Estate Sale

Strangers traipse through their home,

ogling remnants of a life together

as their spirits hover. "They're practically

giving it all way!" she hisses, always the one

to care about such things, but he's too distracted

by the flesh and bone grazing shelves 

and boxes. Wistful glances at those who

neither see that nor wonder if 

he'd taken care of himself. 

The exercise equipment was well-used, he hears

a curvy blonde comment; vaporous chest swells. 

Boxes of books and dvds attest to decades of

eating healthy, eking out one more year,

investigating every flavor of spirituality... 

might as well cover all the bases. he always said.

The fountain of youth proved elusive, but where

is heaven? Why are they still here? He's confused.

They were such an attractive couple. 

Everyone said so as they walked past the caskets.

He'd anticipated being young again, fit, free to

find a younger woman at last, but no, even wispy,

there are winkles. And she's still here, complaining

as if she could go on and on forever. And may.

So far, he decides with a sigh, the afterlife is vastly overrated. 

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

I went to an estate sale yesterday with so much longevity-related material on display - exercise equipment, exercise tapes and dvds, spiritual searches, medical/health books...and yet, none of that made the former occupants of the house immune to what faces each of us one day. I hope they had a happy life.

Embedded

Twin beds growing up,
the occasional double with my sister
in hotels or spare bedrooms
on vacation. Bunks rearranged
at college, doubling up or side-by-side.
On Easter break that year in West Virginia,
the first time I'd stretched alone
in a big bed, princess
without the fairy tale pea. It felt so good.
A year later, there'd be no more of that,
sharing the matrimonial mattress,
spooning in good times, 
vast emptiness that multiplies
within small square footage when times
are not-so-good.
Double, queen, king, brief foray into
waterbed variety that didn't take.
Wedding present sheets long gone,
the odd pillowcase survivor,
evidence of longevity and stubborn
commitment. Grandpa's four-poster 
passed on to his namesake, finally fell apart. 
Today's rare opportunity to sleep in--
arms stretch, almost able to grab
the sides of the bed, flexing the night
out of my toes. If I could stretch just
a little more, what would I find over
the edge?

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Crave

Cravings.
Raving to myself,
save and savor every morsel,
but of course. I'll
starve but for those
longings no one knows.
I crave things; feelings
set my mind a'reeling.
Kindred spirit nods,
gift from God's
generous heart.
It's a start.
Belly of my brain flat but
craving satisfied, soon fat.
Fluffs, stuffs, blows
my freakin' mind,
the kind of satisfaction,
illusive distraction,
others cannot dare
imagine there,
inside themselves.
Without the briefest taste,
tongues can remain chaste,
but taken with gusto
one must continue to partake
else live with cravings
each moment.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012


Yeah, don't even wonder about it. The words just came out this way, and fire seemed the only fitting illustration.

Sing a Song of Lies

Lyrics lie, but we sing along with the radio
perpetuating the deception 
because no one really pays attention anyway.
Just words. Words set to catchy tunes
that have all been sung before, since
the beginning of time. Timeless thoughts
and  yearnings to accompany the beating
of our hearts, tell us when to be happy or sad,
reminding of former days, former lives.
"Jesus is all I need" we belt out at church
while swaying and clapping, but it's a lie.
Maybe this second, yes, but we need more
than spirit  if we're as honest 
as Jesus asks us to be.
"All I ask is one more day with you" - hogwash.
I want a lifetime. Can't fault the writers -
each singer has a different truth
they're living by. Each truth has a different
tune. Mine's in a minor key today,
but give me time. Upbeat's just ahead.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Bad Sisters

YouAlways and YouNever,
twin sisters with manicured talons and talent 
for pulling your heart right out of your chest
without spilling a drop of blood.
One quick motion, and years of kindness
or hard work or wiping noses and bottoms,
of providing answers and a roof over their heads,
of band-aids and braces, instantly dissolve.
Or years of kisses, embraces, making love
on lazy afternoons, holding hands along the beach-
gone. Poof. They keep a pill bottle 
to hold good memories,
set up a mountain resort filled with caverns 
to hold the rest.






(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

It's All in the Fruit

Two kids with so little,
find enough joy to share.
Photo from St. Margaret's,
a school for very special kids in the U.K.

Rich soil, grade A seeds,
optimum conditions, best of care: 
meager harvest disappoints.
But when cut-rate seeds in soil so bad
it's an embarrassment,
survive through dismal weather, haphazard farming,
any yield at all is cause for excitement. 
How much more
when the fruit is abundant and sweet?
With people, too.
Some have the best, catch every break but
squander everything, leaving bitter aftertastes.
Others start with less than nothing,
bound to wheelchairs, thoughts locked inside.
Genuine smile, spark of recognition,
unabashed glee at the simplest thing:
sweet juice offered to quench the thirst
of all mankind. They have so much to teach us.
Asking why, demanding that God can't exist if
such as these are born, unseeing eyes don't
recognize the gift he gives each time
he lets one leave
his lap.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

If my little brother had lived past 10 days, he very probably would have been severely handicapped. Believing in eternity, I am content that I'll meet him one day, and even be grateful he was spared a lifetime of hardship. But I've also always missed him, always sensed the empty place where he might have been. Working with kids today who were perhaps as he might have been, I caught a glimpse of some of what I missed not having him around. A mixed bag - real, difficult challenges...but also profound moments of connection and joy. And I was just there for a few hours. Truly, the folks who are devoted to these kids are among the holiest of humans.

Sunday Service

The priest is mixing metaphors and droning on, too many ums, 
too little edgy truth that stops the brain from wandering,
from noticing that the tag is sticking up from a woman's baby blue linen suit,
and the man who notices wonders what it would be like to gently push
it down and feel the faint perspiration on her neck because this is Florida,
still too warm for a suit. She's visiting from the north, packed the wrong clothes. 
At home, September's chilly, not as chilly as what she faces across the dinner table,
but getting brisk. She should have asked her mother, checked online.
She doesn't know she's being scrutinized by a man three pews away.
If she did, if someone simply mentioned that the suit brings out the color of her eyes,
she would burst into tears and not even know why.
Every woman is as beautiful as some man thinks she is -- as a girl, she read
that in a book and only remembers it just now, suddenly. She listens to the priest,
thinking that perhaps he'd said it, but no, he's stuck in Leviticus, um, or Deuteronomy.
Something makes her turn her head, but the man three pews away has gotten a jab
from his wife and is paying attention to the sermon now.
Halfway through the almost imperceptible shifting in her seat, 
the woman from the north in the blue linen suit
spots a young girl doodling on her bulletin. Bored, made to be there, she fails
to see the point of dressing up to please a God who loves us as we are.
She hates dressing up in pastel perfection, she's made for blue jeans and t-shirts,
for climbing and planting and spending perfect Sundays at the beach. Someone
clears his throat in the choir loft and it makes her look up, catching the eye of
a woman who isn't beautiful, but only because no one has bothered to tell her,
that she is. A man, anyway. For just a second, not even that, rebel girl and yankee woman 
lock eyes, discerning everything, every detail. The woman winks. The girl grins back.
They'll both remember, for the rest of their lives, this Sunday morning but not remember why.
And heaven smiles while the priest drones on.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Frack Haiku

Netflix catch-up time:
Battlestar Gallactica's
crew still fracking lives.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012






Yes, haiku can be an easy path when life gets busy for the daily poet. Think of it as the lazy river in the water park of poetry.

Newshounds

No local reporter at the courthouse

or the commission meetings.

No newshound staying in the sheriff's face,

asking tough questions of the School Board.

So the powers that be 

just did as they pleased:

overspent,

underthought.

No one'll know since local news left town.

Went online. Closed up shop. Merged.

Downsized. Conglomerated.

We'll get local news on Facebook

and never know the truth.

I need a paper in my hand.

Cities need accountability.

Perhaps the cycle will bring them back in time.

A need obviously unmet, some entrepeneur 

will scream Eureka! We need a local paper! 

We need people writing life down, 

for all the world to see, headlines for posterity.

I hope they don't wait too long.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Road Trip Haiku

Young alligator
attempting to cross 60...
I love Florida.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Angry Boy

Nine-year-old boy yells out of control,
unusual, fierce. Shocking, really.
Five-year-old hurts he couldn't communicate at the time
bleed out his mouth, staining everything around him.
More eloquent now, pain finds its voice,
lashing, spearing others with his tongue.
Soft touch to his back, soft voice by his side,
he remembers he is safe, and loved, and cared for
more than he will ever truly understand.
Whatever happened then is gone, banished by a grace
reserved for children, if only someone points the way
so they can find it, unwrap it, open the box.
He doesn't quite believe it before heavy eyelids
relax and fall, and all  is calm again.
I tiptoe out, wondering if angry men
are just now finding words for hurts from
when they were little boys.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Rosh Hashana Chant

Sons of Adam, daughters of Eve

          a joyous new year to you.

Creation's celebrants who believe

          a joyous new year to you

A bounty of earth's fruits we eat

          a joyous new year to you.

Hoping that our year will be sweet

          a joyous new year to you

Into the water cast bread or stones

          a joyous new year to you

Symbolic act for sin atones

          a joyous new year to you

Regrets behind, we look instead

          a joyous new year to you

L'shana tova - a good year ahead

          a joyous new year to you.

A joyous new  year to all.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Fresh Milk

Rising in darkness, on tiptoes to the bathroom 
where clothes hang waiting,
I close the door soundlessly before
the light goes on, 
a courtesy I'll expect 
when it's he who has to set the alarm
and I who gets to stretch, catlike and alone,
enjoying the tail-end of a lovely dream.
Make-up and hair, contacts and cologne.
How many others are up at this hour, 
maneuvering arms through overall straps,
headed not to Florida car but Carolina barn,
to sit on squat stools, slap the milker's rump playfully,
deftly pull her enormous teats,
telling her a dream that hasn't yet faded
they would never dare tell human ears?
No perfume intrudes on this crisp morning air: 
tangy animal smells that mean 
money in the bank, food on the table.
Steam rises off the warm bucket,
heavy with cream to serve with biscuits.
I'd like some in my coffee, but it's much too far to drive.
I'm running late as it is.


(c)Ellen Gillette, 2012

Queens without a Realm

Woman Sweeping Her Home
by Jean Francois Millet

Weep not for our sisters who used to be wives,
who rocked babies to sleep in other incarnations,
maybe grandchildren. Softer, rounder, they've evolved
into something else. Not forced. They've chosen,
throwing out once-cherished titles with the trash
they gathered quietly and took out to the curb.
Just The Maid. Their decision. A subtle shift
of expectation and reality to suit them so 
neglect and too little respect could no longer choke them.
They do their jobs, do them Damn Well. As wives,
they spent more time on love and such; as maids
they use that time to keep and sweep and tend.
As mothers, grandmothers, they coddled and cooed
and clucked their tongues and guided, or tried.
They do their work now, silently staying out
of others' plans and business, worries and troubles.
Listen closely, hear them hum a surprisingly cheerful tune:
because a job's a job, you see, even a good one,
even these jobs...until better offers come along.
Weep instead for those who'll lose them,
who'll one day remember what it was like,
who'll get a glimpse of what they missed
before they treated the royalty in their midst
as Just the Maid.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

A little dark, but how many women are out there, unnoticed by the very ones who should be giving them hugs for their hard work and thoughtfulness? An army of grandmothers, especially, who are raising children not their own because of the absence of parents...or wives, who can't compete with the excitement of a career or other women or plain old selfishness. They've been taken for granted too long, and I wanted to give them a voice.

Favorite Age

"What was your favorite age?" the woman asked.
over tiny sandwiches, truffles, cups of tea. "Mine was 40."
Starting school at six, playing paper dolls
whispering with my sister in the dark of our room.
At nine, a move to Florida, living near the beach.
First date, first kiss, first time. Good memories.
18, getting married; 19, first baby, then three more.
Twenties a blur of diapers and schoolbooks.
Turned thirty on exotic, foreign soil.
Nana at 40, dancing at daughter's wedding,
more grandkids along the way, new joys.
Learning to be a goat rancher, a gardener, meeting new friends.
Personal triumphs just shy of 50.
Great times, interspersed with challenges and tears.
My favorite age? Not was. Not was at all.
"The age I am today," I said with a smile,
without expounding on the reason.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Vision

There's nothing quite like seeing a vision come alive,
someone's dream transform into reality 
before your very eyes,
surrounded by people doing what they love.
It's what makes them get out of bed every morning,
what they've been created to do,
what they've been created to be,
what they've been created to accomplish..
To be part of that, even in a small way, such an honor.
If vision and passion is contagious,
I want to catch it, breathe it in, let it incubate until
I've got such a bad case of it no inoculation would work,
no Better Idea someone has for me,
no Plan For My Life I never signed off on.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

I had the privilege of working as an extra today on the set of "Heart of a Champion", a movie being filmed partially in St. Lucie County that tells a moving story. Check out the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HeartofaChampionmovie and "Like" it. This is a wonderful opportunity for Fort Pierce, for the county, for the production company living out its dream.

Anniversary Haiku

Pineapple Playhouse

Forty years of great shows...A

toast to forty more!

I remember going to see a St. Lucie Community Theater play while I was in high school, when  performances were given in the Student Union at (then) Indian River Junior College. For the last 15 years or so, I've had the privilege of being a volunteer at the theater, primarily on stage but also selling 50/50 tickets or doing the box office. Community theater is a great experience, and although challenges arise "the show must go on" and does...consistently well-acted and well-directed, and well-received. The current show, "Lost in Yonkers" by Neil Simon, is one of the best shows I've seen anywhere.

Child's Play (circa 1964)

Cut from pattern catalogues,
Simplicity or McCall's
(Vogue people too thin, too elegant
for our purposes),
families of smiling faces 
appropriately dressed.
Moms and daughters in matching
ensembles, perhaps, dads and sons
looking dapper, but fun.
Paper doll afternoons,
hours of conversation and pretend,
imaginations whirring like
the sound of our bicycle wheels later
as we raced, pinto horse against
palomino on the western plain.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

September 11, 2001

Surprise registers on every face,

concern, disbelief, growing horror

as one plane becomes two, 

becomes three, 

then four.

Unprecedented attack,

we're glued to the news.

Church attendance spikes,

fades. Flags are everywhere,

then not so much.

Hysterical waves of suspicion 

and fear calm over time.

Underneath, unseen, covert missions

punish those responsible.

We feel safe again. As safe as

we did that day.

Until...

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

I Believe You

I believe you,
receive your words
like snowflakes into naked hands,
holding them carefully so they do not fall,
but far enough away
that my breath does not melt them.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Distinguished Gentleman

Somewhat amazed self-portrait

Gentleman in the literal sense.
Gentle man who turns over giant bugs
in limbo,  tiny lightning-bolt legs
in furious air dance now scuttles to safety.
Doors open for ladies, even men if 
burdened with packages or the weight of Life.
Seeks out new coworkers to make them feel at ease,
drawing on reporting skills he's had since Nixon,
in order to draw them out. He'll play jokes on them one day, 
wicked funny but never mean, the jokes of
a beloved uncle or older brother 
everyone wants to hang out with.
Especially kind to grandmothers
and small children, the drawl pegs him as
Southern gentleman, perhaps the last
of his kind. Don't confuse graciousness with soft.
There's iron there, too, the strength to fire hacks,
be fired over principles, set fires along the way. 
He's picked up and moved more than he'd've liked, looked 
Death in the eye, arched his eyebrow, 
and calmly told him "Not ____ yet" 
(expletive deleted). 
And Death threw back his head
and howled. The distinguished gentleman from
South Carolina often has that effect.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012


Long-time friend, editor, mentor...the list could go on awhile...Lee Barnes has a birthday coming up. Being a newspaper man, the last decade has been challenging, career-wise. And it's been a little over a year since he had brain surgery. Despite everything, he's the most consistently positive person I know. This is my birthday card for him.

Sweet Dreams

A couple spoons,
his breath warm upon her neck,
unconscious declarations of love
so soft her heart stops to listen.
When it begins again, two hearts beat in synch.
Limbs entwined, settled into
their own particular rhythm
in which every dream 
re-sings the music of
their lives, written
hours before.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

I was thinking of a human couple, of course, but I liked the dog photo so much I had to use it.    They are so relaxed with one another, exactly what I was after.

Magnetic Personality

"Opposites attract."
Magnets, maybe, but
people? Not so much.
Negatives lean to negativity
(misery loves company)
while positives seek each other out.
Negative will try to suck the very life
from positive, if given the chance,
but positive rebels.
Positive perseveres.
Positive finds positive,
charge grows stronger,
light grows brighter,
banishing the dark.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Sixth

When I taught sixth grade, it was elementary school.
Classes didn't change. I could mother them a little, 
knew who needed extra help, a little more time,
whether soft or stern voice did the trick.
Now they pool at the bottom of the totem pole
that is middle school. A substitute for one
of many teachers they will face today. Fifteen minutes in,
you can guess at which are there to learn,
which to are not.  Girls still look like children,
boys pretend not to notice. Give them three or four months
and everything will change. Even when I had them
every day, I saw it clearly. Pairing up at lunch.
Growth spurts over Christmas break. Whispers and giggles.
The academics get harder every year, I tell them, but
what I want to say is that everything does.
Life gets harder, more responsibilities, more disappointments.
But it gets better too. If they'll just hang in there,
the zits clear up. Chests fill out. Braces come off.
Now's the time to develop a love of reading,
try out for the band or the team or both or neither
but enjoy being a child while you still can.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

I homeschooled 12 years, then taught in a classroom for three. Now I'm a sub, still in contact with some of my sixth graders from the 90s, some of whom have children of their own.

Speak Up

                                                                 The challenge of public speaking, 

for some, is overcoming fear.

For others, the challenge lies elsewhere.

So much to say, so little time! 

Mute buttons pushed so often,

that given the opportunity...

an open invitation...

we could talk for hours.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Best Effort

No, these are not my feet.

Sweeping 12x12 tiles throughout a house
that in India might shelter four times the people,
regular long-handled instrument with plastic bristles
instead of the stubby grass or coconut brooms
I used there. In that foreign land, even sweeping
requires a certain humility.
Unless you stoop down low and
really see the floor, how can you tell
when it's clean? 
And it isn't, not this one here and now,
for all its attractive design and color.
I've swept today, mopped recently, it looks just fine! 
Deception's afoot, quite literally.
If you saw my soles, you'd see the evidence:
Dirt! Despite best effort, it remains, 
multiplied two thousand times and more,
throughout a house of lies. 
And if you could look into my soul?
Plenty there as well. 



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

The Olfactory Factor

Whiff of incense or ripe mango,
magic carpet to India.
Buffalo dung and kerosene smoke 
would take me there too, I suppose,
were I to come across any.
Jasmines and marigolds, to a lesser extent,
although the latter
might just as likely arrange a side trip.
Daddy always had them in his gardens,
held right at your nose for full effect.
Honeysuckle and pine, back to Carolina.
What is the smell of childhood? Sausage frying?
Cedars? Or the backyard pepper tree
on Shamrock Avenue?
New pencils, I'm back in school.
Certain aftershave, it's prom night
with broken curfew and crushed corsage
to show for expense and expectation.
Grandpa's cigar. Freshly mowed grass.
Just-bathed baby. New construction.
Spicy breath closing in for a kiss.
Musky aftermath on sheets and sweat.
Sickly sweet of sympathy flowers.
Gardenias, if touched, will wilt;
roses can draw blood.
Whatever risks they hold, like memories,
are overwhelmed by the
pleasant aromas longing to come out.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Cocktails and Dreams

Bottles juggle.

Tom Cruise played a flair bartender,
or "flairtender" in the 1988 film "Cocktail." 

Whisky's ablaze.

Impressed patrons;

tip jar bulges.

Movie stars are nothing

next to this flairtender,

Prince Philip 

to her Aurora.

(Although come to think

of it, that was a movie, too.)

Flying cocktails join

the magic in the air.

Flair, he's got in spades.

Tender, too, 

from what I've heard.

He had better not drop

her heart.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Fair Moans

Unfair pheromones,

those chemicals that bark "Flee!"
or "Mate?"...Well, okay.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

A bit of silliness for a Sunday afternoon. 
I was thinking of smells that I love, 
and one thing led to another.

Four Women

four women, just four

each beautiful in her own way

adding to his store of memories,

at once vivid, haunting, relentless.

exploration    

smells    

tastes    

wildness

times four.       

the first, his first

his bride, mother of sweet child.

initial bliss twisted over time.

stabbing with words, blame, accusations, disappointment,rage.

she abuses him.

still he stays, for now.

the second, a surprise    

his teacher, obliging playmate.

temporary bliss ended affably.

instructing in whispers, adventure, education, pleasure, fun.

she uses him.

he doesn’t mind, for now.

the third, so young    

his regret, consoling lover

hoped-for bliss that could not last.

pleading for more, delight, plans, intensity, bitterness.

she loses him.

he spirals in despair, for now.

the fourth, old friend   

his joy, reason for living

mutual bliss that astounds

laughing together, risk, caresses, dreams, obsession.

she chooses him.

he chooses love, for always.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Most people my age or older can look back and count more than one special relationship, although a few folks marry their playground love or high school sweetheart. Having breakfast with my folks this week, I had the pleasure of observing a couple in their 90s who just found each other. The new love doesn't replace the former loves who have passed on, but they are clearly enjoying a new, last chapter. I love that - there is always room for love in a person's life if he or she is open to it. This poem looks at one hypothetical man who has loved various women, various types with less-than-satisfying outcomes, over the years, only to discover one last love.with whom he can be happy at last. It's sort of an Everyman poem. We all want to love and to be loved, don't we?