Mucus

Ew.

A liter of mucus a day.
That's what you generate,
incredible human body.
Just think: half a bottle
of soda filled, all snotty.
Clear if , lucky you, you're healthy,
green if fighting germs all stealthy.
Mucosa, goblet cells, and phlegm,
the words sound ill themselves.
Slippery, clogging up the nose
and lungs and making those
hacking noises when you're speaking,
telling people that you're feeling peaked.
Rest is best, and lots of liquids, juice
and medications for the symptoms youse
encounter. (That's New York for y'all,
attempt at humor, valiant effort - all
I want to do is climb back into bed.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Lose-able

Once upon a time I was tenacious,
loyal to a fault, seeing only good where
darker motives lived disguised.
If you were kin or friend I had your
back, would stand up tall to anyone
who criticized you, even if the accusation
was correct, because (and this is key)
I thought it worked both ways.
Then I grew up, which took more years
than you might guess, and now I find I can
be lost, where you're concerned, at least.
Ignored enough, talked down to or about,
the butt of gossip or perhaps just held at bay
until I'm called upon to meet a need?
One day I may not be there to reply.
The line is fine between a solid trust
that all will stay just so, no matter what -
and taking it for granted, just because no
effort is required. So sorry that the rules
have changed, but if you didn't think that
I was worth the trouble all along, I doubt
you'll really miss me all that much.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Thou, Muse

Muses motivate with inspiration,
best ones operating
in a most a-musing fashion
(pun intended), sending
writer's blocks, bemusing
lack of fresh ideas,
into museums of oblivion.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Hurricane Love

David Crowder sings "How He Loves" here:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=_n6EkKMTwHU

Loves like a hurricane. 
Sunday, the words struck me
then again at mass the very next day,
a capello, a solo, and I wondered if the school
kids in their neat, tidy uniforms caught the analogy
of devastating force. A hurricane? Where's the comfort
there? But God is love, not our definition of love.
Who's to say he isn't category 5 fierce? A storm
rages today with not a cloud in the sky but all
around  me while I do my yoga breathing
and hope the eye passes by soon, a respite, a little
break before the next band of weather shows up
on the radar in blood red and purple.
God loves me a lot lately, new mantra
emerging that he knows what makes the tree
that is me bend, still supple, pliable, the energy
retained to stand straight again just coiled at
ready deep inside when all is finally calm...

and what would make it break.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Differences

Alexis de Tocqueville came
to the U.S. to report on our
prison system, but found other
things on which to comment.
In the 1830s, he was surprised at
the disparity between life on the Ohio
and Kentucky shores of the
Ohio River.

Long ago, a Frenchman came across the sea
to look around at how we treated prisoners
but saw instead (or perhaps "as well") the prison
we embraced that had no bars, the one we based
on something stupid like a person's race. To the North
of the Ohio, he saw people focused on their work,
productive, buzzing with activity, making strides
and money. To the South, the soil the same, a sad state
of affairs. Less energy and drive, less enterprise.
The only difference, that of slavery. We've come so
far since then, but now some try to lock up others
behind bars of their own choosing based on
other things. They may be operating from convictions
forged in steel and letter of a Law not given
them at all, but those who try to reach a compromise
and find a way to welcome those who aren't exactly
this or that, will find the crops grow better, more gets
done, the population is more pleasant, and the differences
don't have to be the issue, but rather, those things
of humanity that make us all the same: imperfect, searching,
wanting to be loved and known
for who and what we really are.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Can't Fix This

You can't unbreak this egg,
and I'm not hungry for an omelet.
I'm sorry you are hurting,
saddened by the trials and
tribulations you are going through.
I know the pain's the same
when circumstances are imposed
or when they come from things
you chose yourself, and I'm not
judging you. I just can't help
the way you want. Not my
job to fix this for the sake of
your convenience or your
comfort. You're mistaken, though,
by thinking that my lack of action
means that I don't care. I do.
Perhaps I've finally learned to
trust what is, to let things happen,
and resolve themselves without
assistance from this corner.
Clean it up, or scrape it all
together in a fry pan, have
the omelet yourself, Or let it
sit and rot. It isn't that you don't
have options, you're just waiting
for someone to rescue you,
repair the shell and save the egg
to hatch out fluffy, chirping, at
a later date. Good luck with that.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Rubenesque

I had an email advertising fashions for the

Venus at Her Toilet
by Peter Paul Rubens, 1608

Rubenesque and knew exactly what
it meant, that somehow someone out
in cyberspace has got my number, knows
my clothes are never in the single digits,
but something prompted me to google it.
I thought I'd see primarily the images of
paintings by the master (Rubens gave
his name because he much preferred the
curviness of females) but...fair warning
if you're also so inclined to look...a lot
of plus and double-plus-sized women
have no problem posting naked photos
of themselves. Rubens' art is beautiful,
and makes his subjects so. Some of these
others, well. I'm thinking...no. It's not the
size as much as presentation. A little
modesty, madames! Leave just a bit
to the imagination and you'll find a
well-placed sheet or feather rather
adds to the effect instead of doing just
the opposite. I'm all for confidence,
regardless of a woman's shape - it's
what's inside that counts for sure -
but really. When it comes to showing
skin for all the world to see,
I'm thinking less is more, which goes
for the petite among us, too.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Every Corner of the House

When I was little I would go inverted,

look at life a different way and

make up stories about walking on

the ceiling, hanging onto furniture

so I didn't fall onto the floor. I never

worried much, unless I heard my

parents arguing, and that was rare.

Children shouldn't worry,

shouldn't think about

the price of gas or if there'll be

a parent there when they get home.

They shouldn't wonder if the

bills will be too much this month,

or try to figure out the best way

to explain the latest grim prediction

on the evening news. They should

be laughing at the future, sure

that everything will be alright,

excited that they have so many

years ahead in which to do the

things they like, explore the reasons

they are on the earth, find love at

every turn, in every corner of the house,

even when they're hanging upside down.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Another House of Cards Comes Down

Offended he unfriended me on Facebook,
also grateful that he chose to change
his mind about a certain tactic that would
get him in hot water, otherwise.  Perhaps he'll
go back one day to another poem I wrote
about him which he didn't like because I entertained
the possibility (in print) that he might hurt
someone I love, a warning he ignored.. He didn't
take the hint, apparently, because he has. Hurt.
Now to me falls the appalling task of making
innocents make sense of what transpired
without-- because I haven't the desire to
hurt him back-- describing accurately
the man he seems to have become instead
of who we thought he was. Sad day, when
the house of cards you've built about
a person based on so much charm and
sweetness, talent, so much good you see,
comes crashing down. Unfair, of course,
because we always only see the side
presented. The same is true of others
looking in at me. There's plenty buried
deep inside that would be disappointing,
so my prayer is that this boy becomes
the man I thought I knew, and rather liked.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Baggage

Some people carry baggage all their lives,
stubborn remnants from the issues they've
survived, or mostly not. Others have forgotten
or at least have tried to leave it in the past,
history that they periodically review,
protection from repeating same mistakes again.
Even if the luggage is pricey, fashioned by
a craftsman, finest leather polished to a
mirrored finish, no one's strong enough
to haul it to the future. Instead, they're stuck
there in the past surrounded by valises
filled with pain, regret. Just leave it there
to mold and dust mites; some things should
decay. Take a picture if you have to, write
it down, but leave it there to rot before you
find yourself succumbing to the weight.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Perplexity of Variables

So many variables, with people.
Their problems, pasts, their DNA
and where they've lived and what
they've seen, and what's been
done to them. The books that made
an impact, someone's chance remark
that lodged within their brains and
helped to make them who they are
today, the way their mothers acted
when they were in the womb, choices, preferences, allergies, illogic, odd habits they acquired without a clue
regarding when, and here we are,
just trying to make sense, and fix a
sticky situation and we can't, because
the variables are Legion, and there
are no pigs in nearby fields to give
them all new homes. Numbers are
predictable in all the ways that people
are the opposite. I hope I never live
to see the day when 2+2 now equals six.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Adam Turns 11 In The Morning

Adam Rogers Gillette II
was named for his Uncle Adam,
whom he never got to meet.

We had the party on the weekend.
When I asked him, "Guess whose birthday
is tomorrow?" I could see the wheels begin
to turn, and when I said, "It's yours!" he
only gave a whisper of a smile. He's tired,
not feeling great, affected by more stress
and turmoil than a child of ten (for one more
day) should have to bear. "My real birthday,"
he said softly, perhaps thinking he won't spend it
having fun. The cake is almost gone and since
this morning, he has spent his birthday money
on a holster, and a game, and a new gun.
There's a doctor's visit in the afternoon and baseball
practice later, but we celebrated royally on
the weekend, with zombie make-up, laughing kids
throughout the yard, and twice the pizza
that we needed (always better to have
too much of some things instead of not enough,
like hugs and love and pizza). Eleven years ago
tomorrow, though, he saved my life. He did.
By being born, a baby who has given me such
joy (and tears, because he is a complicated boy.)
Distracted from my recent grief, I held him
tightly. Now I have to learn to let him go.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Cinderella

When Cinderella's sisters tried to
put the slipper on, they had the basic
attributes Prince Charming wanted.
They each had feet and faces and the
other parts that go unmentioned in sweet
fairy tales but which adults who read
them out loud to their kids may ponder
silently. But filling that shoe wasn't
either's destiny. Trying to be very good
at someone else's role in life is just
a set-up for disaster, even if the role
itself is something you have always
dreamed of, always thought that you'd
be perfect for. Sometimes we outgrow
roles, as well. Time for someone
new and fresh to learn the lines that
come out stilted after all these years.
And sometimes we are good enough
at what we do, we're offered a promotion.
And at other times, for reasons that
really don't concern another soul,
we quit. We only saw a glimpse at Cinderella's
life, a tiny slice. Perhaps two years or more,
or twenty, passed and she could not adapt to
palace life, missing all the happy songs
with mice amidst the soot. Surely there
were other women in the kingdom
with a tiny, dainty foot.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

No Poetry is Oozing Forth

No poetry is oozing forth,
nor wisdom, words of beauty,
syllables of eloquence.
Hard lessons learned don't
always have a pretty way
to be expressed. Some things
are better left unsaid, or
spoken face to face, the
prickly edges softened by a smile.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Wake Behind the Ship

Not the worst day ever, but somewhere
in the running, maybe 50th or 21st out of
the total thousands I have walked this earth.
Too many tears, hot and angry, wanting
badly to find answers, resolution for deep
needs that are not even mine to fill. It can't
go on. It can't. There will be a hiccup in
the fabric of the time and space continuum,
a miracle, a tragedy, a Something that will
change the wind's direction, bring relief,
put speed into the sails and finally, there
is movement forward with a wake behind
the ship to prove it, just in case you doubt.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Valentine's Day Eve

This lady isn't opening a Valentine,
but wouldn't it be nice if we could
say the things in our heart, instead
of needing a card to say it for us? Let's try.

Heart-shaped candy boxes and the cards
expressing love have been in view
since Christmas. When the remnants
all get moved to clearance racks,
the leprechauns and shamrocks will appear
with overlap, perhaps, of pastel eggs
and bunnies. On the calendar and in our blood,
this need to celebrate, to gather, have a credible
excuse to call up folks to come and join us for
some special day. It makes the year pass
quickly; there is that, I guess. I dread a few
of them, the Hallmark holidays, but smile
and mostly play along. The cards
are sometimes hard to buy, their pretty lies
in fancy script inside whatever cover caught
my eye. The funny ones are kinder, even those
with just a smidge of edginess. More honest, anyway. But now and then you find one that surprises: how did the writer
know exactly what to say?



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

No Frame of Reference. Yet.

With no frame of reference it’s easy

to assume, to judge, to know exactly

how another person feels but have it wrong,

So wrong you say such hurtful, stupid things.

In ignorance, of course, but still words have

the pow’r to devastate. So if you haven’t

gone through pain, debilitating pain,

or anguished over the decision to divorce,

or seen one parent hit the other,

been the victim of abuse, or love someone

whom everyone around you says

must never love you back, or stood beside

the casket of your child or wiped away

tot tears that stream down someone’s face

because a bully spoke or sneered and knew

they’d get away with it…if you have never

seen someone you care about turn into someone

else because of drugs or alcohol, or gone to

sleep beneath a bridge because it’s raining,

stood and watched as others got the praise

for something you achieved, or known the

ridicule of those who don’t respect another’s

faith or feelings, held the hand of someone

as he slipped into eternity, wrestled with

a choice that meant that everything would change

and you were so afraid to make it, so afraid

to not…be careful what you say. Be careful.

All around you stand the very people who have

sunk to levels you can’t comprehend, whose

suffering's the stuff of poetry and books

and songs, the kind you love because they

make you feel so lucky, as yet untouched by

all these hurtful things. As yet.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Breezy and Sunny

Breezy, sunny afternoon in Florida
not so far from chilly, snowy temperatures
just up the road a piece, as Grandma Polly
might have said. And just across the ocean
civil wars are fought and children made to
kill and do the dirty work of captors who
have turned them into animals. And you
are sitting safely in your home, the TV on,
and so you have no notion that the
neighbor to the side of you is hurting.
You have no time for that, or even for
the news because a game is on, and you
must close the drapes to fix the glare.
And up the road a piece, they're praying
for the sun to peak through all the gray
and tired of sitting in the house with
nothing much to do because the weather
is so bad. And over there where life
is really rough, the children hope to
simply be alive when all the stars come out.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Shower Story

If the water all around us and beneath us
is the same that's been here ever since
the sun first rose and set, I wonder if
the droplets in my shower can
remember when they rained down hot
and comforting upon the angular and
awkward child who made up stories
standing there, ever waiting in the rain
for something Special to appear.
Now that I am grown, and old
(by certain calculations),  if my weary
tears tonight add salt to water slipping
all around mature and fully-formed
curvaceousness and down the drain, perhaps
someone across the city or the state
will step into the shower later, tasting them,
mistaking them for softened water when it's really
just the stuff of what must fall occasionally,
when one is waiting. Still.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Untitled

I think that sums it up nicely.

Sometimes, it's better not to speak,
or write, or hope too much,
or think that two steps forward
won't become, by nightfall,
three steps back.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Claire de Lune

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY

Claire de lune could not drown out        
what tries to pass as music via speakers

coming from the bathroom as two teenage 

girls prepare for going out. The younger one 

belongs here and has tuned me out and

now I do the same to her, though not in the
same way. Fan on high, white noise blocking
out the bee-bop beat until Debussy can restore
the peace I gobble with a soup spoon, careful
not to spill a single drop. Breathing deeply, slowing down, hot tears are held at bay as someone

whom I'll never meet begins to serenade me on piano with the rolling melody that can always

usher in the moonlight to the darkness

of my thoughts and soul, with memories of
standing underneath a starlit sky and feeling free.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Generation, Gone

The face of AIDs in Africa is not the one
you might expect, and it's not one, but
millions. 700 every year in Kenya,
multiplied by every nation, every tribe.
Decimated generation leaving 13 million
orphans, many sick themselves. Mabibi* who had
counted on their children to take
care of them in their old age, now scramble to
provide for all the little ones instead.
Seventeen million dead.
Seventeen million, modern holocaust
because the people have no money for the drugs,
hope wrapped in a pill. Too many thugs in double-breasted
suits accept the money from around the world
and put it in their pockets. Some suppose conspiracy
to cut the population of the continent; others make
proposals to the nations while 6000 more are laid
to rest today. Statistics, it's been said, are numbers
without tears, but many are the tears
tonight in Africa as someone's mother dies,
a father, child. Whole families, just...
gone.

* grandparents (Swahili)

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Heavenly Rhyme

Heaven's gates are open wide,

but no one wants to go inside-
at least not right this minute,
I would venture to suggest a bet.
No sorrow there or suffering, sin,
perfect Paradise within,
but still we'd rather not be in it:
many things to do here yet.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Troubled Boy

Photo from http://babiesborn.blogspot.com

Mama yells, his sister tells him
to just leave her alone so she can
text on her phone without being
bothered. His father's in jail and
he's failing math but why should
he care? Kids laugh when
he gets it wrong anyway, call
him gay if they catch him crying.
No one sees how hard he's
trying to just hold it together.
Almost no one.
Heaven talks about him all
the time, this incredible kid, so
young with so much going
wrong, but his heart's still soft,
hasn't given in to darkness,
chaos all around him. He
deserves a medal for surviving
what would cripple people twice
his age. He'll be okay, though.
It'll take some time, but
one day he'll believe it, too.
Hope's powerful. And love.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Helping

Walk that waif-thin line between the helping

of a fellow soul, and fixing her or him (attempting
to, at least) and things will almost always end
far differently than what you had in mind
when starting out. But still.
Even if you have wrong motives, less than
perfect altruism, bigger jewels in your crown the
inspiration, or simple recognition, even just a thank you
(and good luck with that, I've found),
I think that if you do a deed that's good,
then good is done. Great or small, beside the point.
Appreciated or manipulated, maybe you got conned
or scammed or taken for a ride or didn't want
to do the deed at all but did because you thought
you should, a little good is better than no good at all.
And if you did right for wrong reasons, lighten up.
The soul you helped, was helped, a smile on karma's face,
tiny triumph in the universe, a shift
in balance on the side of grace,
.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Woman Stressed

She wants it to be over,

this stress of the moment

that has no apparent end in sight.

She wants to hear good news,

to be assured that everything

will be all right, even if it's just

Bob Marley on the radio.

She wants a modicum of hope,

to get a case of the giggles,

win a prize in a contest she forgot

about months ago. She wants to find

the pen she's lost, as if that would

improve the quality of her life 

(it would). She needs to be held, 

touched kindly at the very least,

kissed by someone who knows 

how. She feels like crying but can't, 

wants to go to sleep but mustn't.

Duty calls and so she puts

her shoes on, grabs her keys. 

Duty keeps her on speed 

dial, these days. "Don't worry

'bout a thing" sounds easy

enough, but she isn't always

successful.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Super Sunday

Screeching hawks and bucking broncos

wouldn't ever have a reason to compete
in life. They do not share a habitat or
eat alike or ever mate but on this day,
we aren't concerned so much with nature
and reality. Seattle Seahawks versus
Denver Broncos waging that very special
type of war fought in a stadium, the agile
handling of a football making megabucks
for bookies and commercials. Pick a team
and grab a brew or two or twelve and pass
the chips and salsa, have a bowl of someone's
special chili that will be so good you have
to ask him for the recipe and find him sitting
on the porch,with all the guys who like to smoke
cigars. No party here or chips or brew or chili
but the sound of football fills the household
even now, and tip-off's hours away.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Unfulfilled Dream

From www.poetrypoem.com

There was a time I dreamed

of putting paint on canvas in a manner

that would please, inspire, connect

in other-worldly ways with those

who viewed what I'd created.

It hasn't happened yet; I haven't

studied, done the work, put in

the time, and so I haven't earned

the title "artist." Those who have,

the ones who lock themselves inside

their studios and paintpaintpaint,

make it look so easy, effortless 

and yet we cannot know the canvases 

they threw away, dissatisfied, the ones

I'd be so proud of, were they mine. 

Perhaps one day the explanations 

and excuses that I use against

myself will end and I will take

a brush in hand, The Eagles playing in

the background as I work.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014