March Haiku

The long month ends; March
seemed even longer than
its thirty-one days.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Two Kinds

http://www.anonymousartofrevolution.com

Two kinds of people in the world:, the givers
and the takers. Liberals, conservatives. The spiritual
and humanist, the gays and straights, the violent and
peaceful, saved and lost, the capitalists and non,
those with a good work ethic and the ones who hold
their hands out, kind and mean, smart and stupid,
those who are attractive to the eye and then, the plain.
There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind
who say there are two two kinds of people in the world
and those who see that even though we share our basic needs
(like water, food, and oxygen, only some of us need touch)
we each are different, each unique, the shapes of who
we are impossible to squeeze into the little cubbyholes
of little-minded troglodytes who never looked to see,
outside their comfy caves, the hugeness of our world.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

The Memory of Smell

Geraniums and marigolds
smell like my Daddy's gardens
planted long ago and
by extension smell like him
within my memory.
Old Spice, spaghetti sauce,
a musty office filled with
books and graded papers,
ocean spray while watching
him attempt to body surf,
while I just try to keep my
footing in the undertow.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Little Girl Fell

A girl of maybe four or five fell
on the bleachers, banged her head
but only slightly, frightened, though,
and crying out. Every mother in and
out of close proximity lurched
forward as a single unit, but her own
jumped up and crossed  the six or seven
feet to rescue her, pulling her  to safety,
stroking back and hair and comforting
with gentle, cooing words. The father,
asshole that he was, apparently, moved
not an inch, could barely bother just
to turn his head, and from my seat above
them, I could see their lives unfolding
plainly, how his wife had rubbed
his shoulders right before the incident,
the way she doted on her family,
the husband quite content to let her
do it all. And one day, twelve or thirteen
years from now, perhaps he'll realize
his tardy efforts are too late to win
his daughter's heart, because deep down
she will remember what it felt like
falling, being scared and from the corner
of her eye, the sight of Daddy sitting
uselessly, forever out of reach.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Parenthetically Speaking

A single parenthesis (redundantly, she said)
is hardly anything at all without the other,
two corresponding curves that form
parentheses, a bracket, set, a pair that couples
(if you will) the words with certain tone to
let the reader know that it's aside, an afterthought
yet vital to the meaning of the one who wrote them,
which (in this case) would be me, or rather, I.
Alone, one bracket isn't good for much of anything
except to form a smile or (upside down) a frown.
To wax both philosophic and parenthetic,
one half must find its perfect mate in order to be happy.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Lost Lines

I've had the dream before, but never in
such detail or despair, just sitting there
upon a stage and losing it, the lines I
mean. The only one of six or seven others
in the cast who suffers from a total blank.
Hopeful I can salvage things before the
audience can figure out I'm done for, I
begin to dart around to see if I can find
a script tucked somewhere near, and can't.
The audience begins to stir and murmur,
then slowly leave, and who can blame them?
Everyone is disappointed and it's all my fault.
I knew the lines. I did. I knew them well,
and now they've vanished-- lines, the cast
and crew -- and I'm alone, the lights turned off,
the door now locked. I'm left to wonder
just what heavy thoughts have pushed my lines
from conscious memory, and where the words
are hiding, suddenly afraid they might escape
my lips inopportunely, out of character.
It was a drama, after all, my part not someone
even Nice. I could be anywhere,
and all that harshness will decide it's still
Act I, and people will not understand,
they'll think me rude or mad, this woman
laughing right out loud because it means
I didn't lose the lines for good.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Catch-22

Alan Arkin as Capt. John
Yossarian in the film adaptation of
Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
Yossarian wanted to get out of
flying any more missions...but who
wouldn't want to get out of war? Therefore
he must be sane, and not crazy at all.

She asked me if I'd write a poem
for her about a certain situation,
withholding details, and I said
I'd try, but needed more than she had
told me, just to start. She'd read a book
when just a teen, and later saw
the movie where an Army guy who
couldn't take it any more claimed
he was crazy, and they told him
if he thought he was, he wasn't,
loophole to insure softhearted soldiers
couldn't bail out early from the war.
Catch-22.
"That's like it is in life," she said
and then she couldn't stop:
One man says he loves his wife,
but doesn't; buried deep inside,
the knowledge that he really never
did, not in the way she needs. But
the only way to prove his love would
be to let her go, and then he couldn't
punish her the way he does in countless
tiny ways throughout their time
together, pseudo-marriage that
appeases everyone and reassures society,
suits him fine as well. Another man
does not say it, ever, doesn't
love his wife and hasn't for so long
he can't remember how it felt to
want her next to him in bed, and yet
he stays. He's decent and it would
embarrass her if he just left,
despite her coldness and her anger,
the talent she is trying to perfect to
make him feel less of a man. And so
(the other catch) the solitary reason for
his sadness keeps him chained,
withheld from someone who'd
remind him every moment that he's loved.
"You've told me of two men," I asked,
"but where do you fit in?" For all I
knew she was the terror who had
trapped the second man and now felt
badly, or the sister of the woman
so unloved, or trying out a plot for
her new novel, hoping to compete
with what she read so long ago.
Tears welled up quickly but just sat
upon her lower lash, afraid to fall
onto her cheeks. A moment passed.
"I do not fit at all," she whispered,
then she smiled, and I could read
the hope there, see it happen as she
dreams it will. "Not yet."
"And what's the catch for you?"
I asked, and made her laugh out loud.
I'd stepped across a line not even poets
manage gracefully, because she'd told
me all that she would tell, and what
she left unspoken wasn't mine to share.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Poets may be the literary equivalent of bartenders. Stand still long enough, and someone will tell his or her story, or enough of it to see a poem temerge. I wish this woman well, and applaud her hope. And patience.

Alphabet Soup

http://tshirtgroove.com/

They are dedicated to their work,
have gone to school much longer
than the average bear, have alphabets
that trail their names as if to swear
that it is so. But five or six of them who
listen to a complicated explanation
of the same exact scenario
will offer five or six quite different Ways
To Fix It, mostly predicated on assumptions
that I will Make It Happen and
(she said in agitated tones) fully none
of them remotely likely to ramificate and
morph into the changes I, for one, want
badly to occur, which ticks me off and tempts
me to extend choice words unhesitatingly
into somber (and yet unquestionably)
more educated faces.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Spotlight: Off

You sing your heart out at audition,

sweet news that you've been cast,

librettos handed out and songs assigned.

Months of learning lyrics, choose

a sparkly dress to wear onstage,

get to know new people, catch up

with the others between numbers,

opening, first weekend gone, then

second, and before you know it,

counting down to that last show.

Strike the set, cast party, toasts

and hugs and food to celebrate.

Tomorrow you'll begin adjusting

to the extra time you have, the let down

now that no one will applaud

more ordinary things you say and do,

no follow spot. The music, though,

that never fades.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

End of the Movie

The ends of several movies - based on true

events, a comedy, adventure- clicking through
the channels late at night: twenty minutes here,
another thirty there. Unless I'd seen the full length
feature in the past, guessing what had happened
to get the actors to the place they were by the points
in scripts I met them. Why was she crying? How did
those two get together? Which is exactly what it's
like with so many people that know - we see them
here and now, mostly guessing how they came to
be this bitter, or this pleasant, often so far off in
all our speculation. You can read some people
easily, they wear it all upon their faces and the
tone of voice they use, but others are more prudent,
keep you wondering, inviting you to join the
journey that they're on, inviting you to tell them
how you got here in the first place.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

On Daddy's 83rd Birthday

I'm not sure, but I think this was taken
when we picked up Daddy from the airport
when he was visiting from a short-term
job teaching at an orphanage in Jamaica.
He still has that smile.
Happy 83rd birthday, Daddy/Herb/Bobba!

He taught in Carolina, Florida,
Jamaica, Spanish just a little,
knowing French so well he
dreams it still, fit in with natives
when he traveled. Taught his
daughters in the kitchen
learning how to cook,
at his workshop introducing
us to power tools, the smell of
stain, the grains of different woods,
while fishing on the river bank,
or eating food grown in his
garden, flying kites or singing
Gershwin in the living room
with Mama on piano. He
wins when playing Trivial
Pursuit, but didn't how old
he is today. Maybe that way
he can still be standing with
his classes conjugating verbs,
or playing as a boy on
Kure Beach, getting too much
sun for such a fair complexion.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Discouraged Woman

"Girl Before a Mirror"
by Pablo Picasso

She wonders if she's lived too long,
now ill-equipped to handle what her
life's become. At home, just tolerated
or ignored or spoken sharply to. Where
did the happy woman that she used
to see reflected in the mirror go? And
why is she the only person looking?
When did the close-knit family fragment
into this collection of acquaintances
just settling for a mediocre life instead
of what could be such excellence?
They're fine with that, and so it's she
who is the odd one, straining, reaching
for the understanding and the grace
to fit in somehow in a way that doesn't
dig into the skin, or find the...what,
the courage? the defeat? to pack her
bags and leave.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Not All Princes Are Equal

In Sleeping Beauty, Philip slew the dragon,
kissed the princess and woke her,
saved the day. The dude who dared
to rescue fair Rapunzel knew
(at least) the art of climbing.
Snow White was quite happy with
the seven little men but dreamed about
the day her prince would come and kiss
cold lips and bring her back to life, and
even though he didn't rate a name in Disney's
cartoon version, he still got the girl.
Their counterpart in Cinderella
only had the sense to send a minion to
the lady's house to try the slipper on.
Which only goes to prove that
some will fight for what they
want, or go to trouble and expense,
while others love their way into
a woman's heart, while others think
that just because the girl will want
her shoe back, that he's golden.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Snarky Short

Snarky teenage girls who have no clue
what the adjective means should
invest in dictionaries,
not another pair of
skin-tight jeans.
Cute will only take
them so far.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Tax Haiku

St. Pat's day is here
but Tax Day loometh near and
I feel gloometh, dear.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Sondheim

http://www.alhirschfeld.com/
sondheim-bergdorf/sondheim.html

Sondheim's lyrics
are amusing,
but the chords and
dischords of his
music drive
performers to
hysterics.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Little Support Here

Some folks will move heaven
and earth to lend you their support.
Others (it pains me to report)
contradictorily consider it
an inconvenience if you ask
them nicely to please simply
lift a finger. They are more in tune,
however, to those times when
quite conversely, it's your services
so needed in reverse, for them.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Year

365 days in a year,
8760 hours,
525,600 minutes,
31,536,000 seconds.
In the last year, what
percentage of the time
has been spent joyfully
and what has passed-
never to return - by
being negative, critical,
grumpy, down-in-the-dumps?
How many minutes
wasted while I
chose to listening
to complete nonsense,
hogwash, ludicrous ideas
yelled or muttered I
would be better off had
I ignored them. How often
did I speak unkindly,
think about what doesn't matter?
Were all my words and thoughts
neatly catalogued,
the title on the biggest folder
holding most of all that's
in my heart, would be...


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Thursday Haiku

A chilly Thursday,
too much noise inside the house.
I long for quiet.

Big Hair Observation

Pink scrubs, perhaps just off shift,
up all night (must have been), nodding, drowsy,
her substantial weave precariously close
to the white woman's blander, boring locks
until she'd catch herself from falling over and adjust.
Why not lean the other way and aim considerable
girth towards empty space? And then she did,
elbow with a raised, hard place putting truth
to "elbow grease" revealed as she moved
to and fro in the chair. Hard worker, but she likes
to dress up, too, big fancy hair, the clue.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Thin Skin

Skin is amazing, thin or not.

I'm much too young
to have to worry about
skin so paper thin
it bleeds and bruises at
the slightest touch,
so maybe it's just my
imagination. Or maybe
it's that other "skin,"
my feelings and emotions,
that seems to be
developing more
sensitivity.
I'm much too old
for that. What do
I care if someone talks
or whispers or just
speculates on what
I do or say, on what
they think I meant
when I did this or that?
I'm fairly open. If
you want to know,
just ask... and I'll
decide if you deserve
an explanation or
you don't. When I
was younger, how
I tried to please the
masses, make the
grade, be liked by
everyone! What a
waste of time. Much
better now, to have
a shorter list of
people who not only
like but love me, even
when they don't have
all the answers about
who and what I am.
They're in it for the
long haul, so there's time
to sort it out.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Misjudgment

I watched carefully, loathing what was to come.

A girl of maybe four or five, meticulously took
the candy from her older friend. Primly and delighted
did she strip away the paper to reveal a bluish nugget,
impure sugar waiting in her elfin hand until she popped
it in her mouth. I stared, convinced the little litterbug
would not think twice about the fact that any second,
someone walking up the bleachers would cause sufficient
movement to dislodge the paper from its resting place,
perhaps a gust of wind, or even her own hand,
sweeping evidence aside because it's just the ballpark,
after all, and everyone leaves trash around for someone else to
pick up or ignore. What's one more tidbit, blue and tiny?
Pondering responses - pick it up and shoot a gentle scold
her way? make sure her mother caught my eye? - my hope
in what the future generations will achieve was once again
restored, at least in part. She picked the papers up and balled
them tightly and compactly before she handed them, without a word,
to the older girl. Clearly comfortable, not wanting to get up
at that precise moment, she neatly tucked the package in her pocket,
and I let out my breath, and smiled at my misjudgment.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Unusual Sunday Morning

So this is what it's like for many women of my age.

Sleep in on Sunday morning, read the paper in the back
with coffee cup in hand, set the coupon books aside
for later. Husband waiting thoughtfully to start the noisier
of chores, some catching up on what is going on this week.
Toast, a little stretching, quiet without the bustle of a household
getting ready to go out, breakfast, calling grandson from his
mission waging war by video, reminding teenage girl
her shower's gone on long enough. Not that I want a steady
diet of this, not for a few years, anyway, but still,
it's nice to get a taste of what those other ladies have all the
time, once in awhile. Different than to get away (although that
has its merit, too), just being home without
the usual routines and complications. Lazy feeling, not
to be responsible for anyone but me.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

DST

I can't believe the day is gone

from sleeping late, then paperwork
I thought I'd done and had to do all
over. Plus the errands, lunch, and now
it's almost five. Before you know it,
dusk will settle in and I must be somewhere
at seven, then set the clocks ahead and
yet another hour's is lost, another day of
productivity but oh, how quickly it
has disappeared. If I'd gotten up
a few hours earlier...but no.
I needed that, especially since I'll
lose some sleep tonight  because
of someone thinking that by calling
11, "12," it really changes things.
Would that other changes I would
like to see were managed so efficiently.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

P.E. Haiku

The dodgeball of my elementary school
memories was pretty tame. Not so the
indoors high school version I saw
today while subbing!

Testosterone-filled
high school boys play dodgeball
with much violence.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Reflecting on a Pretty Maid

She stands out because she's pretty,

but she may not want or understand

the pity from the well-dressed business

people who walk past her without

speaking every day on all eight floors that

make up her responsibility, and hers alone.

They speculate that she is bored or not

especially educated and don't appreciate 

the comfort she receives from simple tasks 

done well, the rhythm of the mop, the 

satisfaction that she gets from seeing

where she's been, the difference that she's made.

Putting food upon the table, raising children,

sending money to her parents back across

the border, she loves the gleam of chrome

and spotless porcelain, the mirrors that

reflect a grateful smile as she is at her work,

and she would be offended if she knew the people

she cleans up after 50 weeks out of the year

felt sorry for her. It's not like they would

want to trade their jobs with her, 

and someone has to be the maid. She smiles

a little at the thought, and wonders if they

have someone at home who cares as much

for keeping things just so, as she does.

They might be shocked to see her pay stub,

at how little all that elbow grease is worth

to corporations now-a-days, but it's enough

for what she needs and some of what she

wants. She had no lofty aspirations when

she got the job; she lives for what she does

the rest of all the time she has upon the earth.

It's just a job; she does it well, her head is

always high, but she is not defined by anyone's

assessment as they step out of her way 

and let her pass. The nicest ones have manners,

greet her in the hallways, maybe even

thank her, but she doesn't need their praise.

Her work does that. She makes up stories

about those she sees each day, and one day

she will write them down and win the

Pulitzer. Perhaps the people in the building

would be pleased to recognize themselves

in what she wrote, but maybe not. Very few

have ever recognized that she is there at all,

just another fixture in the building where they

go each morning to accomplish More Important Things.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Dark Promise

"I don't know how you do it."

http://ollieartgallery.blogspot.com/
Sibu Born artist Oliver Wong's : Cry of Desperation.
I love that this is a sad picture,
but uses such bright, happy colors.

Give me an alternative, perky person.

Nervous breakdown? Time does

not permit. Get wasted? Tasty

tempter, yes, but no. Far too much

to do. I'd run away but since this wretched,

aching heart would be along, no point

to just a geographic change. Arrested? 

Although faults and flaws abound,

no crime has been committed.

Yet. 

I make no promises.

Other than to keep at this

tumultuous life so rife with strife

(at the moment). Trouble foments

all around, but I'm not drowning.

Yet.

I make no promises.

I guess I can at least promise that.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Silly Infestation Rhyme

Bed bugs
Red bugs
Stink bugs
Lice
Beetles
Weevils
Roaches
Mice
Nature has a place for all,
but please, guys, not inside my wall.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Off Broadway

He could have been a Broadway star.
She might have married into wealth.
They could have raised their children overseas.
She dreamed of playing the piano in a concert hall;
she thought that nursing would be satisfying.
He gave up jobs he loved to try and save the marriage,
he took jobs he didn't like to stay afloat.
They almost got divorced, but didn't.
They got married, but not to each other.
He could have died, she almost did.
They moved south instead of west,
north instead of east, life changing choices
taking people onto different paths,
meeting people they would not have known before
and facing good, and bad, that would have
never been a part of life had they put down roots,
or moved, or gone to college, gone another way.
The happiest among us live
their lives today instead of wishing for
what might have been, while those in misery
regret the way life treated them and blame
all those around for ruining the dreams they
didn't want enough to fight for.
He still sings and she is thankful for the little
that she has.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Marathon Man

Our son Caleb ran his
first marathon this morning -
so proud of his run,
and his character.

Training for the marathon began four months ago,
and it paid off. His time was under what he'd hoped for.
Spent and aching, sitting in the shade alone a bit,
convincing calves and thighs that the torture was complete,
they'd done enough and served him well, would
get to rest now, he began to be reacclimated to
the stillness, rhythm of the pounding pavement
gone.  But only minutes passed before he grew
concerned about his friend, the faithful
partner who had trained beside him all this time.
Separated miles before the end, the man should be here
now. He might be hurt, discouraged, something could
be wrong, and so the weary, younger runner rose from
grassy, cool embrace of unmoving ground,
handed off the medal he'd been given just for finishing,
wet cloths that cooled his still-overheated form, and jogged back the other way to find his friend. It seemed a long time,
though it really wasn't, till they came around
the bend and as the finish line came into view the
younger runner stopped so the other could receive
applause and glory all alone. Training for the race
began four months ago, and it paid off.
Training for that moment when he shook off weariness
and trotted back to find his friend began quite long ago.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Birds

Birds lead rather ordinary lives,
focused on their daily food and
intently, diligently watching for
the larger predators who might appear,
and put them on the menu. Mating season
brings a different aspect, some reason to
puff out those birdy breasts and strut about,
but few birds mate for life or love, so boom
then see ya, maybe if you're lucky I'll be back
next year. But surely when a bird
begins to spread it wings and rises on
the air, or stands upon a branch to sing
a serenade or warn or merely speculate
on what is going on below, he knows
that he is something grand. Whether
pigeon sitting on a concrete ledge or
swan admiring her own beauty in
the lake's refection, each bird has
majesty enough that every one of
us has thought, "I'd like to fly," as well.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014