Pancake Girl

I am so flat now,
pressed like a cotton sheet,
not a fold to smooth out,
securely stretched and neat.

My walls caved in too,
I didn't seem to mind,
not thinking at all
I could be deaf, dumb and blind.

My smile, wavy line,
stuck like a mad woman's
turning on a thin dime.
Jesters send a summons,
they inquire why?

I tell them I don't know,
brain seems to malfunction.
It's fine really, go just go
I always bounce back.
Why are you now kneeling?
Counting the tile cracks.

Me, stuck to the ceiling.
With no stress I see
tiny beings crawling,
struggling to live so free.

My tears are not falling
I have no life force,
no passion, no measure,
my soul is dry and coarse.

Lacking simple pleasures
I thought I'd let you in
my non manic mindset.
Now you know where I've been.

Will you please forget it?

Janet Caldwell 2003-2009

Downtown Apartment

(This is entirely fiction)

There are three left and a moth on the wall.
Junior is talking about being broke.
I feel nervous with no dream team
Cheering in my veins.
Three beers, one moth, two crazy people,
No paycheck. Someone’s slapping the
Thin plywood with two deadbolts
And balsa thin jambs.
That jackass landlord, licking his lips,
Wanting money
For this slum dive
Where the roaches starve.
We ain’t got it so I’ll
Roll onto my side, get a week’s reprieve
For rent, just to be inside, but he’s got
To come back when Junior’s gone
Gathering, so he take it out of my ass.
I feel stinking, like onions,
Stagger to the shower, reach
For the hot water, wash
In the flow of rusty water,
Listening to the pipes bang.
Junior is talking to himself
In the kitchen. He’d better take
The crutches and leave me the last
Two. We’ve slipped a few rungs,
But people don’t give up so easy,
Not completely.
Two beers, one moth and two very sick
High school grads,
Together. Alone against
The inevitable.

Janet Caldwell 2003-2009

Ransomed

The atmosphere, a caliginous cast,
a foreboding feel.

The prophecy still at work from times past,
so I could not heal.

Out of the nocturnal ages it seems,
sac-like organs heave.

Mercurial canals of my mind stream,
and then I did breathe.

Out of the fog and into the clearing,
shards of light met me.

Green grass and flowers started appearing,
seeds of life to be.

Nourishing my starving spirit and soul,
I ate them all up.

Soft illumination did make me whole,
I drank from His cup.

His promise to me is eternity,
where there is no grief.

Providence is not accidental,
my trust is not brief.

© Janet Caldwell 2009

Bedazzled

The birds can be dreadful

I tried to catch a falling raindrop.
Instead a black bird landed on my tongue.
I knew that he was bad luck.
Stammering, his voice was changing,
when he asked me to come along

Where, is it that you wish to take me
I inquired uncomfortably.
Just over to the lush meadow near the trees.
Ah, the meadow, yes,
yes ,I'd like to go.
Just as quickly as he landed
he flew right off my tongue.

Trying to keep up was tricky.
He became a very small black dot in the sky.
Follow, I must. Summoning to me, I ran because
curiosity is my name.
Arriving was sweet
Butterflies and fairies,
were dancing through the trees.
A scent of flowers wafted universally.

There were toads on lily pads lazily
adrift. Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit
they did sing, a
most sacred lullaby.
Approaching my view was a tiny man
a crooked three cornered hat, atop his head,
with brown knee length pants.
A snug vest at his waist, pointy shoes and
decorative digits covered in gems.

He clutched a bag with an emerald drawstring.
Treasures and pleasures were sure to be within.
He asked, surely you know what's inside?
I couldn't help but notice how his sparkles
blinded and lured at the same time.
Of course I do, let's unwrap your goodies-bag.
Fingers shaking, animation, domination
and a feeling of dread as I pulled
the cord; the container fell, revealing all.

I glanced at the man and saw the sneer on
his distorted face.
Fixed canary eyes looked at me
as the goblins flew passed my face.
I hadn't noticed the pointed teeth,
due to his blinding light. Or the
smell of sulfur that reeked from every pore.
The black bird had cleverly placed
A spell on my senses,
the day that he landed on my tongue.

If ever a black bird
invites you to a land of greenery,
run, reject, refuse him.
Send him back from whence he came.
To lands unknown, dryness,
darkness, the abyss or
he'll meet you there,
among the deceived.
Copyright Janet Caldwell 2001-2009

Too Maddening

When were our secrets buried to die?
Tell me, are you whispering in her ear,
does it satisfy? Is it the same

can she read between your crooked lines?
Revealing those things of a love so fine.
I loved you, the madness too.

There was no need to let it decay
You did though, so easy for you
to get away.

Do you sense this madness, think of
me still? Can you remember the secrets
we shared buried high on the hill?

Janet Caldwell 2001-2009

Stunned

I thought you cared, maybe even liked me a little.
Yet, you threw stones, over a poem I had written
many years ago.

You know not the back ground or it's birth.
Just jumped on the stone wagon
and threw as hard as you could.

My eyes are blackened, my soul is bruised,
weak and a bit scarred, but
I shall recover!

Before you blast your self
righteous rhetoric again, think twice.
Oh and what is that in your eye?

Janet Caldwell Sept. 18, 2009

12th of Never

The day my brother died, Oct 12th, 1980.


12th of Never

Talk to me of yesterday,
of things undone,
I still need you. Stay.
Please, just the way you were.

I remember the departure,
that October morning.
I always loved the autumn and could
scarcely await to go outside.
Our skates still here, the key to them lost.

I asked you out to breakfast, with Steve
you wouldn’t, couldn’t,
saying to me that
you didn’t feel well.
I looked around the room,
failing to notice you held
your chest in a discolored fist.

The doctor had explained
the pain away. Possibly pleurisy,
prescribed breathing treatments
and antibiotics which weren’t
kicking in. (not to mention my valiums).
With a niggling-naggling I went
to breakfast with my latest flirtation.
It was a striking day,
The 12th of never.

I welcomed the oily smells
of the greasy spoon, yellow eggs
and something to pass for meat.
I was lulled by the background chatter
of other patrons, whisk scraping bowl,
the awful in-between of a knife poised
to resize my portion of contentment.
Midbite, I sensed that descending
Blade, knew exactly where
it would sever. I lashed
the driver-sheik,
had him race that cool roadster
XKE, arriving too late.

I watched the paramedics try
to stun you back. You twisted,
jerked like a broken marionette.
"Clear!" they shouted again
and again, the only spike
when they applied the volts.
Otherwise, a flat line. You wouldn’t open
your baby blues.

They carried you on a gurney, covered you with a stiff sheet
(I grabbed your exposed toe to pray,
"God, please take me instead. He has two sons:
a daughter, another on the way."
Inadayinadayinaday),
ensconced you in that big white,
wheeled cube, screaming cherries on top.
The last hasty parade.

Once, people used to question
the tolling of the bells,
ancestors of our modern
rubber-necks, the technology changes,
sirens now, but still that morbid curiosity.

The ambulance left a pitiful wake,
flotsam, a handful of inquisitive neighbors,
your pregnant wife, the tributary
of tears I still leak when the days grow
longer every year.

I lived on, but nothing
mattered. I drank myself
insane. Maxed it out, body, mind,
waxed it old, made myself weary,
died, wanting to join you.

A new life stirred,
earsplitting to be born.

©Janet Caldwell 2002-2009