last year's easter - pipTalk Forums

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bsquirrel

Member Rara Avis

since 2000-01-03

Posts 7855

0 posted 2000-03-22 11:50 PM

The day before easter,
She called with some news.
Nursed feelings were spent:
The milk had run dry.

One hand on the phone,
The other on the handle
Of a plastic molded basket
Made to look like wicker.

Love like plastic grass:
Buy it in bags
To settle to the bottom.
Pit of headless, tailless snakes.

Flavorless, bright green;
A plea to find a taste
Of youthful lawns and stems.
I lay the handset down.

The hollow rabbit watched
From its crooked pointed box.
A layer of cellophane
To stay clear of the dirt.

Yellow grainy marshmallow mush
Made to look like chicks.
In the grass, crushed to its nest;
Storm toadstools burst by my step.

Chocolate egg in shiny foil
Full of false-flavored yolk.
Or made instead of plastic shell
Full of moneyed faces.

Foil peels like paper leaves,
Scales from a butterfly wing.
Manufactured bits of consumptive words
Pasting reflections to my palm.

Jelly beans hard nourishment
Of gelsweet things said -- fallen -- scattered
In round oblong pellets of the truth.
Essential oils, dyes and paints.

Sunlight fell through the kitchen window;
Made me realize the effect of my tears.
Stood. Dropped the basket in the trash
Where plastic wrapped it, womblike, away.

I wondered then how a man
Could allow nails to be driven
Through his bones; waiting, crossbared --
Gravity pressing him forward;

When something as smally significant
And useless as a first love
Died in the confines of a phone speaker grille,
And yet caused so much pain.

(c) 2000 Mike Chmielecki

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

1 posted 2000-03-23 12:04 PM

I know you knew how much I'd love this!
There is so much here to savor! Absolutely
stunning in visuals, and thought-provoking...
I hate to bore you with cliche', but...WOW!
Now pardon me, I must go read this again...

Meadowmuse
Member Elite

since 1999-12-27

Posts 3263

2 posted 2000-03-23 12:31 PM

You have a style and presentation all your own, Mike. Such a bitter look at the intended sweetness of love and love's gesture. (by the way, I love the little marshmallow peeps...sorry)

~ Claire

bsquirrel

Member Rara Avis

since 2000-01-03

Posts 7855

3 posted 2000-03-23 01:23 AM

serenity,
Yes, I did know you'd enjoy this one.

I know I liked it, too -- trying to remember past easters and getting all the details of the different candies (and the traditions of opening them) right. To tell the truth, my xgf did break up with me over the phone the day before last easter. The rest of it is made up, though.

Claire,
I don't think it's damning of all love -- just this particular phony specimen. I'm hopeful about the future, and I added Christ in there because, after all the candy and merchandising, that's what easters really about. It just awes me that he could be nailed to a cross, bleeding against the heads of nails driven through his bones -- when on that particular day, I felt like I was dying just because of some stupid, unavoidable phone call.

Glad you enjoyed. Both of you.

Mike

p.s. I like peeps too -- in moderation! But I can do without creme eggs. ugh!

PhaerieChild
Senior Member

since 1999-08-30

Posts 1787
Aloha, Oregon

4 posted 2000-03-23 02:05 AM

This is sad but so hopeful as well. I like the part of Christ you included since it is a part of His ascension that gives us all hope. Beuatifully written.

ps I like the peeps too and the gooey eggs but they are messy.

Poetry~ Words falling on paper, painting a dream.

Shawna R. Holder
Boise, Idaho

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