blue skies poetry

Every time the nurse calls a name, his mother,
with great difficulty, gets up,
“Hurry,” she says in a shaky voice,
“Or we’ll miss our turn.” He looks up from his book.
“It’s not you, sit down mom,” he says flatly,
and then repeats it yelling.
She is hard of hearing.

He is a son with white hair and the need of a cane.
She gets up. He yells. She gets up. He yells.
This goes on for an hour. His patience
is older than their combined ages, and there is deep love.
“It’s not you, sit down mom,” he yells.

When they finally do call her name,
she is asleep. She looks as if she died waiting.
He ever so gently wakes her up and guides her
towards the inevitable, the inevitable for everyone.
“Is it time for lunch?” She asks.
“Soon.” He answers.

All the way down the hallway to the
examination room, she jabbers about food,
what she wants for lunch.
Lucky for her, she still has an appetite.

He is not afraid of death,
still he worries that he will die first.

~ Jo-Ann Godfrey

Jo-Ann Godfrey is a Canadian citizen but she was born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, and educated at the University of Alberta. Her poetry has been published in TickleAce, Pottersfield Portfolio, Zygote, The Amethyst Review and others. She has been part of the Stroll of Poets Society since 1994, served on the board as vice-president and as a sales representative for the anthology. Presently she is trying to find a home for her poetry collection entitled, “From Beyond The Mood Wheel.”

Filed under: Jo-Ann Godfrey by akublik Date 26 August, 2010
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My mother, who has been a widow for a year now,
can’t remember because of old age. She is mad
about that because, “it is so annoying,” she whines.
I have never been able to remember at any age.

“You have to help me,” I say, “Remember
where we parked, level three, on the right hand
side, in the corner.” We both become silent
for a while, imprinting it on our minds, but
when we return, three hours later, we still
get out on the wrong floor. We joke about that.
We talk to the people on the elevator about
how we goofed again. We all giggle until it brings
tears to our eyes. “We’re so lost,” we say.

“I can get lost in my own house,” my mother claims
as if it was something to brag about. She is
laughing when she says it. Now I know we have
to find a washroom before we can drive.

“I like your turle brooch,” a lady says to me,
and we all break into hysterical laughter.
Sometimes it seems like that’s all you can do
to deal with it all, break loose and explode.
Laughter works every time. Now we’re home
and at the moment, we don’t feel very lost at all.
That’s in the past some time, we can’t
quite remember when.

~ Jo-Ann Godfrey

Jo-Ann Godfrey is a Canadian citizen but she was born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, and educated at the University of Alberta. Her poetry has been published in TickleAce, Pottersfield Portfolio, Zygote, The Amethyst Review and others. She has been part of the Stroll of Poets Society since 1994, served on the board as vice-president and as a sales representative for the anthology. Presently she is trying to find a home for her poetry collection entitled, “From Beyond The Mood Wheel.”

Filed under: Jo-Ann Godfrey by akublik Date 23 August, 2010
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Leddy Headbutter –
named after his colour
and head-butting habit:
I’ve finished cruising. Wake up.
You can pet me, feed me now.

a gray stray who cried
for days before we found him
trapped by a wasp nest
under the back yard driveway
now strides across his yard

marble grey
with bright slit green eyes –
how could he not look
like he just swallowed
Plato’s cave canary?

He found that dry place
when the wasps were asleep –
took refuge from a storm.
Woke up to a paper gray
brain blocking his exit.

What is this humming
thing thinking Mmmmm,
he must have thought.
Face swollen from stings,
he earned his blue caterwaul.

My wife got stung twice
hauling his skinny ass out
of there. Now he sleeps
under the tarp covering
his yard furniture.

So much for
the retinal circus
playing against blue sky.
This ain’t T.V., baby.
There is no remote.

Richard Stevenson

Richard Stevenson teaches at Lethbridge College in southern Alberta. His most recent collection, his first collection of tanka and kyoka, Windfall Apples, has just been published by Athabasca University Press. Other recent collections include Wiser Pills (Frontenac House), Tidings of Magpies (Spotted Cow Press), and The Emerald Hour (Ekstasis Editions), all published in 2008.

Filed under: Richard Stevenson by akublik Date 19 August, 2010
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