Tsunami City
Storm waves are
Crashing up off the harbor
onto the balcony.
As close as I dare, I step
to the edge to look –
A ship that size has never been so close and
I’ve never seen this water look so
Deep and deeply blue.
My keys are in my hand, and a bag, some papers, a photo,
but I can’t grab everything fast enough –
Surf is rolling in and the harbor’s now the sea –
And it’s all getting ruined.
Time to move. Time to run.
-Kathleen C Cooper, November 2, 2013
When I dream of being other people
When I am other people in my dreams
It’s usually ominous, augural
Like the time I dreamt I couldn’t walk and found out
The next day that she
Got a diagnosis of ms –
multiple sclerosis – parading, coursing over her nerves and muscles.
A terrifying dream of getting beat up, or threatened,
Was remembered the next afternoon during a telephone chat
While he
waited for a bus
And he started yelling and cursing – warning someone to ‘back off, man!’
My heart was stopped, and panicking
I begged him to get away-
To call for the police.
Or the time
I dreamt of my teeth
Becoming like wood
Peeling and starting to crack like old shutters or window frames
At an old beach cottage
I looked it up in a dream dictionary
And learned that some Hispanic peoples
Consider problematic teeth dreams to indicate
That a loved one is not well
And then that day she
Fell
And gashed her head – her ancient and solid head full of nearly all its teeth –
The concussion was making her vomit.
That’s why I was startled when I saw you today.
Kathleen C Cooper October 8, 2013
Running
I ran into my day today
Out of bed on two feet and down the steps to sugary cereal and hours of tv cartoons
I ran into my day today
Quickly to bus stop grabbing at my things and hoping it was all there
I ran into my day today
Across the room to silence the offending alarm after a long long night of books and beer
I ran into my day today
Unwillingly pulled from a dream by my beautiful crying baby
I ran into my day today
Into a daily routine of loving and watching
coaxing urging praising feeding nagging supplying
I ran into my day today
And there was nothing there
I ran into my day today
One foot in front of the other watching the bricks and pavement go by
I ran into my day today
Nov 20 2009
ok i get it…hardly any of my friends want to set up an account (yet another username and password, ugh) to view this blog even though they say…”send me a link”. so now it’s public and anyone can view it. here we go.
a weld puddle or weld pool is the molten metal produced where and when the weld is being made. it’s mesmerizing…it’s where it’s all happening.
“Laundry List”
Piles of clean clothes
dirty clothes
white clothes
(grey from not using bleach clothes)
colored clothes
wet clothes
dog-haired and dusty from being on the floor clothes
Clean them Dry them Dump
them on my bed
Sort them
My clothes His clothes
their clothes
hang-up clothes
drawer clothes
underwear socks linens for the closet making
piles and finally delivering
put mine away
put some of his away
put all of theirs in a basket and
dump it in their
room
on the floor
Someday they’ll decide
to fold their own clothes
but now they can practice
just making piles
underwear socks shirts and sheets
and pants and pajamas
and then just stuff it all in
their drawers
or walk on them for a few days.
(Kathleen C Cooper, March 12 1993)
Kathleen C Cooper.
treatment/window/of opportunity (2012)
Welded steel and copper wire.
This is the time of year when the starlings flock.
I can’t help but inspire deeply and quickly
with quickened heart, and smile
when they are wakening in the morning,
firing from their eaves
or whatever lodgings they’d been hiding in,
waiting to ambush our very existence at first light
loudly – insistently – rousing each other and
anyone lucky enough to have an open window, able to enjoy the event with
a morning coffee.
But I love it best when
starlings flock at dusk,
when the crescent moon reclines and
the sky comes into lavender blue perfection – the hue
of periwinkles and heliotropes.
Singing, they flock and gather… a blanket of dreams o’er a cloth of day’s tales,
a thrilling signal that all should hurry
home for nightfall –
hurry home to loved ones and favorite places.
Evening, now, goodnight.
-kathleen c cooper. october 1, 2012
