for one last word for alliterative cleverness,

Readers will forgive if you’re witty, right?)

Philosopher?

(no – too disconnected)

Phoenix!

(ah!  Now you’re cooking!)

….and watched the lip of flame lap against the matchstick,

Seeing his home, with new, threatening shadows, thin, speckled light,

And then cursing as the fire bit his fingers, unaware,

And fell to the floor.  He lit a second match,

Somehow smote the stray fire from the first,

And lit a candle.    Birthday cake scented,   Clearly he didn’t buy it.

Was it a gift?   Was it hers?  Did she leave it behind?

There’s no love for it, that’s sure.

It’s ringed with dust.  Bears a sickly, sweet smell.

Based on the wax, must have burned for hours.

He lit that candle, sat there in the clip of light,

And then did – what?   

This is where an author would lie.   Strike down a narrative

Taut and absolute.   Support it with lush, stark imagery.

 But not today.  Today, that man shall keep his mystery,

Those hours spent bearing a candle, alone, self-comforted.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Makes Coffee

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Makes Coffee

Despite the sleeping pill,

He shivers, wide awake.  4:03am.

Awake with a blanket of anxiousness.

Mistakes the second pillow for a stranger’s

Coupled shoulder.  Just for a second.

Just enough to bribe his hopes.

Slaps his feet on the hardwood floor.

Shuffles to the kitchen.

Searching for a ritual.  Opens the cupboard,

And out scampers an unaware cockroach.

He collects the French press, the grinder,

Leans against the sticky silverware drawer,

Jammed tight with metal and takeout menus,

Pries it open.   Takes out the measuring spoon.

Places each pieces in a row on a flat towel.

In order.    Measuring cup in hand,

He fills it with filtered water,

And softly pours it into an electric kettle.

Flicks the switch, feels the coil at the bottom begin

To hum to life.   Opens the vacuum-sealed jar

Of coffee beans, inhales the initial scent. 

Lightly shakes them into the grinder, and closes the lid.

Three quick pulses at three seconds.

Then, artfully measured with the spoon, scooped

Into the press.  The kettle percolates, the switch pops

To life.   He yanks the cord from the wall.  Pours the water

Into the quiet coffee grounds, stirs them, set the timer.

Adds a pinch of kosher salt, stirs again. Begins to clean.

Scrubbing down the grinder. Drying the kettle.

Searching for the cockroach and his kin.

Timer beeps.  He steadies the wire mesh, hooks it

Onto the rim, and leans, breath by breath.

The liquid makes a quiet, compressed sound,  shhh shhh

Pooling from the pores of the press. 

He readies a cup, some sugar,   Tips the amber magic

Into his glass.  Combines the white, impacted grains of sweet

Sensation.   And it’s done.  Thirty five minutes passed.

Sun not yet a visitor.   He sips his coffee.  He does not smile.