Rose Kelleher's blog

I was going through my old poems the other day and I thought this would be a good place to keep the ones I still like. That way they won't die on my hard drive with me. I hope the others do. I've revised some that were previously published. The Trump years were clarifying for me. I've spent the last few years obsessively volunteering, trying to help salvage what's left of our democracy. My taste has changed.

Before they privatized the moon The world was wilder then. Young beggars ruled the night, taking its glow for granted as though it were their right, as though the unexceptional were owed a silver spoon and the lowliest coyote entitled to the moon. Like everyone’s old friend, unquestioning, unswerving, it shone through broken windows on the undeserving, scattered light like coins across the open sea, sieved itself through treetops in public parks for free, and followed lonely passengers on elevated trains past rows of barbed-wired fences garlanded with chains.

The lost continent As to the year it sank, we can’t be certain; the historian was vague, the ink is blurred, and where he named the overbrimming ocean, the scroll is torn, obscuring that one word— something ic . And yet he left a wealth of information on the nature of the place: the rivers clear as souls in heaven, rife with river pearls and silver salmon; field and forest, filled with herds of deer, foxes with soft white ruffs, and bristling boar, and in the marsh, great flocks of cranes like undulating seas; the scent of grass and evergreen like perfume on the air, and everywhere the hum of honeybees. The people there were muscular and buxom, skilled in all manner of art and music, having grown accustomed to a life so leisurely it seemed a sin: reach out a hand at random, and an apple would drop in. A metaphor, no doubt. But fishermen have told of antlers tangled in their lines, and sailors have reported a gentle scraping on their keels while passing...

Colonel Hogan comes out of retirement “It’s called an algorithm…” Hogan stares as information analysts explain how Facebook works; how no one knows or cares what’s true or not true; how the human brain can be controlled by grifters, bots, and teens from Macedonia. They rule us now, spreading chaos through those glowing screens. His mission: save America. But how? Blowing up trains was easier. The krauts were foreigners – the bad guys, nothing more, announcing who they were with a Sieg Heil . Privately, the old-school airman doubts that he can be of service in this war. He fears he’s lost his touch; it’s been a while.

Zero tolerance There will be no one waiting, tense as a pulled pin, to hop the subway turnstile just as the train rolls in. There will be no one glancing warily left and right, agitating aerosol behind the school at night. No criminal will circumvent the rules by stealth or cunning. No muffled voice will ask Is your refrigerator running? No missile filled with water will dislodge a single hat. In the darkest of dark alleys there will be no alley cat, when a penny’s worth a dollar and boys are hanged with men and apple pies can safely cool on windowsills again.

La Milagrosa She’s wearing a gold crown. Her feet are bare. Flickering in a makeshift kitchen shrine with Guadalupe and some Tupperware, she lights my way for a dollar ninety-nine. These Catholic candles are a quirk of mine. I’ve shaken off my fetters, set down my cross, jettisoned the Roman albatross. But in the dry goods aisle, she looked divine among the rice and beans, her highbeam-hands flooding the world with mercy from above. It’s good to have her here, beside the stove. She knows I don’t believe. She understands.

Yin/Yang Even Bruce Lee had nipples. They were small, but they were there all right, alive with nerves, a tender nub to guard each pectoral against the manly world. And he had curves, gracing the line of cheek and lip, of thigh and buttock. Man would be too hard, too fierce, if there weren’t certain spots on every guy vulnerable enough to pinch or pierce; pretty enough to make a priest believe that every Adam shares a rib with Eve; engendered softly as a question mark, for seven weeks a shrimplike, whitish curl of possibility, still in the dark, before his body learns he’s not a girl.

Demeter Listen to your barren fields. The dust is whispering: Until my daughter rises, there will be no spring. Your olive trees will bear no fruit, no lark or thrush will sing. Until my daughter rises, there will be no spring. Your sun will rise each morning a useless, hollow thing. Until my daughter rises, there will be no spring.

Petition to leave the neighborhood Somerville, MA, ca. 1909 They came at night, but didn’t burn a cross, those well-bred Northerners. Instead they stood looking apologetic on the porch. Their leader held a lantern, not a torch. “ Mi scusi , speak the English not so good,” Maria Rosa said with a smile. But then they read it to her slowly. Rearing up, she shook her fist and shouted at the men, “Leave us alone, or I sell the house to n―!” It worked. They all turned whiter than they were and never tried to mess with her again. Or so my father says. Ashamed of her, we tell the story with a guilty snigger, pretending to be shocked. We don’t condone and yet we understand it. Moving up, each step she took was someone else’s loss. That’s life. You gotta take care of your own.

Free Bird Seventies Man― how unabashedly he struts his stuff! You gotta love those long gold chains that loop across that naked V of polyester-free, unbuttoned chest. And oh, those feathered tresses. Nothing wrong with looking good. Do lions shear their manes? Do peacocks cringe and cover up their trains? Let sideburns reign; let white guys wear cologne; let jeans reveal who’s well and fully grown from groin to groove― it’s like a manhood-fest. Seventies Man― freewheeler, Frye high heeler, part-time primo gold and Quaalude dealer, sucking the Power Hitter, rocking the van with sweet fifteen. Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster unfastening their training bras onscreen for guys who like ’em green. The Seventies freeing the chicks to serve him as free-range pullets serve the cockadoodle rooster. He loves and leaves, but girls, forgive him, please; he’s just a man, and Lord knows, he can’t change.

Life on the south shaw ca. 1979 Ya raccent’s weehd. Ya brotha’s weehd. A you weehd? Ya rolda brotha’s wicked fuckin weehd. Yaw from heah? Ya don’t sound like yaw from heah. Ya brotha’s fuckin retahded. Ya brotha’s queea. I heud ya wicked smaht. A you a lezzie? I heud ya rinta aht an shit. A you a druggie? Somebody told me yaw ra haw. A you a haw? What a ya lookin at me like that faw? Ya don’t hafta get mad. Wheah’s ya sense a yuma? Ya rotha brotha, he’s awright. He’s pissa.

Rays at Cape Hatteras The cownose rays are showing off today. They flip themselves like flapjacks over pans of Carolina surf, and when one lands, the splat reverberates a mile away. Sometimes you see the backs of their whale-gray pectoral fins, outstretched like flipper-hands; or else they show their bellies as they dance, white slabs with grins carved out, as if from clay. Releasing pent-up energy, they burst through breakers, moved by some instinctive wish to flounder in the air. Their flight is brief and clumsy, evolution having cursed these would-be herons with the flesh of fish: rude fliers in the face of disbelief.

Horseshoe crab Ten eyes, ten legs, a carapace, a lip, and something like a face, knuckled-headed, spiky stoic patented in the Paleozoic, mustered by the moon above to storm this little beach for love, who says your tried and true design is any less evolved than mine?