Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

River of life
A golden thread
Winding past rocky cliffs
My dinghy bashed
Leaving body bobbing
Like drift wood
Deep in cataracts
Lost in time

My lifeline to safety
Maternal grandparents
Berthing me in peace home
Where love wraps round me
Like a quilt in winter
Morning awakening
Grandma draws open shades
Powder of snow on patio
Exultant child joy
Reprieve from school

Her kitchen a cornucopia
Where sustenance emanates
For the body and spirit
The house a haven
From bitter dregs of worldly sorrows
Her spirit glowing
A lamp of eternal light

Lord’s prayer recited in evening
Her voice leading mine
In sacred ritual
Puppy’s paws held together
In holy litany

Adolescent turbulence
Grandma crying cross legged on bed
Wailing do I love her?
My reply a simple yes
As the dark years unfold
My mind lost in a storm tossed sea
Ship rolling and tumbling
Through typhoon of troubles
Time howling like zephyr
Into cyclone cloudburst


Late afternoon of her life
Grandma lies quietly
Her mortal coil giving way
To deep night slumber
Each dying breathe a holy mantra
A meditation of memories
Her age old query
“Have you had anything to eat yet?”
“No”
“I’ll get up and fix you something in a minute.”
Spoken from a bed she would never rise from
My midnight mass of tears
Cried from a lifetime liturgy
Of her undying devotion

A rollercoaster of heartfelt emotions, John.

It's hard to loose those we deeply love. But they leave behind gifts

Her spirit glowing
A lamp of eternal light

~westie

John, this is very touching
it's not hard to touch me with this subject
I was very close to my grandparents

here is a companion poem:

------

Song for Ancestors and Descendants

Big Grandma was a medium sized woman,
the generations are radiant in their gradations
call it the past or the seeds of the future
it's up to you which dust to trust
which lingual tradition
what grunts and whistles

Somewhere I have an ancestor, his skin is black.
He tramped in Ethiopia, lived on berries and poetry
in grunts and whistles, and straddled the Great Rift.
Big Grandma was a medium sized woman.

Then the family moved north to Germany
which didn't exist then, and we lost the pigment
in our skin due to rugged cold weather
and the angle of the sun. Big Grandma was a medium sized woman.

We were on the run like tangled Hugenaughts
from France to Scotland to Ire
and finally to the colonies with nothing
but a blunt ax and the will to live and fire.

Next we will flee to bubbled houses
on Titan or Europa or some lonely asteroid
and camp on our convictions and science
while we invent new gods and kiss the void.

enron lemurs
barely primates
only stand upright for moments
wearing their lawsuits
like big eyed beans
and rascal underwear
Big Grandma was a medium sized woman.

when my country sat in the lotus position
on, I cannot remember when
around the time the founding fathers
were sitting around smoking pot
and cooking up our destiny.

cannabis rex
like a reptile rising
from the primate brain bewitched
not like glands released
or the bondage of ancestry

Great Grand Daddy owned half of Baltimore
or so the story goes. About the time of Poe.
The wharf district was his. And the red light.

He was a famous philanderer rascal man
had his key in every hole. An Irishman.
Great Grand Ma'am was of stern and German stock.

When he gave her the clap, she divorced him
These were the days when divorce was uncommon
and there was no penicillin.

Big Grandma was a medium sized woman
she lived to be one hundred and four
and then she started forgetting things
like the names of her children
and the attacks by Comanches she used
to tell me about. Curved by age she
still made preserves and potato salad to die for.

Shiva plays a sitar in my genes
they project into the generations
and take you along
like riding behind a big truck
or in the slip stream of a goose.

it's no matter if I'm the engine or the caboose
as long as the train keeps rollin'
a phantom on the tracks
helium or hemoglobin
a spiral to destiny.

my machine gun seed
shot into your belly
like diamonds of the future
rapt and wiggling
the generations escape
and swim upstream
on a chance

the crow can pass for a raven
black headed and lookin slick
but the crow knows more
and talks about it

his beak in the ears of the strawman
unafraid as a gentleman bird
picking up what others drop
Big Grandma was a medium sized woman.

the ambassador bird
scratches for seed
a magpie driven
a dark parrot
with a Shakespearian accent
and an eye that misses nothing

the bird is studying
to be a dominatrix
a wit on wings
where the sun gleams
things are never
as they seem

the guitar evolved from dinosaurs
like a warbling forensic
with no eyelids

this was before electricity
when only fire existed
and music

is it the nightingale?
no, it is the lark
alas, the morning
with its responsibilities

sun ripens over san antone
covered by the cloud
of bird wings
fourteen mexicans in a car
a fiesta of angel crows

there is a beer crisis in birdland
all the fouls are blinking fast
and the referee blows his whistle
the chicken would crow
but he spent himself in the night
and once again at dawn

when a sperm whale comes
he comes in quarts, not tablespoons
his swimmers make swimmers
and singers and the
philosophy of the deep.

Big Grandma was a medium sized woman
my first guitar was a girl as well
she gently weeped and tightened
her g string a half step up to Jimi Hendrix
too soon she went to Africa
and plugged in her amp
turned it up to ten
and screamed like
a punk angel of rock
I am the father of her guitar

puppet
strung like a banjo tsunami
or a ruptured hurricane
distinct as a blue norther
and a maxed out credit card
there is a place in my back
where you can put your hand in
and operate me
like a manic mannequin

before I invented fire
I didn't have two sticks to rub together
But Edison was on my shoulder
and I had dreams of a nuclear program

I thumped my drum and drew
right there on the cavern walls
sagas of caribou and gazelle
I wait to rape the moon with my rockets
She was medium sized.

The past, the present and the future collide
as we take the rampant karma ride
just close your eyes to know generations
deoxyribonucleic acid twisted around
a lysergic handbag of memories
Big Grandma was a medium sized woman.

my parents are visiting my children
at the point of laughing at the generations
Janus looking forward, looking back
project the future and remember the past

don't look for the puppets
look for the strings
why do you think they call it string theory?
and chromosomes are little ropes
that tie the ancestors to the descendants.
Big Grandma was a medium sized woman.

this is stunning in it's beautiful account of your relationship with your
grandmother.....the details are so rich, I feel as if she were my
grandmother as well.....a great tribute, john....

John-- you really get a sense of the warmth and richness of safe haven from the world's indifferent storm in Grandma's all-encompassing love and giving in this one. And Lightning Rod, that is one hell of fluid-perspective rocket ride through the strands and twists of generations. Amazing.

john, this is a historical loving litany
very rich, sweet as a grandson's love for a loving woman.

l-rod, woh. huge long poem for a medium-size woman.
john, you're opening the door for universal memory

g-myst: sweet-painful-necessary alchemy! thanks for sharing it with us!!
l-rod: I remember your poem, great!

L. Rod, your poem was an epic journey into the past and future of your lineage. Dazzling indeed.

Westcoast, your empathy is much appreciated. You are a dear friend whose thoughts are precious to me.

Saw, I feel less alone knowing how you can relate to this.

Mnaz, indeed it was my own mother who brought me suffering. Had I not had my grandparents to take me in and raise me who knows what would have become of me.

Judih, she was a great spirit. I miss her especially in the evening when the crickets chirp, as they did all those years ago in my grandparent's yard.

Arcadia, it was necessary indeed. I am glad to share it with readers such as you.

John

Beautiful poem John

My maternal grandmother was the most powerful woman I have ever known. A Polish peasant woman who I thought superstitious because she was always on guard that none should put the evil eye on me. Whatever it was I always felt safe with her. and I never wake from a dream about her in despair. He greatest joy in life was watching me eat. I don't think I have one picture of her with out a spoon or a pot in her hand.

thank you for a beautiful poem.

Gypsy it sounds like your grandmother too provided you a safe nest to grown in. She sounds like she was a woman with plenty of moxie. Thank you for sharing your grandmother's story. And I'm glad my poem brought back some good memories for you.

John