Meeting Peter Pan

He's shorter than I thought he'd be,
with tattoos on both arms like sleeves
of fairy paintings. Tie dyed cloths hang
here and there with masks from
tribal chieftains given in appreciation
for the rescue of their daughters. He's
grounded at the moment, weather's hot
for flying, and his treehouse bed is
vacant at the moment. Wendy's not around
for story time and Tinker Bell's
a sad and distant memory, but he needs
no one. Movies. Nature. When we say
goodbye, he shuts the door on people,
complications and responsibilities,
quite happy just to be with his best friend,
who smiles so warmly from the
hand-held mirror, another gift to Pan
from one of his adoring fans.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

July Saunters to a Close

July saunters to a close,
sashays across the stage of
2014 chanting "Over halfway
there." She means, of course,
another year, the flipping of the final page,
the change of numerals that
count up ever higher and increase
so ceaselessly until that final day
on Earth when time no longer matters.
Could we meet for coffee then?
No one will ask us where we're
going or wonder when we will return,
much like it is today. We're used to living
outside time, refusing to
grow old, reluctant to let years or
numbers numb us to the joy
that's still stored up inside our
cells and membranes, still within
the sinews and the bones. Or
a beer, if you prefer, because we won't
be driving anyway or any where,
and it won't matter if we sway
as we go walking for the first of
many walks inside the new dimension.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Homage

Little computer connecting
me to the world and friends
by way of towers far away and
satellites beyond the moon.
Away from my laptop and
wi-fi, it welcomes me, enables
me to pass the time with games,
keep up with everyone at home,
catch a movie later, write this poem
Life changing rectangle of
bytes and usage and apps;
conveniently, it even
makes phone calls.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Padre Island Haiku

Hutchinson Island

We've got barrier islands off
Fort Pierce, Florida, but
Padre is the longest barrier island
IN THE WORLD. 113 miles.
Everything really IS bigger in Texas.

in no way prepared me for

Padre Island's length.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

PWHatMA

The LOLs and OMGs have come late
to the party, and the military
started it, quite long ago.
POTUS as we call
the president, and
FLOTUS his fair wife.
SCOTUS is for all
the judges who decide
on laws and life.
OPSEC, NATO, FUBAR,  KISS,
AWOL, HALO, HOMSEC, JAG,  this
brings to mind that maybe, or Perhaps,
We Have Too Many Acronyms.
Or should I say, PWHatMa?


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Mobile

Mo-bull, as they say about
ability to move or use the cell
or maybe mo-BILE if you have
a certain accent, but MoBEEL
has got a lot to recommend it.
from the white-tiled tunnel on I-10
to the port and somewhere downtown
at a plush hotel, a clerk I met two
years ago named Goddess.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Hectic Haiku

http://simpleluxuryliving.wordpress.com/
2013/02/11/im-so-dizzy-my-head-is-spinning/
I googled "head spinning" and found
this delightfully graphic graphic
on another blog. Thanks!

Head spins with excess
drama, duties, decisions.
Better, if from wine.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Face Time

Two eyes, two ears, a nose and mouth,
hair in assorted colors and amounts and styles...
you would think we'd look more similar, but
each face speaks its own vocabulary,
its expressions turning one  from beauty to a witch
with just a glare, transforming a rather
plain and unassuming sort into a goddess with a grin.
The eyes can speak a friendly welcome or
they warn to stay away. The tiniest of
muscles by the mouth can shout sarcastically
without the slightest sound. I'm glad you
know the language of my face, have taken time
to study it, becoming so proficient that when
I am quietest, you still read the words from deep
inside my heart, written there upon my eyelids,
spoken in the crinkling of my nose.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Heavy Loads

"God won't put more on you than you can bear."
Bullshit. He does it all the time! We aren't equipped
to manage, keep it all in order, deal with
stresses that keep adding up, each heavier,
it seems, that each successive layer. No pep talk
or illicit substance will enable us, no inspiration
from a speaker, tape, or book, not even his.
We aren't supposed to grow up that much. He
likes us child-like, needy, desperate for solutions.
It's his fail-safe. We can't bear this thing,
this current crisis unrelenting in its
pressure, so we ask for help, and he is always there
to give it. But he doesn't always come
in ways we'd choose, or on our schedule.
Perhaps he waits until we know the answer
won't be anything we've said or done or figured out.
He's jealous for the glory. Not trying to sound
ugly or ungrateful, but he is. When you're God,
it gets to be that simple.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Yelling Rain Haiku

Torrential rainfall
yelling outside my window.
I wait for whispers.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Memories

With all the Internet advances, it should

The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dali

be a possibility to pull up any date

and any name and memory, complete with 

photographs, a video of what we did

and why. But it is no doubt better that

we can't, or we might stay too long inside 

the theater that is our minds, dark and 

bitter cold while dredging up old sadnesses, 

mistakes, and arguments in futile hope that this time 

when it gets to that one part, we'll have a way 

to reach in, interject our 20/20 hindsight,
change it all and give another answer,

stop the bullet or the car before it wrecks, 

pull that first addicting cigarette from between her teeth,

tell another to go straight to hell before he

tries to drag us with him, take back all the unkind, even

neutral, words that separate, still separate, and there's
nothing we can do to make it right. We've tried. Less

likely we might try reliving just the happy times,
instead of being happy in the now, and look at all we'd miss.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

New to You

There's joyfulness when purchasing
a thing that's new, computer mouse
or comforter, a pack of pencils, even
(all the possibilities there stored!),
a house when all the paint is fresh and smelly,
sawdust not quite gone from every
corner, little threads of carpet lying
here and there, the stickers on the windows still
you'll scrape at later, when the boxes are
unpacked at last. There's different joy in looking
through the bins of thrift stores, finding treasures
others cast off for the profit or disdain
or sheer ignorance, not noticing the value of
the porcelain with just the slightest chip, or dress
that's in your size and perfect other than that tiny,
faintest stain, or postcard in an ancient flowery
hand from someone who's been dead for
decades written to someone he loved and
now can be with through eternity in glory land.
New to you, then, whether pricey or
almost a steal, each joy a little different,
but the smiles they bring alike.
We're hardwired to accumulate, consume, and use,
discard, an evolution from the days we had to
weave and spin and grow and sew or do without
completely, when what new we had was in the sunrise
every morning, in the children born, the learning how
of skills we take for granted now, and pay someone
to do so that we have more time to shop, and
there is joy in that as well. The joy of living is
the constant, whether we are wealthy, poor, extravagant
or thrifty, if we haven't trained ourselves to overlook
the happiness of daily "new."



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Beatle Mania

Mine was bright pink, actually.

When I was just a little girl, we lipsynched
to the Beatles in the living room, my sister always
Paul, and I was George. Sharon and Rebecca
covered John and Ringo, and we knew the words
to all the songs. I had a Beatles wig and bright
pink Beatles wallet, and my mother drove a carload
to the drive-in all the way in Asheville when their
movie first came out. How many mothers would
have done that, for a group of silly star-struck girls,
to make a memory for 50 years? We knew the words
to all the songs, and when I sat tonight with friends
and granddaughter and listened to a band that sang
them, I could sing along to quite a few. Another
memory made, in another century. The music,
older than a lot of those who danced and kept the
beat, made us all about the same age as we listened.
Couples on the dance floor were 15 again
as the Beatles sang once more.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Friday Funk

I've started twice:
It wasn't nice
or even that poetic.
I'm thinking, then,
this try should end,
as it is, too, pathetic.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Place of Quietness and of Grace

There is a place of  quietness and grace
where kindness reigns, not for an hour
or two, but all the time because of kindnesses
enjoyed, received, returned. A place of
fierceness in its passions, joys, and loyalties,
a place where what is Best is chosen out of
all the many lesser Goods. There is a place
like that, but only in a measure. Not in heaven,
for in heaven kindness is no longer needed.
When every heart is perfect, what need is there
for patience? Not on earth, not in a city or a town,
at least, for few would want to live there. They
might claim to, if expected, but the higher
standard of behavior would be daunting.
Only when two people share a language with
a depth below the surface, whose love and
kindness cannot help but be expressed, is
such a place reality. In moments. For much
longer, in some rare and isolated cases.
I'd like to go there, pitch a tent beside the
sea, and listen to the rain, curled up inside.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Spigot

Hopefully these fellow bloggers
will be flattered if they see I
borrowed a photo from their site:
http://thetimandmaureengoodwingang.
blogspot.com/

Impatience raised its ugly head and made me think
of all those kinks that choke off, from the hose
of life, the cooling water I would drink if only
I had time. Life used to flow so smoothly, freely,
one day gushing gaily to the next,
but this is not what I expected to be doing at this point. Scratch that, for now I see that I expected nothing, really, didn't calculate or figure, just assuming that my journey would start out at pleasant, on to good,then grand. Perhaps that was the problem, which is good news, really, for I have a plan today, to cut the knotted hose part off, guzzling
ice-cold life right from the spigot if I need to. All I know is that I'll never turn the water off again, and should somebody try to make me thirsty for refreshment, I won't even, likely, notice, for hydrated people never wait until they're dry to take a drink.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Look of Love

The Real Vocal Book's sheet
music to this sultry song.

I've been looked at quite indignantly,
and from (too often, this) the misty heights
of ignorance, with anger and with pangs of longing,
strong expressions of sincere concern and carnal lust,
respectfully and jealously, in friendship and disdain,
with pained surprise and feigned indifference,
just making fun, that moment (stunned) when
someone realizes I have changed or grown
into a person he or she has never known and
isn't sure that he or she is ready to take on
the person I am now, but how I love
the fiery, foolish, passionate and pure,
the tirelessly romantic, frantic, sure as shootin',
undisputed look of love I see there
in your eyes.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

MRI Haiku

Distant MRI

unsettles and stirs worry,

wanting good news now.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Commitment

If it was Hollywood, he'd take her hand

and tell her that he's leaving, that he's

sorry but he has to go, and she would nod

and say, "I know, I've known it many years"

and maybe there would be a tender kiss good-bye

and gentle tears as each one separately left the

restaurant she chose to celebrate their

special day. It isn't California, though, 

not even close, and so the meal, delicious

and expensive though it be, will pass in silence 

till they raise a glass of toast to one more

twelve-month period in which no love has

been expressed, their duties done with

gritted teeth, resentment building

for the next twelve months, the next...

until the need to keep charades in place is gone.

Old school, commitments kept, embarrassment at

letting people know that he has failed to be

the perfect groom who raised her veil to give

her their first kiss as man and wife, that she

was never really what he wanted, needed, but he didn't 

know it then. He didn't know. He knows it now,

but he is of a different generation, the sort who

honors promises, despite the pain. And who's to

say the angels are not watching, quietly applauding

as he helps her with her coat and they walk out

into a steamy Sunday afternoon? And who's to

say the angels do not look at one another

and, instead, begin to weep at so much

wasted time, such loneliness, such anguish?

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A little dark, but no apologies. There are lessons to be learned from those who remain committed no matter what, and from those who, for whatever reasons, do not. Grace is there, regardless.

Full Moon Haiku

Early morning moon
wearing misty nightgown still,
to light my way home.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Good Imagination

A couple in the ocean,
out away from others who might
see more than they bargained for,
but I, alone and floating on a boogie
board, have quite a good imagination.
Are her legs wrapped tightly
'round his torso? Has she dropped her
straps and are his hands on buoyant
breasts let loose  to bobble in the sea?
They are not teens; they're younger than
I am by 10 or 20 years, but I am not
so old that I don't know what they
are doing, out beyond the waves
where the greenish waters run more
deeply than the ones that I am
merely floating in, alone, where
mythic characters still dance
beneath the surface, and where
lovers can have privacy beneath
the watchful eye of God and
all creation.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Town That Doesn't Know Me

It feels like Saturday today, because

I got away from town and family,
from stress and obligation, but
who said Saturday's the only time
for rest and relaxation? A little
room to stretch, some oxygen to
breathe that isn't heavy with toxicity,
the smiles of strangers as I pass
by on a sidewalk in a town that
doesn't know my name.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Critical Thinking

Looking for a graphic, I was pleased
to find something by an artist I knew.
The late Blaine Hall painted The Critic,
but it posted without credit given to Hall.

Haters hate and liars lie,
but sometimes they must take a moment off
and entertain some other frame of mind.
Lovers love and sighers sigh,
but not non-stop. They have to fit in time
for speech and work and hobbies (if they're
so inclined). Readers read what writers write,
but only a small portion, for in truth, the
writers write much more than ever meets another eye, and some of what I've read of late did not amuse
and could have used a bit of working on.
Advantages of writing over speaking: opportunity
to re-do, re-vamp, edit; tweaking so that what one
wants to say is really said, and not what others
only think you mean. And even when it's clear
and true, at least to you, the haters still will hate.
The world is full of critics, always has been,
always will. And critics criticize, no matter what
the subject is - it's what they do;
they really cannot help it.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

World Family

If the world was one big family,
then all the wealth would be available
to everyone who did their chores and
homework, all the resources shared,
and children who were naughty would be punished
so they'd learn the proper lessons,
sent to time out at the South Pole, dressed in
heavy coats but feeling it, or maybe
the Himalayan mountains where a climb
to thinner air might give them time to think
about their attitudes, or to sit beside a sand dune
in the great Sahara until apologies were made,
the promise to behave again.
There'd be no tyrants or oppressors,
not for long, at least, because the other children
let the bullies rule.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Cautious Cubans

Alas, I did not find a photo with four
Cuban tree frogs.

As thunder moves away enough to tell
them that the lightning isn't likely to ignite
them, a barbershop quartet of frogs is
warming up. The thunder claps so close
again, it sends them back into a patient,
cautious silence. Not just yet. But soon
the song will rise from Cuban refugees
who find our land quite to their liking.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Hope Springs

Darkness, gloom and doom, despair,
with no view of the light they say is there
at proverbial tunnel's end. And then with just a word
or two, a ray of hope, a glimpse, relief that utters
something of hope's infancy concealed
inside of bitterness and anger, all revealed
in hateful words for days on end and when you least
expect it, an apology. An insight. A reprieve
from all the negativity, the light that shines so brightly now
which could be, sure, for all I know, a train
on a collision course with me and bringing pain
unlike I've felt before but trusting, please! it's something
else entirely. Just a breath of hope, and I can sing
until the next time when it builds up once again,
the feeling that things can't go on like this.

They can't.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Puddles

Borrowed from
http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/
(I hope they don't mind!)

It's dark inside, although it's daytime
and the air is heavy with the rain it
has to spill upon the earth, the
rooftops, on the roads so hot the
steam will rise in little clouds, and
children (if allowed) will splash in
puddles when the thunder rolls a
little further east. There's nothing like
a puddle to a child, squishy mud
between the toes, and I suppose that
I could go outside and find a puddle,
too, but other duties call.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

July 4th Haiku

Independence Day:
a time to celebrate the
end of tyranny.






(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

On the Heaviness of Life

The atmosphere is pushing in around me

from dogfoose.com

as I speak and write and sit here in my chair.
For each square foot, a ton, and that's a lot
of pressure to exert on someone who is simply
trying to be happy, to stay true to who she is,
avoiding drama and entanglements of anger.
The fact that I have locked within my ample frame
a fine supply of air myself explains
why I can stand at all. But if I fall, I hope that
you'll be close enough to help me up. I can't
trust everyone, of course, to see me stumble,
even care that I have landed on the ground,
but you, I trust and love. I'm keeping you around
for that (and other) reasons despite the current
stormy season when the pressure of the air
and life seems heavier than normal, and that's
saying quite a lot.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Connectness of Women

There must have been a model
for the painting, and she looks, to me,
a bit like Hurston (Zora Neale) or
Catherine Zeta-Jones, which strikes
me as surprising and delightful
that a painting on the wall could
conjure up two famous women,
one with skin like fine brown silk
who walked the streets of my home town,
and wrote and taught and said bodacious
things we quote today. At one time she
was married to a younger man, full
quarter century her junior. The painting
also puts in mind another woman,
Welsh with skin like polished cotton,
singer, dancer, actor of the stage and
screen who's married to an older man,
full quarter century her senior. Neither
woman has a thing to do with me,
but as I lie here on a hotel bed beneath
a painting of someone else entirely, all four
of us are, briefly, friends, connected in
some cosmic way we needn't understand.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

South Beach, Miami

The family walking temporarily beside
us in the shadow of Art Deco ladies
who have long since seen their prime
(not unlike me) were chatting in a Nordic
language. Passing through the tables of
a sports cafe, the soccer fans with eyes glued
to the widescreen tube (well, really liquid
crystal) sported shirts the color of their flag
(a little research tells me it was
Argentina's blue and white, where residents
speak Spanish and some tongues that are,
I hate to tell you, very nearly dead.) People on
the beach were clearly from both here
and there and everywhere like heroes in
a Dr. Seuss menagerie and I am wondering
if the foreigners could really think that
this is what we're like? That they have
tasted, smelled America? It seems a country
almost alien, under three hours from my
house just up the road.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014