If there are any heavens
my mother will all by herself
have one.
It will not be a pansy heaven
nor a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley.
It will be a heaven of robust yellow roses,
with thick notched stems
not prone to bending.
The blooms will be embarrassingly,
sinfully fragrant, the size of
baseballs when fully blazing.
They’ll radiate light in their yellowness and
they’ll never die.
~~ Tricia McCallum
How wrong we can be about the things we think will save us…
I walked behind them on the way home
after the usual Saturday night skating at the small town’s arena.
He was the high school all-star,
she the ice ballerina.
She wore pink angora mittens, and a matching beret
perched at what seemed the perfect angle on her small head,
her white-blond hair cascading down.
She was so small he towered beside her as they walked,
He strode, she with tiny quick mincing steps to keep up,
her little furry hand buried inside his enormous one.
She looked up at him often and longingly.
He looked straight ahead and did most of the talking,
I couldn’t imagine, that bitter February night,
the idea of happiness being anywhere but right there,
in front of me,
she at his side,
with a rightful place,
and a way for her to be in this world.
At 15,
it seemed all I needed was there,
in that matching set of pink woolens
and in a tall young man walking beside me
who could have been anywhere,
anywhere at all that he wanted,
but had chosen here,
with me.
~Tricia McCallum
There are strangers who look at you like they know you
and the smell of a bar on a cold night is always the same
whether in Pittsburgh or Penang,
where we search for something to matter,
the faces we can trust until morning.
City streets at three in the morning are identical,
their shadowy passageways and slick pavement
advising caution.
You wander,
in search of the secret of those
who feel at home in the world,
marvelling at the ease of the small talker at a cocktail party,
who strides into the very middle of a room,
not just looking like he belongs,
but entirely convinced that he does.
~~ Tricia McCallum
It comes down to the ceremony now, the detail.
Pressing your shirt with the cutaway collar, not too much starch,
the way you liked it.
I chose the shoes that were a bit small,
but they were so fine-looking and you would approve.
At the last minute I remembered your favourite photo of all of us
for tucking into your suit jacket pocket.
Now to prepare the food for the mourners,
sandwiches to begin.
Made differently today,
the correct word is painstakingly.
The butter spread
to each and every corner of the bread,
sliced precisely
from freshly-baked loaves.
Heap both sides of the bread lavishly with spreads,
no scrimping.
No celery, you hated it.
Remove the crusts.
Assemble them ever so gently
before making the final cuts
into perfect quarters.
wiping the knife clean
after each cut.
Display them proudly
on the most treasured serving pieces.
Delicate china tea cups and matching saucers,
and cloth napkins alongside.
Only cloth.
All is ready.
Invite them in.
I’ll get this right
for all the times
I didn’t.
~~ Tricia McCallum
I used to love September, but now it just rhymes with remember.
Dominic Ricciletto
A Careless Lover
Summer takes its sweet time,
Slowly strips your defenses,
Has its way with you,
Then abandons you,
Alone,
On the dock,
In the chill of an October dusk.
Ravished. Spent.
Shivering.
Wanting more.
Just the slightest droop
in the leaf of the phlox.
Its tender blossom holding up,
but not for long.
A sudden chill reduces the dahlias petal by petal
to ragged pink flags.
And there, see, the delicate African daisies
suddenly resigned, curling sleepily into themselves,
exhausted debutantes after the ball, when yesterday
they held the ballroom captive.
The valiant cosmos, once reaching to the sky,
Their sturdy stems succumbing to the driving wind,
These last holdouts,
These Olympians of the garden
Roundly defeated.
Listen. Lean in.
A clock is ticking
somewhere.
It ticks not for the garden.
But for us.
~~ Tricia McCallum
There she remains,
In the folds of her nightgown
Tucked deeply in her bedside drawer,
Releasing the scent of her Chantilly.
And here, in her treasured clip-on earrings
Of aurora borealis rhinestones,
All the colors of the northern lights,
She explained.
And perhaps most,
Up there on the closet shelf,
Her well-worn sewing basket,
A frayed tapestry on its lid of
A young woman’s gentle face.
There, inside, among the bobbins of thread,
Mother’s tarnished metal thimble,
Its tiny nubs worn smooth from use.
Remembering how whenever she mended,
I would hear her sigh deeply
As the thimble’s cap clicked
Against her flying needle,
Her impatience palpable,
So desperate was she to be done.
Knowing now it reminded her of
Being pulled from school at the age of nine,
Pressed into piecework for a gruff Glasgow furrier,
Stitching together heavy coats in dingy rooms
From piles of animal pelts,
Never to return to school,
Or childhood,
Again.
~~ Tricia McCallum
No Heart
I don’t have the heart
for the news that demands
daily
a suspension of disbelief,
a numbing disconnection
that I am no longer willing to offer up.
Today, a tsunami rising
suddenly
on some faraway ocean.
Tonight, children herded into unmarked vans.
Tomorrow, the Yulan Dog Massacre.
Just give me robot dogs,
microchipped to respond.
To jump up on your bed via remote command,
even rest their heads on your pillow alongside.
And if one’s tiny titanium paw should trod on a nail,
there will be no pain.
None at all.
Only an error message
flashing in electric pink neon,
reminding us to pay attention.
To listen up here:
Something needs fixed.
~~ Tricia McCallum
Someone asked me recently if I ever prayed. It prompted this…
Ways to Pray
There are a million ways to pray.
Not one of has anything to do with an oak pew
Or a frocked man prompting from a pulpit on high.
Nothing special is needed.
No preparation or special equipment.
The quiet is no prerequisite.
Not solemnity
Nor a bowed head.
A seat on a New York subway will do.
A carnival ride at full tilt.
Or the middle of nowhere, so still
Your breath is its accompaniment.
We think more must be required, so we hesitate.
We edit.
We borrow from scripts of parchment.
But like so much
The opposite is true.
A prayer’s success lies in it being
Entirely and unapologetically
Your own,
Unshackled by dogma,
The counting down of rosary beads,
The mouthing of others’ perceptions.
Be anywhere.
Think of what matters.
Start with the words I wish.
Consider I hope.
End with I tried.
~~ Tricia McCallum
What is it in me
What is it in me
that needs to tell you this?
Never More.
It will never be more summer than this.
This moment.
Every petal and bough, every bloom at its most beautiful
in hue, texture, depth of colour.
Nature at her most potent.
She shows off.
Tomorrow begins the sad inevitable decline,
Her gradual descent toward less.
But today,
Oh, today,
Drink it in,
Every last sip.
Such glory cannot possibly last.
A little pixel dust… my nickname for my micro poems…
Screen Tests
I’d run home after the movies
To act out each scene,
Word for word,
With accents and flourishes,
Mom watching in her housedress
At the little yellow kitchen table,
Smoking.
In. Coming.
My druthers would be you
Coming through the door
Soaking wet,
In that fabulous old trench
We bought for a steal,
Brimming over with stories
For tea.
Interloper
And just when I think you’re
Listening
I turn and see you
Enraptured
By the girl in the next booth.
Always be a poet. Even in prose.
— Charles Baudelaire.
In essence I am a storyteller who writes poems. Put simply, I write the poems I want to read.[…]
A sequence of my poems has been published in a hardcover book entitled The Music of Leaving Poems by Tricia McCallum
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Thanks for sharing