I Wrote an Essay on Suicide (in Tenth Grade)

 

That blue guitar I had

when I was young

is gone now,

frets and strings

pulled back to another time.

 

I remember the burning

on my fingertips,

the busyness of learning

to put the tune all together,

 

and a yearning

to scale

from basement

to window

to…

 

I don’t know,

Other.

 

I wanted to send a message

from hidden hours

I’d spent writing and sketching

figures of love and loneliness

draped across my waterbed.

 

Oceans have passed

since then

and the message

remains much the same.

 

Hello. I am.  And so are you. I see you,

lily among the cranberries

in a burning coffin.

Jump, but into a place

where snow and rain are soft.

 

The tune plays softly still,

lighting matches for hope’s candle.

 

Grasp it with me, together.

We’ll need the light,

and we’ve got many miles to go

before we sleep.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

Shay’s Word Garden Word List

 

The close is a twist on the close of Robert Frost’s poem.  Yes, I had a waterbed and a blue guitar in the 80’s. 

 

Making Tracks

 

I only half-remember it.

On a wet, foggy day

William’s Restaurant

paid for me to head south

to learn the secret craft of their

signature cream pies and puffy cinnamon rolls.

 

It was early when I left,

my dreams in cargo on Amtrak,

for two days of training

by a mom with babies at home

and bruises on her arm.

 

She talked fast in between

phone calls from home.

 

Like I said, I only half-remember it now.

The bruises, though, peep through

in dark blue and green

past chocolate-peanut butter and coconut cream

—even that night

 

when they put me up

in a Motel 6, clean but cheap,

where the manager, wearing a suit,

and nearly twice my age,

dropped me off lingering

and looking for something more.

 

I shut, and locked, the door,

turned up the fuzzy drone of news

on the too-high-on-the-wall TV,

where I slept stiffly, but out of reach

of the smell of cheap aftershave, baby powder,

and the sticky sweet

of pies and rolls I would never eat.

 

Next day, white apron donned,

readying flour on my hands and board,

my training abruptly abbreviated

when they apologized: 

my instructor didn’t show.

 

Did the mirror tell her she shouldn’t go?

 

I couldn’t wait to get home,

hellish honeymoon over,

dream annulled—

 

eighteen, and not too old

to switch trains, deciding

that would be my last stroll

through dough for dough.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

Shay’s Word Garden Word List

dVerse Poetics:  Traveling by Train

 

I have only traveled by train a few times; this was one of them.

 

Harold Angels

When I was six

my grandfather, Harold, died--

though I never called him “Grandfather”

and definitely never “Harold.”

“Grampa” was a much more suitable term

for a brown cigarette smoking, Hee Haw watching,

take-your-teeth-out-and-sprinkle-black-pepper-

on-raw-hamburger-and-eat-it kind of guy.

So when I heard “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,”

I tried to picture it: all the Harold angels

up there,

singing,

angelic.

I loved him,

but if you'd have known Grampa

you'd have had your doubts, too.

© 2015 Jennifer Wagner

Prince

Prince and me, circa 1977

He was puffy and fluffy

and rarely barked.

I was in the car

that ran over him

the night he died. Six years old

and sitting in the backseat

between my mom and Shirley

as we headed out for dinner. Louie’s Chinese.

Shirley’s husband, Harry,

was the driver. A sweet, adorable man.

A diabetic whose foot later developed gangrene.

He felt terrible, of course.

I felt indescribable.

How do you say

how you feel,

your first prince’s yelps

stinging everything?

© 2015 Jennifer Wagner

Saturday Morning Cartoons (with Oreos and Milk)

A father wakes up

before everybody else

and sets the world whistling.

Except on Saturday,

when he's supposed to get to sleep in,

but you jump on his belly

and pry his eyes open

to watch cartoons with you.

He doesn't mind, though,

because you're his.

© 2015 Jennifer Wagner

For my daddy.

Dad, remember Oreos and milk for breakfast with Saturday morning cartoons? I do. Good times. :)

And for Poets United: The Poetry Pantry

Never Stop/Taking Me Home

On the train from Chicago

we are all colors, flavors—

caramel, dark, light.

A young couple, clad

all in red and white, waits near us;

soccer fans

heading back from

Liverpool FC v. Olympiacos.

I had noticed them earlier

on the way in—

laughing at photos on his phone,

their tan legs, intertwined.

And across from us now

an even younger couple,

dark chocolate skin, laughing, electric—

their delight in each other

making me feel like grinning silly,

floating too.

Young love

makes a strong point:  never stop flirting

with the one you want to keep.

She grabs his hand, massages,

notices a scar.

I catch a snippet of what

he says, there’s a story behind that.

Let me tell you…

And I drift away

to the conductor nearing our seats,

hear you say, I lost our other ticket…

blew onto the tracks…

Don’t worry about it, he says—

waving your money away

with his face-consuming grin.

And we are on

to East Chicago,

where the roots of you grew—

leaning my head

on your shoulder

that for 16 years

I’ve trusted

to take me home.

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

Firehouse

Our waitress

takes us down

to tour the cellar

added after

they bought the place.

They set it up

for private parties now

at Valentine’s Day.

President Bush (she doesn’t clarify which)

celebrated his birthday here once—she says

—and in

the close space

I contemplate

the smallness

of powerful men.

Up

we walk—

up, up

the staircase

to patrons

clinking glasses

and slicing

into crab encrusted steak.

We imagine

the horses

out back, back in the day,

as lovers

now sit

in the courtyard

sipping cabernet.

Higher,

we roam

the upper level in quiet,

look out onto the street,

the mist

of history

hanging

in the air.

Your voice

a half-whisper of awe,

it must

have been so cool

working out

of a station like this.

We descend

to the door,

to the sidewalk

and rain

greets us, pattering about

like a welcome home.

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

Enjoyed our trip to the Chicago area, where my husband was born, to visit family and to celebrate our anniversary and birthdays.

 

Photo © 2014 Jennifer Wagner

 Chicago Firehouse Restaurant  

(click link if you want to know more about this historic building)

Photo © 2014 Jennifer Wagner

 

Slice (Cinquain)

Malnati’s 
photo © 2014 Jennifer Wagner

deep dish

vine ripened plum tomatoes

fresh mozzarella and flaky, buttery crust

fork, knife…Malnati’s is a Chicago-style smile in

a slice

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

Poème, 16

The Ad Says:  Spirited. Adventurous. Intuitive.

Don’t change, you say,

inspired by the song of love triumphant

and the scent I wore when you first loved me.

You say you like it,
whatever it is,

when I curse myself

for being too much of this

or not enough of that.

And I guess that does about sum it up.

Even when I don’t,

you love me

as I am.

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

In a few days my husband and I will celebrate our 16^th Anniversary.  Poème is the fragrance I wore back when we first met and is also the title of a work by Amédée-Ernest Chausson which was originally subtitled The Song of Love Triumphant .

Poetry Jam:  Trash or Treasure

Last Monday of May

image by deegolden

The weird Y at W Bostian Rd reminds me of the little house we rented when we were young and living on love.  When I drive it I think of our oldest son slicing his thumb with a razor blade in that garage trying to cut into a tennis ball to see the “guts.”  That afternoon I was pushing his little brother in one of those kiddie cars in front of the house when he came out to me, blood dripping from his hand, a brave and amused smile on his face.  I took him inside to survey the damage.  I admit I had to sit because the room was spinning.  And it hasn’t stopped.  I suppose it never will.  We’ve added two more sons and each have gotten cut badly enough to have stitches, but I’ll never get used to seeing them bleed. So on this day of memory and honoring I say a prayer for the mothers who have had to endure so much more.

memorial day

a mother’s heart

unstitched

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

For dVerse:  Meeting the Bar-the haibun, a combination of prose and haiku.