Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Family Dinner

Knives scratch like
warning sirens across
plates and platters;
forks stab listlessly at
leftover hunks of
meat, congealing
in pools of fat;
glasses clunk
hastily on polished
oak; watches are
checked, then
checked again.
Just another family
dinner turned cold,
long before the food
itself.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Syria

man above, see them dying
on the ground, their bodies lying
discarded in the guttered street
final breath, last heart's beat
a silent prayer in communal breast
too many souls to lay to rest

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Thanks

I just wanted to write a quick thank you to anyone who has come here to read my writing, even if it was by accident. Ha ha! I can't believe that anyone other than people I know have even been here. In any case, a big thanks - truly.

Little Pieces

I've fallen upon
little pieces of you.
They were perched
in silence, clustered
like birds in the rafters,
heads tucked under
wing to protect them from
the December wind. I've arrived;
unannounced;
throwing open the doors
and letting the gales traverse
the wood-slatted walls,
breaking upon the
little bird pieces,
and watching
their scattered departure
with hope-helpless eyes.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Rain falls from a cloudless sky,
Looking for some leaflife to nourish,
much like this mother - full of potential,
but useless.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012

Monday, May 21, 2012

Moustache

like an old-time moustache
riding haughtily upon
a fine gentleman's
upper lip, you
are comical to me


Monday, May 7, 2012

Workers

We dug all Sunday -
dug those trenches
so long and so straight;
their disappearance over
the horizon a primary school
lesson in perspective.
We dug and toiled and
sweat, right there next
to the 401,
watching Impalas and
Intrepids and Hyundai
Tuscons enter and exit
our lives with not a
thought. We dug all
Sunday; dug, and worked,
and wept, and had
our words on the day
of rest, because for us,
there never is any.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Monday, April 30, 2012

I lied!

I forgot about this one I wrote a few months ago:

The Day the Milk Turned Sour

Over puddled cobblestones
she tromped,
arms overfilled
with eggs, bread, cheese,
and milk -
groceries bound for
home, bundled in
brown paper.
Down,
down,
down,
she plodded and slogged
to where the picket gate,
nudged by hip,
opened to a stone walkway.

Even nearing death, when
the dementia had stolen
names of children,
faces of grandchildren,
and most everything else from
her mind, she
could still recall every
inch of that day, when
brown loafers led
little feet over
worn stones
to the whitewashed
walls of her childhood.

Yes.
Every footfall, every
rock's delicate sheen, every
stretch of impossible moss
overwhelming the path,
every piteous ant
that discovered itself in her line,
every damned scent that
entered her nostrils
would be remembered;
on the day milk
smash-spilled on linoleum
and snaked below the icebox,
where, untended to,
it befouled the usually
immaculate kitchen - the day
my Gran found her
father there,
head in oven.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Long time...

...no see. Regrettably, I have neglected my writing for some time now. Sometimes I just can't find time for my kids AND me. I am making a better effort at it though. I was actually just checking in here to see when my last post was, and indeed, it has been a longer expanse of time than I thought. So, I actually have no new writing prepared, so I'm going to try a little experiment here. A challenge for myself. That is, in about ten seconds, I'm just going to write the first things/words/ideas that come to my head, and I'm not going to allow myself to go back and correct anything. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so that's a problem for my brain. Here goes: (I bet it won't be a long one! Ha ha).

a determined child is one who,
despite the clear objections of the butterfly,
will pursue, and pursue, and pursue
the poor creature, until her
chubby fingers are allowed one
swift graze of the wing or back,
whereupon the butterfly disappears
like wildfire, and the child's
squeals fill my backyard.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.


Okay.....not bad. I see some things I would add, change, correct.....but not tons. I have to stick to my promise, so here I go. Post!


Thursday, March 8, 2012

To my husband

I hope you enjoyed the
Ring Pop I put
in your lunch today.

It was our daughter's, and
I stole it from her.
(Don't fret - there are more).

I wanted you to taste your
childhood again. I hope
it was sweet, and juicy,
and deliciously vivid.

Mine was cherry.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Locust

A bloom to dote upon, to
celebrate in verse and frame,
to pluck, to decorate, to admire.

A plague that devastates, shadowing
the land in a heaving swarm; a
pestilence to fear, to evade, to hate.

The dichotomy of a
single word.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

pariah

you have made yourself a pariah,
awash with irony, the ivory will not
polish, and as the eternal reprobate,
you fool no one but yourself.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Syrian Mother

"The snipers, who have
no fear of god, killed him",
and he was ripped from
your children's
pudgy, groping fingers,
that will now forever
be in need of their father's
hand, smell, sweater,
love.

I envision your hidden
lips a withering crescent,
and you, a widow too soon,
will decay alongside
the corpse of your
martyred husband.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Mr. Woods, the Jester

In a banquet hall,
I was the wench
with a fake accent;
breasts to match - and you,
the jester who could
not be quieted.

Here there were
silver platters
piled with food to be served
to the waiting throngs, and
the guests, in want of
fork or knife, continued
to play and laugh on
at it all - because the jester
could not be quieted.

I was glad for you
in my company then,
with all your happy glory;
wayward glances,
forlorn dances through
the glass pane room, on
a night where I finally
found my voice.

Years pass, and now
I hear your banjo strum
with fuel in the lyrics,
voice unyielding in loss.
Who she was I may
always wonder, but
myself, I will forever
know.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

structures

for every
weakened frame
there is
a house to
hold it.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Reckoning

They just roll into one another now,
each year, each wrinkle, each hair turned
gray by passing day, every new morning -
a curse-perfect, blessed thing.
Always humbled by the haste of time,
for some there reamins a need to
gild the armour and prepare for the
onslaught -
men with their pitchforks,
kerosene dipped rags, set ablaze upon
wooden supports, mountainous hordes
outreaching for every piece of us.
They will come. They always do.
But not yet. So onward, all you sordid souls -
onward still over disquiet and worry,
over shame and revenge, over the mounds
of putrid battles there before you -
to the edges of the emboldened sea - follow me,
for I will be your captain.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

5 words

When they rang in his ears,
a space was filled that
previously had no voice or name,
only the empty remorse of
missed birthdays, unpaid bills,
and niecesandnephews never met.
But in the deafening loneliness of
the local grocer's, unexpectedly
facing eyes from his past, his
canned fish aisle life became
evident when a wagging finger
and shaking ponytail lamented
his trouble with meth.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Duel

When faith becomes analogous
with fate, (if it is not already),
you and I will then stamp
out our paces
- opposing each other
and ourselves,
unflinching 'til we turn,
unarmed but for our words.
And here our truths be told -
I, the penitent Magdalene;
you, the finger exclaiming
"whore".

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

bob

that 21 seconds, where he
spider crawled across
the planter in her mind,
and then scaled the couch
with his arachnid arms,
feelers outstretched,
terrified
me at first sight
and keeps me up now,
when all others slumber.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

A few lines going nowhere fast

I really don't have a specific method for writing. Things just pop in my head and I go for them. Sometimes a set of lines, or a specific word just show up in my brainstorming, and I procede from there, building a poem around them. I have these two lines that I have been trying to work with for the last couple of days, and I'm going to post them here, and then post a poem that contains them later. We'll see where they go. I've tried a few times to contain them in a poem, but I'm all over the place in terms of the rest of the content. So, I'll post the beginnings of what I have. Here they are:

I, the penitent Magdalene -
you, the finger exclaiming "whore"

I feel like these are the last two lines of a poem....I just don't have that poem. Ha ha. Oh well. Later.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

I just can't write long poems

It's true. I really suck at them. So here's another short one.

Dinnerware

Her resolve shatter-scattered like
plate on ceramic, losing itself with
dust and crumbs beneath the gas stove.
Obsidian eyes followed her denim to the
closet for broom and back, where she
stooped to dispose of the fallen, so
delicate the former design.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Haiku - Mangoes

First haiku attempt since a grade five assignment, where I wrote:

The hen lays her eggs
in a soft, delicate nest
and waits for her chicks

This is technically more of a haiku than the one below, since it is about nature. Oh well.

husband and daughter
slice mangoes in my kitchen
lovely to taste, see

Monday, January 23, 2012

To the shop clerk

seeing my arms overfilled
with baby and worry,
you mounted
your stallion
and
whisked me
off to a closed lane
that became open
at your word.
you bagged my
bananas and eggs
and
frozen pizzas,

and with the smallest
of gestures
made the greatest of
impressions.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012

These words are strung together,
cascading vines
descending from great lumbering
masses of trees,
wandering and trailing away,
losing themselves in
the tepid night.
Excusing an insufficient bearing,
they writhe in a bed of decaying
foliage, and slink off
through the umbrage,
edging
through forested thoughts,
advancing upon
perdition.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.






Winter in Whitby

Wooooooo! I am finding the time to write for once. I hope I keep this pace up. I'm really enjoying it. Look how many posts!

The frosted fencerows and walkways
gleamed under the new
blanket of snow; their former
melancholy and dreariness
ousted by unspoiled artistry.
Weighed down by
white powder, tree branches
bowed their heads
to the splendorous earth, and
the young boy who
careened resolutely down
the once untrodden path
(sled in tow)
didn't realize what magic he
had disrupted.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012

Friday, January 20, 2012

Emaciated

Dismantle your guilt.
Shed it, shred it,
do away with
every.
last.
drop.
And then,
when you cease to
breathe,
you'll have no
remorse
about squandered
days; no worries
over
a wasted
life.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

J.M.

Aren't true friends amazing? A (very) little writing for one of mine below. Cheers!

You warm me
up more
than the tea
you serve.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sad Song

you remind me of
a song that,
as a presumptuous teen,
I once belted out
of the window of my best
friend's car, defying
sound as we sped headlong
into the night.
then,
the song
made me feel
that I was everlasting;
that life would run its course
(and then some), as it was
surely intended,
and love would be something
that felt like the earth falling away
from beneath my feet.
now,
it just makes me
wistful,
and full of desperate remembrance.

Copyright, Catherine Young, 2012.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Lake Gus-ke-wau

I remember the silver
moon
that shone over us
one night,
late spring.
So well lit
was the silent forest
by its presence,
that we felt
brave enough
to disrobe, tossing
aside our
inhibitions and knickers
to wade through
the shallows of the lake,
dive into its
weedy underbelly,
laugh at our daring,
and resurface cleaner
than the days we
arrived on this
fair earth.

Copyright, Catherine Young, Jan. 6th, 2012.
to bed each night
with heart in hand,
tender lives
and grief un-manned.
tonight we sleep,
two souls together.
intertwined.
now. forever.

Copyright, Catherine Young, Jan. 3, 2012.

Pegboards

Do you remember how
these pegboards
used to be empty?
Neglected by time and
the past owners; empty skeletons
in our home.

I
think
they were waiting
for us,

for we have filled them
with hooks and hangers,
screw drivers and hammers,
paint brushes and canvases,
old licence plates, souvenirs,
and memories.

We have filled them -
ourselves -
with purpose.

And here, our purpose
will be become
more memories to
hang amongst
the others.

Copyright, Catherine Young, Jan. 3rd, 2012.

Question

How does my
husband's
button-down fit so
well, and meld
to my body
like
hair clings
to a balloon
after a burst of
furious rubbing,
when we are so
clearly
unmatched in
size?

Copyright, Catherine Young, Dec 28, 2011

Motherhood

This is about how
life goes from
being
less about me,
and more about
Zoodles lunches and
constantly smelling like
sour milk.

Copyright, Catherine Young. December 16th, 2011