I hope she doesn’t mind, but I have been kind of “hard of writing” lately. I recently read this and wanted to share it. It’s like sharing something on facebook isn’t it?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Here goes…

“In the center of our speed, in the core of our forward movement, we are often confused and lonely. That is why we have turned so full-heartedly to the memoir form. We have an intuition it will save us. Writing is the act of reaching across the abyss of isolation to share and reflect. It’s not a diet to become skinny, but a relaxation into the fat of our lives. Often, without realizing it, we are on a quest, a search for meaning. What does our time on this earth add up to?”

 

–Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend From Far Away

 

 

Maybe next time, I’ll have something of my own to share.

 

 

As if a fog has closed in around me

I become near sighted, and

Struggle to read the signs

My color has faded

My edges have become dull.

Where does it go from here,

And how can I get back to where

I can see clearly,

And my shallow breathing

Takes on new life?

Thoughts wander in and out of reality.

They search for sun and nourishment,

Yet whither in the rounded

Corners of space.

Unknowing what is causing this,

My hands fumble for the familiar

Stars, which are careening away

Out of reach.

Is this what it feels like,

Saying good-bye to youth?

The ticking of clocks

Seem louder than usual.

Diane E. Dockum

09.23.11

There are times when all you need is a good cry. My daughter said this to me the other day when I asked her how things were going. I really knew how she felt.

When we are going through a hard time, things get to be too much. So many these days are experiencing frustration, sadness, loss, financial problems. It’s just hard to get your life in order. But without the bad times we wouldn’t recognize the good times. I know, a cliche.

It would be so nice if all we really needed was a good cry to cleanse our inner mind and wring the nasty feelings out of our psyche.

 

A Good Cry

 

I need to sit and have a good cry.

Bone-deep weeping and calling out

in spasmodic sobs

to express that woefulness

that steals my words,

that shuts off my breathing

with hard, strangling fingers

 

A good bleeding weep

until the marrow rattles free

and body fluids flow again

unhindered,

filling my hollow limbs with warmth

where now

it is like winter.

 

My words gone, my mind numb

there is nothing left

but water squeezed through

tiny holes

straining pain like pasta

in a sieve, running hot,

then cold to firm it up

 

There is no other way but weeping

there is no alternative

but speechless, primal groans and

tightened stretched lips

across the teeth

and tears that run

unimpeded

 

And after this,

an unnatural quiet

where the mind wanders

an unfamiliar landscape,

watching lightning flash

within the receding clouds.

 

 

Diane E. Dockum

One of my favorite things to do is watch crows in my back yard, or really just anywhere. They seem to all have different personalities. They make writing about them so easy. Here are a few of my “crow” poems.

 

~~~~~

A Crow Walks

A crow walks

the yellow line,

head bobbing,

wings folded,

boldly braving traffic,

focused on

the banana peel

glistening,

its heady scent

wafting with the breeze.

Just the thing

for his stash

of rotting rubbish.

Reluctant,

he relinquishes

the pavement

for a car,

only to return

cawing at the air

cheering his own gall.

~~~~~

Crows At The Park

Like a family at a picnic

They were trying to be together,

But they didn’t get along.

Well, not completely.

Tolerating each other’s presence, they walked about and

Checked out the scenery; stood at the edge of the river

With hands on hips, making polite noises

Watching lily pads float.

Then someone found a good thing

In the garbage. That’s when the trouble started.

 

They argued and pulled at it until the biggest one

Flew away with it in his beak,

But it was too heavy, and he dropped it…big mistake.

The rest of them swatted it with wings and stabbed at it with

Talons, until a breeze came by and blew it into the river.

 

They stared after it

Making side-ways glances at each other

Until it was forgotten

Because some new smells drifted across the campground.

 

They flew in circles

Landing in the branches of pines.

Except one, who still paced the shoreline

In the shadow of the picnic table

Knowing he could get it back if he tried.

Dear Aunt Betty 

 

Dear Aunt Betty,

Just a note to thank you for the flowers, it was a thoughtful gesture and we are all enjoying them.

Asa sends his regards and hopes your leg is better. The kitchen floor is being repaired. We all apologize for the state of the house upon your arrival last Thursday.

The cat’s hair is growing back nicely. That pan of hot water you dropped on her when you fell didn’t do any permanent damage. The vet said she’d be fine in five or six weeks.

But it’s another story about Pauline. Her stitches got infected. Cat-Scratch fever, they called it. She refuses to stop singing at church even though every time she opens her mouth the wound in her face threatens to open. She’s such a trooper, though.

I hope Jerry is well. That smoke inhalation can be deadly. He did a great job saving the drapes from the fire. You’ve got to love him. Bless his heart!

Oh, by the way, we found his kerosene heater in the wreck. The truck that hit the house must have made it jump right out into the lawn. We’ll be sending it to you UPS so you won’t have to trouble yourself coming after it.

Our car was covered by insurance, so we’ll be getting another one in a few weeks. The assessor came to look at the house yesterday. He says it’s a miracle we all survived. The garage was a total loss, but the rest can be saved.

But, I’m rambling…WE should be sending YOU flowers!  After all, you’re the one who went out of your way to come help us prepare Thanksgiving dinner.

Little Tim was the only one who really got sick. The food poisoning was only minimal. But who can blame you – you had a long drive, and what a novel idea cooking the bird in the trunk of your Cadillac on the way from Florida! We never would have guessed! The doctor gave your secret away, naughty man!

Or was it a Goose? I can’t remember, too much excitement.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was, I wish you well, thanks so much for all your help and we hope to see you Christmas or New Year’s if you can make it.

The guest room will be waiting, although it will be in a new location after the first of January. They say our new home will be available in spring. For now, we are staying at Alice’s in Elmira.

She seems quite a nervous wreck. I don’t know if she’s having personal problems or if it’s just having us all camped on her doorstep.

The police brought her home last night, nice fellows, really. They have done that every weekend since we’ve been here.

I must say, between you and me and the lamppost, that perfume she wears is just AWFULL. It would choke a bull if it got too close. You’d swear it smelled just like stale beer… oh well…another story.

Hope we see you soon and thanks again,

 

Love,

Blanche

 

 

by Diane E. Dockum

 

From “Just Beyond The Hill”   available at Xlibris.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble bookstores

Also available as an e-book for Kindle and other readers.

I LOVE A RAINY NIGHT

 

Darkness closes around us

Slowly like bed curtains

I sink into the mattress

 

Rain falls quickly

Making popcorn sounds

Against the roof

 

It is all around me

A soothing sound

in the quiet evening

 

A few cars pass by

Hissing against the road

Raising steam

 

Puddles in low places

Crowd with

Dancing Elves

 

Throwing arms high

Elbows flapping

Feet kicking

 

Dancing dancing dancing

Not caring that they’re wet

And street light splashes

 

In the pools

At the edge of the yard

I light an oil lamp

 

Curl up in the quiet

Drawing peace around me

Watching shadows climb the walls

 

 

Diane E. Dockum

Altered States

by Diane E. Dockum

 

Altered states of mind

Embrace me in a flood

And I go down

Among the licking tongues

And slowly settle into dreams

And sleep screams at me to come with her

— Yet I stare stupidly

Intrigued by her screams

And only watch her pass me by

John Lennon once said “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

Given a little reality, you can imagine so much more. I say there is too much reality, too much of the time. I don’t watch reality television shows, frankly because they just don’t seem real.

The fun of writing is that you can create your own characters and put them in situations of your choice. You can create sympathy for them, and then turn them loose in a world of possibilities.

 

The Falls

by Diane E. Dockum

 

The only way to get there was to

cross the dam and so she did,

barefoot, carrying lilacs

because they were in season.

For remembrance, she

held them to her breast

inhaling their dark purple

breath. Her goal, to place

them on their spot in a sunny field,

in the deep summer grass

where they had loved and lingered

on a better day than this.

A kiss, recalled, paused her

there atop the falls and

she looked down long enough

to remember not to.

It had been a year since –

a long and lonely year,

and lilacs were in bloom again.

They never found him.

So she looked, staring down

the falls, feeling the rumble;

the cement biting her feet,

freezing them into hard

tree trunks and after a while

she seemed to be moving backward.

Suspended over the ridge

she was the only one who saw

him lose his footing,

balanced for a moment

then the bouquet he’d

picked for her unleashed

into the air,

she reached out

to take his hand,

the lilacs hovered for an instant

then disappeared

down into the rushing water

swallowed by the mist.

When she looked again

he was gone – no sign

no sign he’d ever lived

except the warm place

in her belly, except the

kisses on her face.

Today she stopped

and leaned over, watching

for a sign, hoping. Hoping

she would fall too.

 

 

It’s been a bit stormy lately. After several days of beautiful picture perfect hot weather, … the inevitable storms moved in. It reminded me of this poem:

 

Tempest

 

With furrowed brow and knuckles white

I rode the tempest of the night.

 

It scattered shards of glass

upon the sheets as it did pass

 

and stomped its way across the grass

throwing knives and spitting ash.

 

It spoke in mumbled rumblings

and whispered far-off thunderings.

 

I hid in shadowed passages and

watched the flash of light.

 

It granted me a moment’s breath

and as I dashed an inch from death

 

It smacked me on the back-side

and I heaved a shaky sigh.

 

I groped in hopeless wandering

and as I stood there wondering

 

The tempest whipped the horses

and leaped up toward the sky.

 

Its distance comforted my fear

and then I wiped away a tear

 

And settled back into my bed

and then exhausted, hid my head.

 

 

By Diane E. Dockum

Cricket-Bozo-Clipper And The Chicken Pox

 

By Diane E. Dockum

 

In the 1980s my husband and I raised Black and Tan Coonhounds.

 

Coonhounds, if you are not familiar with them, are large black long-eared, short-haired dogs with tan markings and deep bass voices. Their bark is not so much a woof, as a call to arms. It’s more like a cannon blast in slow motion.

 

Coonhounds have long legs for running down Raccoons in the dead of night, defending corn crops from the little bandits. Don’t get me wrong, I really love the little varmints, but at the time there was a market for this type of dog in our area.

 

My young brother loved this one puppy we had. Ironically, as a pup we named him Cricket, because he was black and he liked to hop around. Actually, he was more like Goofy of Disney fame. He was over enthusiastic and had that little point on the top of his head.

 

Cricket loved Jimmy too. He kept going down over the hill to my parent’s house to hang out with him, so, after a while the two got to be inseparable, and he became my brother’s dog.

 

Sometimes, when you have a large dog that wags his whole body instead of just his tail in the same room with a tiny 80 something woman – she can get a little flustered, and she will call that dog anything that pops into her head.

 

“Bozo! Clipper!” she would blurt out whacking him with her paperback Barbara Cartland romance novel.

 

When visitors came to the door, Cricket would explode into his trademark blast of sound, wag his body, lashing anything in proximity with his whip-like tail. He would run to the door to see who was coming, or better yet, hurl himself to the top of the back of the couch to see out the living room window.

 

Grandma never made it off of that couch fast enough. All 4 ft. 3 of her would rebound from the sofa as he landed, displacing a volume equal to his own mass.

 

“BOZO! Clipper! WHOA… CRICKET!!! Get down!” she would bark as she whomped him with her rolled up newspaper or her paperback romance.

 

Well, when my cousins Nate, Neil, Wayne, baby Leah and their mother Leanne came to the door this one summer afternoon it was played out all over again. Cricket just loved little boys to play with, and he saw Nate, and just started licking him all over. He got him down on the floor, and Nate, laughing and rolling around got thoroughly licked until Grandma’s shrieks of Bozo! Crapper! Clicker! Cricket! brought my brother and sister, Jimmy and Sara from upstairs to assist in the restraint.

 

Cricket had to go wait in the shed until company was gone.

 

For a few days afterward, Cricket was a quieter, gentler dog. We thought he was a remorseful dog, sorry for knocking down the company and getting so worked up. His nose did feel a little warm to the touch, but other than the sleepiness, he seemed okay.

 

After a few more days passed the family went up to camp in Colton on Higley Flow for a swim, where Cricket bolted from the back seat and ran to jump off the dock into the refreshing brown water of the Racquette River. He swam and played with Jimmy. They floated on a giant tractor inner tube, and rowed around in the row boat.

 

When supper time came, everyone was called out of the water to dry off for dinner. They toweled off Cricket. But something about his shinny coat had changed.

 

His fur had fallen out in spots, leaving tiny round bald spots over his entire body. Then my Mom discovered the Pox and they recalled that Nate had recently come down with Chicken Pox.

 

It seems that Cricket had licked the Pox right off of him.