Thursday, April 23, 2015

Femme d'une age

Femme d’une age certaine
they say with a Gallic quirk of the eyebrow,
as if this sweetly whispered label
makes any damned difference
to those of us sandwiched between
adult children and death.

Women of a certain age,
you know, them,
the ones who are no longer first in line
and whose talents and achievements are recited
as if they were an old mantra
from now-defunct religion.

Donna di una certa età,
say those dark-eyed men with
twitchy fingers at the rumps of
younger women who do not yet
know better than to walk too close—
Sono ossessionati dai loro peni.

They, who wrap us in these words
before relegating us to the shelf,
do not understand the truth of this age.
There’s a reason we witches are not
depicted as kittenish young girls,
but as sleek, powerful cougars.

We are only à mi-chemin,
a metà strada,
halfway through with you.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Fruit, c. 1897, Alfons Maria Mucha

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Regrets



Monday motorcade moans
a mile away from where I lay
waking to lingering regret.

This is an anniversary
marked by many motorists
though they don't know
they weren't invited.

Built from a decade
of self-denial and sweat,
this house sits square
parallel to the highway.

Emerging from a field
the color of puffballs
surfacing beneath the soil
where corn once grew,

The frame assembled
then windows sealed
the snow and rain from
hearthstone inside.

Deer hunters' morning,
the sounds of men and trucks
faded with each window
falling into its sash.

Looking out the wet glass
over the sapling-studded grass
I knew in my bones
the trees would shield me.

But I was wrong,
each morning a reminder
that life doesn't stop
once a goal is attained.

Did the trees know
another truth in the earth
below them and this house
I built ten years ago?

They do not mask
the motorists' march a mile away
or failure's maudlin emotion
this side of the pane.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Regret by karmablue via Flickr

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Incongruity



Drone
hum of suburbia
widest riding mower deck
hovering over the greenest grass

Drone
whine of desert
widest wingspan
levitating over the sparest earth

Fog
plane parked
tarmac waits wetly
passenger trance along jetways

Fog
communications confused
technicians mouse warfare
weapons from too-distant screens

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Fog Drone by johannesg via Flickr

Monday, April 20, 2015

Rise, Again



The photograph lies, its thousand-word array in millions of pixels
portray a second from decades past.

Helmets and batons, shields and guns, teargas and dogs,
the city’s summer streets of Sixty-Eight.

Soldiers, police weaponized, their attitude Spartan
against the Persians at Plataea.

Hoi polloi, angered, their attitude righteous,
rail against their impoverished, punishing serfdom.

But the photo lies, its focus betrays the scale
of victims’ names drawing a larger, menacing picture.

Hone in on the details, jeans, jackets, all the attire
different than it was, now nearly fifty years ago.

Forty-seven years will not fit in this frame,
spilling over the asphalt like ageless smoke, as adolescent blood flows.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Baltimore, c. 28April2015, by Arash Azizzada via Flickr

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Grey



Shades there be,
not those hues
ridiculed or ridiculous.
Reality spans
nearly nuclear white,
shy of midnight’s black,
and all the universe between,
undefined, unnamed, oft unseen.

Shades of the past drawn,
my grandmother’s furs,
the blinds on the windows,
the smoke and the ash,
the granite on her grave,
my inheritance in dust.

Shades of this day color
my mother’s hair,
the foam on third coast waves,
the sunrise after the storm,
the fen’s air at twilight,
my son’s eyes at birth.

Shades of tomorrow toss
my own wind-blown hair,
the shadows on the wall,
the snow across the screen,
the light over the pond,
my daughter’s pale face at dawn.

Unbidden, unwritten,
often unfolded, unending
Truth spreads
its whitening wings wide
over darkened day
where underneath
these shades be.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Scott Smithson via Flickr

Saturday, April 18, 2015

The Two of You



Your presence at the edge of my lawn is both reassuring and odd.
I wish I could ask you so many questions and
have a reasonable expectation of a cogent response.

Why are you here — and why the two of you, together?
It's clear you're together-together, like a couple.
One of you watches while the other eats or rests.
Even when you both rest, one of you is always alert,
always watching out for the other's best interests.

Your attire gives nothing away, dressed in the same
comfortable uniform common to your kind.
I don't even know if you are male and female, and unrelated,
or siblings, cousins, or an old, long married couple
whose gender no longer matters because
the kids have long flown the coop, so to speak.
I don't even know if you're M/M or F/F,
though it really doesn't matter to me any more
than it appears to matter to you.

And why my lawn, this patch near the pond?
Naturally you do not prefer the treeline or the trees,
across the path away from the pond.
That's not your thing, and you're like-minded about
this preference.
Birds of a feather, as they say.

Will you be here long?
Should I plan on your company for the month,
for the rest of the spring and summer,
for the rest of the season?
Should I tell the neighbors so they avoid my lawn,
walk their noisy little yappy dogs far from here,
leave you in quiet, undisturbed?
The loss of their presence won’t hurt my feelings.
Not one bit.

Should I tell the lawncare people
you will be here for weeks, or months,
so they exercise more care with scheduling their work
around whatever schedule you two keep,
doing whatever it is you two do,
besides eat, sleep, and watch?

I wish I could ask you these things.
I wish I could know what it is I should do for you.
But communications between our people are stymied
until you two learn to use cellphones,
or until we learn to speak goose.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Larry McGahey via Flickr

Friday, April 17, 2015

Seeing



Pink quartz sand, tinted afternoon warm,
cold water wash over pine needles,
broken cedar branches bowed by breeze.

With my eyes closed, I am 16 again,
my skin feels the same, my nose knows no different,
here on the beach stretched out on a blanket.
The coarse grass rustles at the top of the dune,
as it did decades ago.

Sugar plum trees sag, purple fruits sway,
wax wings whistle under the branches.
Sea gulls skree passing by overhead.

With my eyes open, I can see the same blue,
my sight finds nothing different in the passing clouds.
So long as I do not move, the world has fallen away
and back to the place where I was his,
as I was decades ago.

Lake waves lull, soft rapid rhythm.
Blue melds grey as surf susurrus shifts,
crows warn a northeaster coming.

But cooling air and raindrops demand the truth,
I am not a girl on a beach any longer.
There is only a woman, gathering a wet blanket,
who can see much further than Superior's horizon,
as she wished she could so long ago.

___________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Heidi Blanton via Flickr

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Lemme 'Splain It



Well, actually, it's not about whatever topic
toward which you decide to derail this conversation,
something diametrically opposed to this one
that had nothing to do with you whatsoever.

You've interjected yourself into this conversation,
which needed no further explanation,
in order to redirect its participants away
from criticism of the larger body of your kind.

Technically speaking, it's not about whatever abstrusity
you've chosen as your beast of burden today,
one which travels 180 degrees away from here,
safely away from where this conversation was headed.

You've demanded data-based evidence,
when we would not be herded but heard,
when we insisted this critique had a life
of its own without your validation or input.

But you're being polite and reasoned, you insist,
though your interjectory redirect proves otherwise.
Though your mother likely told you butting in was rude,
you didn’t listen to her any more than you do the rest of her gender.

Frankly, you're not sure what exactly this discussion is about,
but you think the difficulty lies in — and cue our eyes rolling.
Not everything is about you, or what you think,
or what you believe is a truth we must not already know.

You can hit the ground running, buddy, perpendicular and away
from this place where failure to listen has worn out your welcome.
Find a land of men where your mansplainin' will be greeted
with open arms, or head butting, and arm wrestling, belching, and beer.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Harold Abramowitz via Flickr (modified from color to B/W)

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Suit Season



This is terra nova,
or rather, mare ignotum
in which we now swim.
Unfamiliar tongues whisper
about sharkskin,
as if a deep-sea predator
sized thirty-eight long
will swim up the aisle
at any moment.

Why are there buttons
here along the cuff,
he asks as he stands
and turns about
in front of the mirror,
an eerie reflection of
a small blond child
he once was,
all why-when-where-why
accompaniment,
a curious young lieutenant for
this coin-bearing sail
across retail Styx.

To keep men from wiping
their runny noses
along their sleeves,
says one theory,
I can only reply,
attributing the origin
to that dapper Corsican
who adorned his soldiers
and sailors alike
in the finest French
men's fashion circa 1814.
A student of European history,
he nods wryly,
knowing attire does not
assure a fleet's success.

And now we sail into
the mare crisium,
churning waters of
crises foamed by
social constraints.
Which is better,
this suit, or that tuxedo?
Which will his friends buy,
and what will his date prefer?
What other hazards are there,
beyond the price on the label?

I cannot answer these queries.
This sea is uncharted
for me as well.
His older sibling
was so much easier,
as if born to swim
in these turbulent tides.
She only asked for
my money, she never
asked for my time.
Her liquid pink gown proved
her powerful navigation skills.

But we paddle on,
attacking the rapids
of ties, vests, and
cumberbundian fjords.
He will look as if
he, too, was born
to traverse these waters.
Brave on, my little sailor,
per audacia ad ignotum,
voyage into the
strange new sea.

__________
Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Steven Depolo via Flickr

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Secrets



Cleaning out his dresser drawers
reveals many things.
Some are obvious, like the underwear
and socks that no longer fit him
after his last growth spurt,
remaining untouched
since I cleaned his room last.

He has grown even more quickly
than he or I have grasped,
erupting faster than the span between
back-to-back seasons’ shopping trips.

This truth is evident,
in the one foot square space
containing men’s small boxers in various cotton plaids
and another square foot space of smallish white knit anklets.

But I am left with uncomfortable questions
only a mother will ponder and suffer.
Like: what underwear has he been wearing,
and where is it now, if it isn’t in this drawer?

Fortunately the answers are easy and
not too disquieting.
He is out of town with fellow students,
all his daily-worn clothing with him,
and I am cleaning now because he is
not underfoot, moaning like the toddler
he once was years ago.

Mom, Mother, Ma, Mom—
No. None of that, and I am at
my uncomfortable leisure to clean and
enable this coltish creature’s quarters.

Another disquieting question
lies wadded up, blue lines upon white paper,
ball point ink in his sloppy still-childish hand,
a love letter to an unnamed girl.

I can’t help read it,
the words are scrawled so large
they jump off the paper like others
I once saw more than thirty years ago.

Did my mother similarly
take pause at a scrap of paper, holding her breath,
wondering if she should read further,
to learn something about me, about herself?

I push it away, beneath untouched socks
knowing already what I need to know.
Like a boy thirty years ago,
he is growing up, but not grown up.

No. Not just yet.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
Photo: ortizmj via Flickr

Monday, April 13, 2015

The Sound of Time



Sound weighs nothing, says physics.
It is only the perception of air's movement
When interpreted by one's ear.
Small waves of energy push
Smaller particles across an airy sea.

The clock's ticking-ticking
Across the breadth of this great room
Is really nothing but my ear's recognition
Of the second hand's small motions,
Swimming strokes from mark to mark.

Funny how the sound accrues
and gathers weight as the hand works
Its way around the face,
Pouring a burden upon my chest
Under which I suffocate.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Toni Verdú Carbó via Flickr

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Kitchen



The kitchen is tight,
in spite of our scrimping
for more than a decade
for a generous building fund.
We denied ourselves
so many luxuries,
in order to build a house
with a much bigger kitchen.

The galley kitchen
in our old house
was too narrow,
barely wide enough
for two persons to walk
side-by-side.
Your cheek, my jowl,
your stirring, my chopping,
too intimate when
room required to
swing a frying pan
or throw a knife.

Parties gravitated
to that too-tight space,
forming two rows,
face to face,
drinking, laughing, talking,
sucking in their stomachs
should someone need
to walk through
to get to the porch.
Body contact made
most efficiently,
everyone could have,
might have
touched each other
in that kitchen.

This kitchen is open,
a large stainless island
with wide surface area,
more counterspace
than we dreamed of
in that cramped ranch.
But the island creeps close
to the counter somehow,
and we find ourselves
again cheek to jowl,
party goers drawn
to the narrowed space
as if we'd never built
a much bigger house.

It never occurs to us
to change this again.
It is what it is,
after all these years,
crayons and refrigerator magnets,
burnt toast and cheesecakes,
small fingers kneading gnocchi,
aprons near the stove.

Those cable television shows
with shiny-faced hosts
demonstrating home construction
and remodeling
omit one key thing:
As much as we think we want
that expansive place,
bright with paint and chrome,
the thing that cannot be built
with lumber and nails,
drywall and tile,
is the dance along
that tight space,
the throbbing heart
of a place called home.

___________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Whenless



Time stagnates with the darkness,
its moorings hang loose and sway
in night's ink,
though tied between night and morning.

I cannot discern when I am
in this deepest shade of blue,
only where I am by the scent
of lavender trailing in
from the garden through the window.

Time dilates with the dawn
staked firmly beneath the arc
of daylight,
the sun and time speed,
slipping fast and faster without moving.

I know where I am,
morning chore here,
afternoon errand there,
worn by evening's arrival
the day now a rapid blur
too little time left to care.

Waiting for the sun to set,
twilight to give up its grip
upon my person and my world,
I am eager to return to that
fragrant floating whenless.

_________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse

Friday, April 10, 2015

Harbinger



He is quite dandy, in his orange waistcoat,
cocking his head as if listening to the field in the distance,
and to me in the house at the same time.

He dusts off his brown jacket, waving up and down,
though he may be trying to get my attention
with his gesticulation.

He opens his mouth, then closes it,
as if he needed to rethink what he might say
to me in his next breath.

He needn’t try so hard, as I’ve heard it all before,
in years past when he came back from
his winter travels to warm climes.

Sing, Robin. I’ve been waiting for you
to tell me it’s time once again
to begin.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Cereal City



My stomach growled at ten a.m.,
in the middle of religion class.
Eyes flick from left to right seeking the offender,
but there was more than one hungry teenager
trapped in a desk-chair in that room.
The smell hanging in the air triggered the restlessness,
though the midway point between breakfast and lunch
might have contributed as well.

Something sang softly of grain,
like pancakes, or oatmeal,
combined with a sweet, caramel overlay,
like maple or dark corn syrup.
If I’d known then what treacle was, I’d have called the odor this.
It drew me out of my seat and compelled me to fib
I needed a hall pass, and so did my classmate,
the one whose nose twitched like mine,
whose eyes slid to me as I raised my hand.
The rest of our cohort slouched and sighed.
They acknowledged we had beat them to the end game.

Which was downtown, three blocks from that classroom,
left out of sight of the principal’s office, right, then right again, mid-street,
in a greasy diner reeking of burnt coffee and fresh bacon,
a line drawn for our escape drawn by that sweet-grain scent
from school door to the hole-in-the-wall on Main Street.
We perched on worn Naugahyde at the end of the counter,
as far from the door as students could get,
in case a wandering nun or a priest might stumble in
from our Catholic school’s confines for a cup of joe.

Seems ridiculous now, to envision the elderly penguin
Sister Mary Elizabeth popping into that diner
for a thick, dark cup of bitter morning swill
with a crumbly slab of apple pie,
when she struggled to make it down the school’s corridors
without wheezing up a lung.

We ordered our ill-gotten treats and
ate them with the same furtiveness we employed
to arrive at the diner, our loafered feet
swinging in time with the beats of our hearts
and the swish of our tongues.
A sticky glazed doughnut seeming the best choice
over a powdered one, which would surely give us away.
It’s a time-worn truth:
Nobody escapes the tell-tale residue
left by an illicit powdered doughnut,
when the uniform is darkest navy blue.

Like city-born ferrets, we weaseled our way
back into school and class,
Sister Margaret of the Obscure Saint’s Name
none the wiser for our escape,
though classmates scowled during the
remaining minutes of dogma-based torture.
Smugness felt like sugary residue
on the tips of our well-licked fingers.

Over lunch two hours later,
fellow students hissed their envious disapproval
at our daring fulfillment of clandestine cravings.
But the smell — how could anyone not give in
to the pied piper call scent of cooking grain and syrup?
We were only giving into the baser natures
our God had given us, we explained.

Not me, said Alice, too brightly.
She was a little too priggish even for a Catholic girl,
the sisters’ suck-up sycophant who couldn’t be trusted.
But she brazened out the curled lips
and said her piece.
That smell is the plant four blocks away,
where my dad works.
He smells like that every Tuesday and Thursday.
When the corn is ground and cooked
into dog food.

To this day I don’t know which I regret more:
that I allowed my consumption to be driven
by grain-based commercial pet food,
or that my children will never know
the special contentment one earns
by flouting convention
and enjoying freedom
munching an illicit doughnut
off campus
away from priests and nuns
during school hours.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Aurora



Seven miles north along the shoulder
You will find the right spot.
The pavement ends at six miles,
keep going though the road is rutted.

Watch the sky as you drive,
Take measure of the ambient light
From farm houses and street lights
Few though they are on the way.

You have arrived at the seventh mile
just as I did, when the north star is bright
As are the rest of the Little Dipper's handle,
And those of its bigger companion.

Shut off your headlights,
And step out of the car.
Look up and away to the north,
above where the road continues into
The formless dark ahead.

Millions of miles away, the sun
Threw a tantrum, flinging energy
far away in wide arcs across space,
To that place above the horizon,
Seven miles north from here.

Shimmering curtains undulate,
gossamer wisps of electrons
offer evidence of a solar storm.
The universe shrinks to the reach
Of your eyesight at seven miles north.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Storm Warning



Urgent red crawls across the screen,
Bold white lettering shouts,
Weatherman gestures,
Orange icons flash,
Warning of a storm.

Frantic bleating blares from speakers,
Loud alarms beeping,
Bells ringing.
Bad weather's coming,
In case we hadn't heard.

Lights flicker, then die,
All electronic devices silenced,
Alert signals muted,
Once power lost,
As we might have expected.

Slide open the window,
Ajar the door.
Breathe deep
the sweet ion charged air
As dark clouds rumble overhead.

Lightning flashes fill the sky
As awaited sheeting rain begins,
Washing away
The unnecessary
While watering the lawn.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Hellsgeriatric via Flickr

Monday, April 6, 2015

Unresponsive



This untitled text is written
within an unregistered application
which is unresponsive at this moment.

This unresponsive application
was chosen because it did not
fail me when I needed most
an application that merely typed
plain text, without any extraneous
tags, comments, commands,
requiring no further registration.

I can only hope by the end
of this piece I am writing
with limited faith
in technology and in
the humans who created it,
that my words will appear
as desired.

Luddites and Unabombers
may have had legitimate concerns
about the nature of technology
and its impact on humans.
We bring it forth, we nurture it,
and it sucks our marrow.
We cannot peel our eyes from
its display, nor our fingers from
its silicon grasp.

And now that I've acknowledged
the power of technology
over humanity,
this unresponsive application
has revealed my words
as if releasing from its
censoring maw
what it chooses you should see.

You, me, this application,
these words—
we are pwned.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
Graphic: Google Chrome unresponsive error message 

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Home



There comes a time in the life of a house
when all newness ends.
When the smells of fresh paint and
newly sawn wood have dissipated,
the carpet no longer feels plush,
and the doors don't hang true.

There comes a time in the life of a house
when all hard things begin.
When the faucets leak at the seals and
rooms ring with the steady drip-drip,
the hardwood floor is scuffed,
and the drywall is scarred.

When the driveway cracks and
siding sags as fixtures rust.
Children’s toys abrade the paint and
teenagers’ cars leave the lawn in ruts.

There comes a time in the life of a house
when all gone before is considered.

When the weight of years past and
the memories they contain,
the few heartbreaks patinated by
many daily pleasures and greater joys

Are everything one ever wanted
in the life of a house.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Bill Dickinson via Flickr

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Fallow



Fallow fields furrowed, furled
earth aerated.

An expanse
of soil softened, spread for spring
planting.

Plowed and planted,
weeded, wistful when walked
upon.

Unfolded upward
rise roseate rhizomes,
wanting water while waiting.

Interval interrupted and inertia
banned, thus blossoms begin.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Mark Seton via Flickr

Friday, April 3, 2015

Feng Shui



Some say feng shui
is a load of hooey
Superstitious nonsense
Born of ignorant people
Convenient for hucksters
Who will shuffle one's
Clutter to make some fast cash

But I say feng shui
Is worth consideration
If it slows down the energy
Of a dervish-like family
If it buys me some quiet
To simply think in a
Modicum of peace.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
#NaPoMo 2015 #NPM15

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Midnight



Midnight again, alone with my thoughts
Or so I believed.
Until the dark surface gave way
To a lone goose.
He did not honk but cried
Over the water,
Again, and again,
Calling for another one of his kind.

I wasn't alone anymore
Or so I thought.
But the longer I listened
To that bird's plaintive cries,
I felt more alone than ever.
Paddling by myself,
Here I sit in the dark,
Waiting for another one of my kind.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
#NaPoMo 2015 #NPM15
Graphic: Frida via Flickr

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Angry April



April's angry when not angst-y.
Fuming foments frothing furor.

March was messy, muddled madness.
Snowing sloppy then sun spotty,
Weather wet less when wind wicked.

Escape exit, egress entered,
Leaving litter lacking license,
Halting halfway heart-light hopeful.

April’s angry now, ablutions
Welled-up washing those so witless
futile following, feckless fools.

__________
Copyright 2015 Femme Malheureuse
#NaPoMo 2015 #NPM15