While you're here at the blog, check out my other recent posts -- Valentine Train short short story, a note on friend Terry Wilson's great achievement with the publishing of Confessions of a Failed Saint, and more. And sign up to follow this blog if you're interested and if you haven't already. In the meantime, happy writing - hope you enjoy this little sojourn through my head --
(1)
Fast Car
or maybe she did
In dreams the driver controls your destiny
if you’re not in the driver’s seat,
You’ve relinquished control
You are at their mercy
What do you do if they crash the car?
Will the thrill of the ride be worth it all?
Maybe she did know
Maybe she took the wheel in her own fine hands
when she said a decision must be made
I hope so.
Maybe she didn’t even know how to drive
what with all she’d been through in that young life
Still, I hope she took the wheel, gripped it, and steered
Stepped on the gas and left THAT DAY
Drove straight into the West
maybe stopping in Montana for a coke and a cowboy hat.
Sheila
Ortego McLaughlin
5/18/13
Waiting for Death
It
seems so odd when nature’s law turns on you
That
stubborn muscle beating incessantly
Your
gratitude for it, and love
And
yet you wish it would just STOP
You’re
old, and tired
Life
has driven you over with a Mac truck fifty times over
the
black tire tracks ground into your face
The
sight of a beautiful sunset can’t undo it
Besides,
you’re blind and can’t see the color
And
there’s no-one there to describe it to you
You’re
infirm, feeble
never
knowing when gravity will take you down
Now
you meditate to the drum of that beating heart:
please STOP please STOP
please STOP please STOP
but
it goes on, like a bongo player on Meth
the
thing that keeps you alive against the odds
a Casino crap shoot no-one ever wins
The gamble goes on so long
all
in excruciating slow motion
All
the lights in Vegas must shut down
before
the bongo player will agree to stop
and
the final breath you’ve waited for, prayed for,
Will
fill your lungs and push out, indifferent to its leaving
unaware
of the eons you will have waited,
of how long it overstayed its welcome.
Sheila
Ortego McLaughlin, 5/18/13
The Catcher
Mother’s
spirit was sleeping when I was born
Groggy,
it woke to hold me, just for a time
But
its hands were weak and it dropped me
When
I fell, my father was there,
catching
me in his own clumsy way
not
knowing why nature’s law had turned on him
but
willing to serve, and more—
He
found the catching was not just once
but
over and over
as
Mother tried, robotically, to learn
The
infant fell, the child, and growing girl
A
brief taste of safety, every time
and
then the startle, as all the stays dissolved
the
sensation of gravity unleashed
shoving
me roughly through space
to
uncertain death, and pain
Then
the catch as it always came
As
if he wore a fat leather glove in a baseball park
A
heroic leap, meticulous timing
body
memory in his practiced arm
There’d
be a clap at the very moment
And
our entire audience – me, Mother, and him
Stunned
to silence with the beauty of that singular action
Father,
my soul safely in the palm of his hand
Sheila Ortego McLaughlin, 5/18/13
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