Family Dinner
(a true story)
My sister is older
(I'm sure that I'm bolder)
She's certain she's wiser
(sometimes I despise her)
She now owns the house that at one time was mine
She's made it all fancy, now she thinks it?s fine
My acre of garden's been left to go fallow
she says she's been busy
(I think that she's shallow)
it seems that whatever it is I might say
She looks and me, nods,
then says "what does THAT pay"?
Should I acquiesce just because she is rich?
(when inside I'm thinking (My God, what a bitch!?)
But then we start talking of all that we share
I can hear in her voice that she really does care
We speak of our mother, we?re thankful she?s well,
we love her, although she still makes our lives hell.
I'm not always quiet, and is that so bad?
(depends I suppose, on how much wine I?ve had)
I opened my mouth during dinner to say,
Daddy, did you never know that your brother was gay??
My sister looked over, her face filled dread
I didn't back down from the words that I'd said.
My father said No, though I knew he was other
I thought he just liked to take care of our mother
My sister stood up, looked right at him and said
But Daddy the two of us know that its true.
Everyone knew it, except maybe you.
Then I made it clear if he votes for McCain,
It will be a mistake causing everyone pain
I went then to open just one more champagne.
We are all a bit tipsy,
(I try not to show it)
Taki's feeling better, and playing the poet.
We're all laughing now, cause he really is funny
we've moved past resentment, the shocks and the money.
my sister gets up then and brings back a sweet
my childhood favorite, I so loved so to eat
I think no one knows me as she knew me then.
But then we get fighting all over again.
Oh, not really fighting, it's just how we act
like children again, perhaps not exact
in the roles that we once played, but still it is plain
in sisters grown up, childhood still remains.
And so when it came to the end of the night
we saw that we really did not want to fight.
I looked and I saw her, my only sister
then I got up, went over and kissed her.
Skopelos and Virgin
-by Skorda
when first you see it
across the water,
rising round and new above the mountain.
Open your mouth and swallow
while youth holds its roundness near,
and you are running fearless in the dark.
Hold it inside, it is still warm
and you will need its light,
there, inside you.
Down the road of time, somewhere
after you’ve aged, traveled,
Explored, discovered.
And the dust around your doorway
has been pounded hard and smooth under your feet.
When you find yourself growing weary and bored,
when your eyes see only ruins,
and your heart is empty.
You may believe, in your exhaustion,
that this is truth, at last.
That the mystery has unraveled,
leaving no wilderness to explore or tame.
All secrets have been shared,
the frontier has dissolved.
Know then, with these thoughts,
you have been swallowed.
The warm belly of the beast
comforts with confining darkness
and lulls with rhythmic sounds
Murmuring to you,
Curl up and sleep,
just go to sleep.
Shake your head,
stretch your legs,
do not sleep now.
Remember what you know.
You swallowed the moon,
you hold it inside you.
Not as a magpie hoarding shiny things,
or wearing the moon for beauty
or bartering the moon for wealth.
You swallowed the moon for this moment.
When you will walk to the water’s edge,
open your mouth, release the moon
and let its light build you a pathway
across the wine dark sea.
©Skorda 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Family Dinner (a true story)
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