In Her 91st Year,
Transcribed by her son, Stephen Vincent
January
January will open the horrible threat.
February will break off a few of the wicked.
March the winds will blow and frighten everybody.
April will break my heart.
May will come whisking through.
June is hard to decipher.
July will never stop to say hello.
August is jolly and happy for people like me.
September is hard to take.
October is full of joy for very few.
November marks the worst that could ever come.
December for many it’s love and joy
But not for me.
(March 31. 2006)
Brother
A brother in spirit is always there.
Generally he has something to say
Which is quite all right.
Other times he’s a horse
His feet are big & noisy
There is nothing you can do
To calm him down
Cause there he is
And there he will be
And when he is no longer there
We will feel sad about that, too.
Father
He is better here than gone.
But he’s hard to handle
At any end of the switch:
We would rather he be here
Than he be gone:
And a life without a brother
Is hard to visualize:
I have been thinking about
The brother because he’s closely
Tied to my life
And my father just disappeared
Off the face of the earth
Because he found other places to park
While we were left moaning in the dark.
Mother
Mother is the easiest to get rid of:
You just shove here and push there
And hope someone will be at the other end
To pick up the pieces.
Omaha?
I have never been to Omaha.
Is that Omaha, Nevada?
That could never be.
Omaha, Nevada is about as
Interesting as a flea.
If you go there and stop
You are going to be bit a lot
And it won’t be fun, maybe sad
But that’s life, so don’t be mad.
New York?
You want to go to New York?
What do you want to do there?
Stick up your nose
Or hold up your ass
And wonder what in the world
Has made you so crass?
Miami?
Have you been to Miami
In the hard light of day?
Have there been signs around
That urge you to stay?
It’s hard to know why
But the West is
so ingrained with you now:
You can’t take up with strangers
You got to keep going
And never go slow
It’s no place to dream
Or pretend you know why
It’s not where your heart
Happens to lie.
Ninety
It all depends on where you are
And what you want to be.
Mostly people get pretty wound up
And ready to take off
But there are lines ahead of them.
They are not really lines
But indications of experience
That might be quite interesting
For those in line behind them.
“I guess you are still in line,” I joke with her.
Yes, I guess you can say that!
Blackberry, Blackberry
Blackberry, Blackberry
Tell me a story
When to begin
And where to go in:
Blackberry, blackberry
What are you doing?
Are you waiting in the corner
In the shade of the moon?
You and I know
That life is short
We don’t want to waste our time
One or the other on a broken heart:
Blackberry, blackberry
It’s just as hard
For that blackberry
To find his place to be
Loved and hated in the world about:
Blackberry, blackberry
Some of us are too full of words
The words that keep us from saying
What’s wanted to be said:
Blackberry, blackberry
Full and juicy
Just like the thing we like
Most about the kitchen
But it’s hard forever for these things
To come out in words
That are natural
That are not like we want them to be said
But there they are
And what are we want to do?
Blackberry, blackberry
Come look at my heart
It’s bleeding, it’s hating
And nothing seems to stop
Are you so unable
To stop by this corner
To tell me a thing or to:
Blackberry, blackberry
Let me go to sleep in your heart
You may have found a secret
You did not know
But then again your days
May just be unfolding
To find the outside world
That tells you that you may not have
The things you want:
Blackberry, blackberry
Tell me your tales
I have shouted my story
And there’s nothing left:
Blackberry, blackberry
Give me your heel
I will roast it for supper
I will make the story clear:
Blackberry, blackberry
Tell the world about
Tales still out there
To find and to be told.
___________________________________________________________
Stephen Vincent, poet, blogger, essayist, and artist, lives in San Francisco. Barbara Moore Vincent’s poems and the contexts in which they were written are from “Art, Poetry & Dementia: Conversations with My Mother in Her 10th Decade,” an extended essay in progress. Vincent’s most recent book is After Language / Letters to Jack Spicer (BlazeVox,Publishers, 2012). His mother, 96 years old, is still with us; although she still listens to poems, the making of new poems now eludes her.
Wonderful. I can hear her voice in each line. Thank you, Stephen – and Susan.
Thanks, Stephen.