Night Music

A woman and her daughter sneak 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/willrad/
145716913

out, stand in the grass beneath 

the moon, feet crunching dry leaves, 

breath visible in the autumn air, shoulders 

touching both for warmth and shared 

experience. The window's open, framing 

him, and light surrounds him, saint-like, 

at the kitchen sink as all alone he sings 

the pop tunes with the radio. His rhythm 

ebbs and flows, he elegantly twirls a girl

that only he can see as plates are dried

and put away. "He's perfect, isn't he?" 

his sister whispers. "Yes, he is," their mother 

says, but it will be some forty years or more 

before they tell him how they watched 

him from the yard, how much they loved

him, how they wish that they had told

him sooner but were afraid he'd be

embarrassed, turn the music off. How that

was not a chance that they could take.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Thousand

I may write another poem tomorrow,
or I may not. Maybe I will write
about you in a novel. Never can tell.

A thousand times (well, more than that)
I've sat before the white blank screen
and wished for brilliance to shine forth,
come up with something less, but always
adequate, if what I aim for is to discipline myself
and make it happen, tease the brain cells into
action, put a smile upon a reader's face or
once or twice a tear, if writing daily is a goad
to shame some other writers who feel lazy into
sitting down themselves. That isn't all I want,
though, not to be the person pushing others
to perform. I want the brilliance, too, and
I admit it freely. And now, I've tried (some
days or nights I have tried more, it's true)
a thousand times. That is enough, I think,
to earn a respite from the have-to that has
been a good, consistent teacher. The door's
not closed, but maybe I'll get comfy in
another chair, or sit there by the window
at the view, renewed, inspired to come back
as a better poet or to find another path
entirely, lined with smoother stones.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Philosophical Sunday

www.funnyjunk.com

I would
be understood
by one or two or maybe four
but it would be,
you see,
a challenging and futile chore
to try and change the minds
of all those kinds
of different thinkers, and what for?
Those who respect,
love, and connect
with me have little need of explanations
for my thoughts, while grudging
affirmations
from the lot
who never got
me in the first place will not likely be
forthcoming just because they don't agree
with who i am
or whose
or where
or when
or why.





(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Foggy Morning

The fog did not walk in on cat's feet,
Mr. Sandburg, not on Highway 60,
not this morning when I couldn't see
the cows as I passed by. By Yeehaw
Junction, though, the sun was high enough
to burn it off where I could make out
Yankee plates that boxed me in ahead,
some eejit right behind without his lights.
A glorious day to welcome spring,
and by the time the fog had cleared,
my mind was very nearly calm as well,
a month of thoughts and stresses melting
as the sun climbed higher, as I headed west
on Highway 60 with no destination set.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Thank God it's Friday, say the Teachers Everywhere

She's mulling over an idea while sipping wine
with thoughts of all the rest and fineness she
can pack into the weekend, but she's contemplating
class on Monday, facing once again the boys who made
her cry today with so much chatter, wouldn't listen,
acted like the lesson didn't matter, didn't care. She thinks
she'll have them stand, not for a vocab bee but see
just how their little brains are working, pull a fast one,
then begin to cull them one by one. Those under 18,
have a seat, want me to treat you like a child, then chill
for now, just watch, or take a nap, it's early, after all.
Still standing and demanding explanation? Let's define
"respect" - you act as though it's optional, elective,
something you can show or not depending on your
mood or how you feel today. For children, maybe,
everyone will cut them slack, but you don't want to
be considered thusly, rather you desire a justly respect
from others, think that you're adults, and grown, while
never owning up to the responsibilities of being gentlemen
and ladies. Do you really want it? she will ask. She'll say
that they will never get it raising hell (or Hades) 'stead
of listening, working, answering the questions, being
quiet when required. She's tired; it was that kind of
morning, though the afternoon improved. The rudeness,
she is thinking, it's the rudeness she can't take.
She's grown to love them, but they can not see it,
wouldn't want to if they could, it's easier to keep
her at a distance. If she follows through there're just a few
who'll get it, realize the trap she's set, that if you do not show
it, you will never know what it is like to have respect,
be treated kindly, humbly, learn from others. So much
easier to blindly stay in childish ignorance, remain
just as you are right now. The world is full of stunted
adolescents who still think that they're the center
of the universe, unswerving from the notion that
the rest of us will always owe them something,
they're entitled, they're just humoring the rest
of us by deigning to show up for school. She laughs,
and knows her thoughts are getting dark; the sky is too,
and
soon she'll sleep and they will fade away.
By Monday, she'll be glad to see them, try again.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

The Play's the Thing

There are two kinds of people 

in the world (it could be said):

those on the stage performing,

those in the audience instead,

the first, portraying life, explaining causes

while the second, understanding or disdaining

the performance grants/withholds applause.

But that's all wrong, the groups are three,

for backstage, in the sound booth, there you see

that others work their magic to present the show

directing, lighting, building sets, you know.

Don't even get me started on the playwright.

which I'd like to be one day, and might.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 201

Dinosaurs

dinosaurs exist,
they weigh a ton.
you see them curled up
by the sidewalk
destined for the dump
unless a needy passerby
goes to the trouble
of stopping, lugging home
archaic treasure to
delight someone whose
tastes are not so spoiled.
as long as i can see my
shows, i'm good. why pay
for something new 
because it's lighter (like
i want to carry it around);
or has a wider screen, if
this one can be had
for free? detritus of not
many years ago, technology
keeps making things still
working, obsolete.
we throw too much away
to spend more on the new,
the latest, what is trending,
popular. the dinosaurs
of long ago, perhaps they
didn't die from cataclysm
but neglect and lack of love.
that happens pretty often
nowadays with people
but we almost always know
what's on t.v.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Stations of the Cross

Instead of a mass for St. Patrick,

Michelangelo's Pieta,
St. Peter's Basilica
(1498-1499)

the Stations of the Cross,
fourteen complete with readings,
prayers, Our Fathers, somewhat somber
singing that inspired sweet contemplation.
Christ's condemnation, then
the cross beam laid across his
shoulders of such weight he fell.
His mother, in the crowd along
the road, the urge to rush in, help
her Son, prevented by the press of
people all around. A passersby,
conscripted, picked it up to keep
things moving. Then a woman wiped the
sweat off of his brow before he fell
a second time. The women he had
taught and healed and helped began
to mourn. Perhaps it was the sound
of their despair that sapped his strength,
the falling yet again, so close, so close
to Golgotha where soldiers stripped him
of his clothing, nailed him to the cross,
and there he died. As clouds rolled in,
the faithful took him down, his mother
held him one more time before they
laid him in the tomb. The fifteenth
station,  not yet celebrated, has to wait
some weeks, the one that made all of
the difference, the miracle of resurrection
and new life. The miracle today was that
a church filled to capacity with high school
students who have trouble being still in
class could stand so long without
a whisper or complaint,
some unbelieving but respectful,
others quite accustomed to the words.
And halfway through, I took my
heels off and curled my toes into the
carpet, thankful that his feet
and hands were pierced for me, and
sorry there was not another way
to save me, save us all.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Moment

Countdown to an end,

Several countdowns of varying length,
varying intensity. A little scary,
but also exciting. Life is like that.

or put another way,
a countdown to but one
more chapter at its start,
a something different, new,
or as John Hamilton would say
a Never Ever Witnessed
kind of thing that brings
its sense of closure, sadness,
and excitement all wrapped
up in one. The known of This
gives way to That which is
a mystery, still nebulous,
so focused have I been,
so Here. And now, or soon,
I will be There. But where,
exactly, that will be or
lead, is unknown at the

moment.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Flagpole

Changes come
and changes go,
a never-ending
state of flux, the pot
gets stirred, what can
be shaken will be
shaken, get a new
perspective, run
it up the flagpole.
Who salutes will
tell you everything
you need to know.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Pi Day

Three-point-fourteen-fifteen,

or today, March 14/15,
corresponding to three-point-onefouronefive
then followed by a thousand million trillion
numbers with no patterns, no repeats, circumf'rence
of the circle, simple shape with so complex
a formula, irrational, the stuff of mathletes,
high IQ'd dudes with chalk dust in their nose hairs
from the boards, equations, old school, quite
appropriate since numbers are themselves as old
as time, the Fibonacci sequence found throughout
Creation but there're still the doubters who dismiss
Intelligent Design. Now that takes faith, believing
that the patterns obvious to anyone with half a brain
don't mean a thing, that it just happened.
That would be the miracle.
Not this, the delicate repeating: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and so on,
or the celebrated pi's uniqueness, stubbornly
refusing to be classified or memorized,
(perhaps the) woman of the number world.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

LoveJoyPeace

Love celebrates,

then instigates
a move, superb:

Its joy infusion
kicks confusion
to the curb.

Peace promenades,
the quietness pervades
and nothing can disturb.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Porter

Ferrol Sams' trilogy -
this is the second - are
funny, sweet, and so
much more. HIs Porter
Osbourne, Jr. is largely
autobiographical, which
means that Ferrol Sams
was quite the man.

Some women swoon for Austen's Mr. Darcy,
Bronte's Heathcliff, or,the much conflicted, complicated
Fifty Shades of Christian Grey,
but if we're talking total picture: humor, mischief,
sex appeal, intelligence, good natured-ness and
all the manners of a Southern man Raised Right,
then Porter Osbourne, Jr. is preeminent.
I must confess that I have loved him for some years,
and always will.
And always will.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Flower Lovers

Concerning only staying powers

Hand With Bouquet
by Pablo Picasso
(1881-1973)

discerning gifters choose silk flowers
but if "genu-wine" is how they hope you feel
about them, fine, they'll bring bouquets of real,
fully knowing that the petals will soon fall, will die
but till that happens, fragrantly they'll cry
of so much love. They almost always overlook
the best solution to be found in wooing books
and that is simply this: for flower lovers everywhere,
new, fresh assortments, given often, show most care.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Retrospection

Squealing high school girl

Statistically, one in four high school
girls has had sex before graduation. Most people
assume the number is higher. That means
that education is working, and that's
a good thing. 

with flawless skin and teeth
that put the orthodontist's kids
through college, hasn't done it
yet because she's not like that
at all, but there's a possibility
she will, and not with whom she'll marry.
Still, she'll tell him first, a little
fearful, just in case it makes a
difference (it does, but he'll deny
it till the arguing begins).
The boy she thought would be
The One will be the face she thinks
about some twenty years from now
and wonder where he is, and wonder
if he ever thinks of her, and what
he's doing. But in retrospect, she's glad
he was her first and also thankful
that he was not, after all, her last.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Sources (A Haiku for Monday)

Bookshelves gath'ring dust,

old friends I visit often,

Internet? That too.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Old Spice

She sits on the couch, alone
except when people stop by
to say hello, it's good to see you,
then embarrassed at the word they
shuffle off to get a drink. It's new,
the blindness, they're not used to
it - as if she is - but sitting there
alone she thinks she's handling it far
better than her friends. Almost all
the people there, she knows by
voice and if she strains and concentrates
the voices separate, the heart-to-hearts
heard easily while everybody else fades
to a lower level. Quite the parlor
trick, but she is sick of hearing
all the pity from girls far less pretty
than she is, and then when they are
huddled at the bar precisely twenty
paces to the right, they giggle thinking
they'll have better chances getting
dates now that she's blind, 'cause who
would want a blind girl when the
sighted ones are oh-so-willing?
She is sitting, listening so intently
that she almost misses it, the fragrance
of an aftershave (and something else)
that takes her back to when she was
a little girl. She smiles and turns to face
the weight beside her on the cushion
that smells warm, all bourbon and Old Spice.
And she says, "Hi," and he leans in
to whisper, "I've been watching you,
all innocent and beautiful, eavesdropping
on the conversations all around you."
"Guilty," she says, grinning,
chuckling that he took the time to
give the blind girl his attention.
He smells heavenly and whispers,
"Well, you didn't hear what I
was saying - you're the only
person who looks even vaguely
int'resting." "Because I'm blind?"
she says uncertainly, a frown
appearing even as she tells herself
what was she thinking, anyway?
He laughs out loud. "You do not
really think that, do you?" And
she blushes, drinking in the moment,
knowing that he sees right through
her, liking the inspection. And
she looks right at him, sees him
in her mind, decides that Old Spice
will be spending quite a lot of time
with her, and she with him, that
in the darkness he may find
a way to make her see, and something else.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Happy Endings

I love a happy ending,
and it's what I want for her,
and him, and them.

It's what I want for me.

I just don't know what
it will look like, yet,
for her, and him,
and them, or what's

in store for me.

I could be pious, point
to heaven and eternity
as what I want for her,
and him, and them,

the ultimate I want for me.

But I'm not any readier
for that to happen, yet,
to her, or him, or them,

to me.

It doesn't really matter;
no one changes what
will happen just by wishing,
God will do what he will do
to her, and him, and them,

and me

just as he's always
done and maybe we will welcome
it and maybe we will shake our
fists and scream and yell

and maybe what he brings
will mean a happy ending for
someone we didn't even know.

But just as likely there will be
a happy ending yet for her,
for him, for them, the odds
are pretty good.

And if there's pow'r in prayer,
the odds are also good for me.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Out at Home

Daring play for home,

The umpire in this photo was
probably correct, unlike the one
at tonight's game. But remember -
they're volunteers! Parents who make
a show of yelling at the umpires have
a negative impact on the game,
and their kids. Writing a poem
about a bad call is more
discreet. Haha.

the sprint, the slide,
triumph morphing into
incredulity: "You're outta there!"
An outcry from the ranks
and from the stands,
but he's not cheating
as some think, still others
yell. I wouldn't want his job,
but even I can see he doesn't
do it all that well. The kid slid
under, everyone could
see it but the umpire standing
close, and (not surprisingly)
the other team,
and all the cheering fans
on the opposing side.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Frustration #5: Loose Ends

It's been on the project board for years,

your grand idea, your baby, inspiration,

or a stubborn item that is merely

victim of too long a to-do list, it's there

and there again, you push it down because

you can't quite cross it off just yet, the

unresolved, unreconciled relationships

awaiting someone to speak up and you have

tried enough, though, haven't you? Can't

it be her turn this time, or his? Decisions

that are difficult, a contract null and void

or maybe we could file a tax extension, pay

the government or pay attention to the details, 

details, retail, wholesale, whole lotta shakin' 

going on. Where is the follow-through, the finish, 

all the loose ends neatly tied into a bow although

right now, it's more a noose around your

neck, limp, flaccid so it doesn't chafe but it's

not going anywhere, it has to be completed,

has to, and you cannot do it all alone and

yet cooperation isn't at a premium, nobody

else seems all that int'rested in typing

in "The End" and moving on to other

things that if you haven't learned the lessons

this time for, there's more just like it in

your future, one more circle 'round the mountain,

(and some circles need to be unbroken, others

not so much), just take the test another day, or

figure out that if you want it done, you'd better 

be prepared to do it by yourself, 'cause you're the only 

one who gets that it's your life, important,

passion suffocating, building up,still building

up with no release in sight while others idly

sip their tea or take vacations, it's no

skin off their teeth, any way, they'll pencil something

in next month and maybe yes and maybe no

or what about next year? It clearly doesn't matter.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Teachers' Meeting

Each morning, quite predictably

he's ready with a smiling edict:
"Have a marvelous Monday!"
And so it goes. We know the words
by now: Terrific Tuesday.
Wonderful Wednesday.
Thrilling Thursday.
"Have a fantastic Friday!"
And we do, not just because he
said to and we're somewhat obligated
to obey, but somehow, it just
seems to work that way.
He's smart to start us on the positive,
preemptive strike against the
challenges we'll face
(we hope) with wisdom
and with grace.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Antidote

What is the benefit?
What is the positive effect?
How does it make existence
any better, joyful, satisfying?
Trying to make sense of it,
the answers were too obvious, too sad
to think about; she had to focus
on the ways that others were
to some degree at least a little helped.
And for a time, and for the present,
it was meant to be, enough, the knowing
that her sacrifice gave happy
endings to their days, the little ways
she was the glue to hold them all
together, little things she did,
the big things when they'd let her.
It would not be, not always, thus.
It will not be thus, always, she would
tell herself. This too shall pass,
the circumstances changing, shifting
as the sands out in the desert
there beneath her feet, the hope
of an oasis somewhere in the
distance, some day,somehow,
the endless possibilities her
antidote to misery.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

One of Those People

Angry, hurt, offended,

I was ready to positively
make a nuisance
of myself tonight. But didn't.

I've one of Those Parents
who is ready to request the heads
of coaches on a platter for misdeeds
that hurt and wound and crush
the spirit of a tender child.
I never felt that way, when mine
were playing, never second-guessed
or questioned. Are these coaches worse
or have I lost my patience, morphed
into a Mama Bear whose Nana-
nails have sharpened to fine points with time?
Or was I more upset at other things
that bled into the game and colored
judgment? Ugly words sat on my
tongue; I planned to say them later,
when the field had cleared and I could
get them to one side. (Even angry I
know better than to interrupt a game,
intrude upon their focus). But I just
left instead, before the game was over,
cried and said the ugliness to no one
in the car, and maybe I will bring it
up another day, and maybe not, but
at least I didn't yell tonight.
Not much.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Adventure for a Friend

D.C. this afternoon is chilly, 

freezing rain,

And of course, we all know those
in the military who are in harm's way,
or could be, and we try not to think of
all the possibilities, hoping they come home soon.

but where he's flying 

to tomorrow will be 

just the opposite, all hot and dry 

and dangerous (I guess D.C. might qualify

for that as well, in certain sections). 

Anywhere you go requiring shots 

and camouflage 

and tips for what to do 

in case you're kidnapped 

sounds like (all at once) 

a grand adventure and quite scary, 

sure to keep those back at home

in attitudes of prayer, 

excited at the thought

of all the stories he will  tell 

when he returns, reminding God 

how very necessary

that he does just that...returns, 

no drama save

the crying babies on the plane, a little sunburn.

We can handle that. 

The other is unthinkable,

and so we focus scattered

thoughts, repeat a mantra

that of course, it's fine. 

He will be fine.

He has to be. 

He is.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015