Warning: Poetry Again

This Father's Day
By Carolyn Kay Armistead
June 15, 2014

I was his baby girl
The one he worried about
I faced a different world
Than the one in which he fought.

He pushed me
As much as he could,
To get out and see
To make a difference
In my world.

He never really told me
But I know he was proud
Of me, and my abilities
Of the life I chose to live
Not an easy one,
But the best one for me.

He left us much too soon.
An accident, and he was taken
The man I was sure had
Hung the moon.
The man whose passion for learning
Pushed me to study and read
And teach.

Mom gave me the folded flag
That had been on his coffin.
Because he was a vet.
No way she could know
How the sight of that flag
Could make my blood run cold.
Because every military wife
Dreads being given a flag to hold
When she'd much rather have
The man who served it with pride.

 Pop survived his service,
And thankfully,
So did my husband survive his.
I have a lot more than a flag
To remember Pop by.
Though still I miss him
As years go by
It gets easier to remember him
And smile
For all the good times he made sure
We had
For the love he gave his children
Will never, ever die.

Old Songs

By Carolyn Kay Armistead
June 15, 2014

Music and memory
So tied together
Melodies are haunting
Because they make you remember
Times and places
People you once knew
The way you used to be
And the things you used to do.
Some songs can make me feel
Like a teen again
Bring back those heady days
Of high school
Hanging out with my friends
So easily
With just a melody
A lyric
Remember...
Some songs bring back childhood
And watching my Mom
Try to dance
Around the house while she was cleaning
With Sinatra
Or Bing
Or the Big Bands
On the stereo.
Remember...
Old Abba songs
Bring back the magic
Of long talks
With Matthew
When we were both
So young and so in love.
Yes, I remember.
 Ah, such memories.
Such treasure
All to be found
In a song.



The Book Sorter Song
By C.K.Armistead 6/15/2014

Book comes in
Door comes down
For a while,
Nothing.
THEN
Down the belt,
Around the corner,
Into the bin
It belongs in.
Even before
It hits the bin
The next book
Has rolled in.
Starts its journey,
Finds its way,
And of course
Another
Is already waiting.
All goes well
Books moving along
As we try to keep up
Sorting onto carts
From the bins,
Listening to
The sorter's song.
Then,
It stops dead
Oh, dread.
The light
For some unknown reason
Is red.
We check, we reset,
We cross our fingers
And pray,
The computer restarts
The belts do their dance
And before long
Once again
We're humming along
Singing the sorter's song.



Elusive Words

C. K. Armistead
6/15/14

Barge around in my head
Keep me from thinking straight
Or sleeping
Or reading
Yet
Will NOT get out on the page.
You elude me.
Babbling on when I have no way
To catch you,
Put you on paper
Or on screen
Then disc
And thus keep you.
Somehow
You seek to avoid capture
As if fearing
Servitude
As if you wouldn't
 Still be words
With something to say
As if by getting you down
And in order
I wouldn't be giving you
A voice
A chance to be heard
Somewhere besides
The inside of my skull.
So please
Now that I am here
Where I can save you
Please,
Words?
Come out
And play.


All of these poems have been written this evening, over the course of an hour or two.  These are really just my way of stretching the writing muscles, of hoping to coax the words out.  I know they are not polished and completely finished.  They may never be.  But this is how poetry is sometimes.
Not very lyric, not always neat, not even always rhyming.  A lot like life.  A bit messy, but in its own way, beautiful.

Poems Again

Every now and then, I need to commit poetry.  You don't have to read it, but I have to write it.

Strength
C.K. Armistead 6/14/13
As the days wear on
And things are still broken
The wear and tear on
Some hearts still unspoken

Some try to be strong
They hold the grief at bay
But after so long
It needs the light of day.

What can I be, then
For them to rely on?
I find this one a pen
Give the other a shoulder
to cry on.

It's my privilege to be
In a place where I can provide
Small things for them to see
It's going to be all right.

Some days it has been hard
Not to cry with them
Over baby pictures found in the yard
Or the loss of a friend.

 So very difficult not to cry
With a little girl and her mother
She lost her library books at school
But she got out alive .

Or the older man who
Lost 45 years worth of memories
In one afternoon
But worried about his library books.

All I can do is help where I can
Make fines go away
Maybe hold their hand
And always, I find that I say
"But we are SO glad that YOU'RE still here."

As long as we're alive
There's hope.
It will take time.
But we are strong, we can cope.
We will rebuild our town,
And our hearts
Together.



The Broken Pieces

C.K. Armistead 6/14/13

Most of town
Looks just fine.
Where there was just debris,
It has been picked up
Windows are being washed
Damaged cars replaced.
There are still
Whole neighborhoods of grief.
Tumbled masses of what was left
Of several families' memories.
Those are beginning to be cleared as well
Trucks are moving constantly
All through town.
Taking the broken pieces
Away so we can be healed.
Still there is at least one room
I know of
Full of battered memories.
Boxes of them.
Faces I don't know
Look out from muddied
Photographs
Hoping to see
Their loved ones again.
Kind hands are coming
To clean the muddied faces
And put them online
So those loved ones
Can claim them.
There are also scars
Less visible to the eye.
Broken pieces of our hearts
That cause us to cry
For no visible reason.
Even if our own homes are whole,
Many of us lost
Places dear to us.
Homes of friends,
The pub,
Even the hospital we relied on.
Gone.
We hurt for our friends
And neighbors
Some moved away
At least until houses are rebuilt.
And I had the sad task
Of deleting the library record
Of a sweet man
Who died on May 20th.
One more broken piece
Jabbing at my heart.