LOVE STAYS
A book of poetrizmsPaige Ponder Monaghan
[cover photo was supposed to post here among other places. I shall learn how to do this one day?]
My grandparents, Jabez Mann Ponder and
Mary Ella (Nelson) Ponder - Point Clear, Alabama
Ponder Publishing Company LLC © 2003
Poetrizm One:
--
Ode To Uncle Jack
Paige Ponder Monaghan, 22 Jan. 2011, 7:25 am
Bet you would not have dreamed it ever,
would you, Uncle Jack?
How so many of us would gather together
wishing we had you back?
Guess you would not have guessed it would you
all those stories we remembered…?
of all the fun and love you gave us
from your good long life of so many Septembers
We talked of all your antics and strengths
SO many that is true!
We laughed about your games and all your nicknames…
and a couple o’ your transgressions too.
There is so much love in this house for you
I cry but I shall NOT remain blue
because
I know what I know of Love is this:
We have all been so blessed by you.
Thank you for all the cherished good times.
Thank you for all the fish.
Thanks for being my Uncle Jack and
for granting my every wish.
Now rest in Peace, good man, our beloved,
we know you will always be here
your smile, your laughs, your tears and your presence
You will always be with us, my dear…
Oh so near! Thank Good Heavens Oh So Near.
We LOVE YOU!!!
--thanks for my nickname:
Pooh
--
Funky Hats and Silly Shoes
Paige Ponder 1989
Funky hats and Silly Shoes
I wear them when I have the blues and
when I do not I wear them still
not to be a spectacle
just serving my will
I cannot help but wear silly shoes
and such hats as
what else is worth keeping
‘sides Love and alley cats?
A Mother says
your smile does not cost a dime and
I say
nor did this Funky Hat or
silly pair of shoes of mine.
--
I Live in My Own
13 April 1998, Monday 2:12 am, Paige Ponder
It’s been said I live in
My own Private Idaho.
Yes, it is so
there’s a place I go
a place made for me where ONLY I know
it is enchanting there
SAFE
with neither friend nor foe…
So I say to my friend,
“Well, perhaps I do, and
it might behoove you to find
your own Private Idaho, too.”
A place you design, where only you go?
So easy to LOVE others when
best
Yourself you know.
--
KnowHowToDoWhatWhen
Paige Ponder Monaghan
What I need in a man is
savoir-faire
know how to do what when
and where
I need him to go
to a place inside of me
I cannot reach alone,
and for he?
to take me
to the place in him
he does not know exists
beyond his moans
a smile is waiting there: Savoir-faire
[I waited long enough and I found it]!
Wooohooooo, worth the wait!
---
On Poems
A poem
is not always meant
to rock your world in some way.
Sometimes a poem only wants
to give you a lil’ moment,
not to consume your entire day!
Paige P. Monaghan, 16 January2008 one rainy morning
nonetheless...
---
Trace of a Weekend Home from College
Paige Ponder 1985
it is Friday i am four hours from Grandma Lalla’s house balanced meals are a daily thing here
like hamn'limabeansgreen beans’n a sweeeeeeet potato
that made one of my socks fall down
[photo of family at table here]
dozens of feet have rested under her table and
for dessert this meal Iiiii get to cut with a knife meticulously carve the blood red strawberries, as instructed the smell of them makes my gills tingle
Hungry Youth!
as I sliced my grandmother sprinkled raw cane sugar over the fleshy insides
the noon-sun forced the sugar to squeeze red juice from the strawberries where they soaked in the window sill while we ate dinner at noon
at just the right time I slid a spoon over the top of a block of Rich and Creamy French Vanilla
the ice cream curled into a sphere taunting in the scoop spoon it was the same color as her antique dessert dishes
the same color as her skin her skin
[photo here]
and the strawberries oh yes the strawberries ready i poured them over the cream
they will cling
strawberries will to ice cream
attaching red jellied bits of themselves
in streaks as they slither down to rest
as gracefully
as a sssssnnnaaaake
like grandparents I thought Grace Full Grandmother wore no-iron slacks and dainty
summer blouses she smelled of Lily of the Valley
to my Grandfather she whispered one day
You don’t ever tell me I look nice
then turning to address me she added
If I wear a pretty new dress and ask him how I look
he says you look awwlriiight with a wink toward me but she raises one brow to me and I know what she is saying i have heard it a thousand times
they’re all cut off the same bolt of cloth
he overhearing her as she intended so he tries humor as a compliment
You MUST look good or I’d have run you off long ago and with that they both wink at me
his clownish tone makes us laugh
she grins like Katharine Hepburn grins at Spencer Tracey in the movies
she beams
as if her comments were rather to brag about how he is to dote on him however incorrigible she is proud enough to report his antics with loving chagrin
every one knows how much he really loves her
[photo here]
my Mother is at a conference this weekend
in our home where youth was molded
mine my brother’s and so many others
I sat by the closet of my old room my room still
pulling down crates of things college left behind concert ticket stubs letter-sweaters report cards and scrap books Love letters family Photos elementary school pen-pal correspondence galore tiny wicker boxes jars of pens pencils tiny protractors and a compass
all manner of baggage to be thrown away one day
after hours of traveling through boxes in a closet
I walked up the hill to my paternal grandparent’s house again
we share afternoon coffee instead of earl grey in the South if you please even in July
he makes the best coffee in the world she says to me beaming from her ritual quiet-hour after lunch reading she has a stack of books nearby always
what a pleasant way for a day great uncles great aunts great everything gathered there
my own wicked self there a teenager ready for a cup of coffee
we didn’t come to drink the coffee so much as to gather around It
Her Table as one does a fireplace a Hearth
after the cup the greats dispersed
my Grandfather with his cane went to his tin-roofed shed to fix the neighbor kid’s broken Big Wheel we ladies lingered with our feet propped on the table
when I was young she’d say
and the images poured
such as when she and Leslie Allen
now a retired chauffeur
got tickled in church when they were kids
he laughed so hard, he started kicking his feet in the pew then one of his shoes flew off and hit somebody she said
others of his color hung from oaks for less this was IS unimaginable to me of course but I know it is true and it hurts I love Mr. Leslie.
I told her of my travels school boys
then she said you know Paige I enjoy our talks
my Mother and I used to do the same thing when I was your age
we paused thinking our own thoughts
her Mother had died of Pneumonia so young
I feel I could not live without mine
so much to feel in a weekend.
that evening I visited my Mother’s Mother
Gasque Lee we call her Grandma Boots
she was a widow all my life blonde and arthritic she was decorated by then with large
aesthetically placed moles a broken hip she cannot walk in our visits so we talk
watch Lawrence Whelk we Laugh and laugh and laugh at each other she has such a soft contagious laugh between a giggle and a grin
she wiggles her toes like tiny bubbles her dance
a music lover naturally she liked to dance she was a splendid piano player studied classical music before marrying Colonel William Bibb Irby the grandfather I never knew so she let me read his letters
[photo here of Boots with son SWI]
she says sometimes I dream I am dancing, then
I wake and cannot even walk I try to get up but my legs won’t move
as if to excuse herself
I do not need an excuse just my Grandma Boots as is
it hurts to leave her like her legs must hurt but different
I refill her ice water make sure a banana is by her bed
when I leave she insists I take money
I do not think I need any…later today my old friend Nolan is to visit ; he will not linger long he knows my grandfather and I are going fishing at dawn
These are the days that DON’T try men’s souls
we’re going to Aunt Florence’s pond
where I caught the biggest catfish ever to grow thiiiis big I say, and here is my proof shown
[photo here of Hil and I with the catfish]
my grandfather and I dig our wigglers fresh before fishing we have a special place for Valuable
well-kept worms
he brings a pitchfork and a sawed-off milk carton every time
I scrape a layer of skin off the dirt exposing an explosion of wigglers then he plucks worms from the yucky black dirt dowsed with melon rinds and turnip peelings potato vines and whatever else is unappealing except to worms I guess
he grabs the yellow-jelly-filled writhing spirals we uncover as to spindle on our hooks
[photo called: he baits my hook for me always]
the size of diamondbacks we boast of our wigglers
we count out loud 10 11 12. up to 105 worms numbered one by one as we drop them in the milk carton with ample ambient dirt to keep them alive till we kill them
what I know about love some I learned in one day is this inadvertently I with my pitchfork dirt at my command jabbed that rusted pitchfork through the palm of his hand I screeeeamed
panic-filled I must have looked like Edgar’s ghost but he smiled wrapped his blood in his kerchief REPEATING didn’t hurt buddy it didn’t hurt see
now that the blood was covered he showed me his hand where I couldn’t see the holes I just put in it
and said I love you the most it’s a game we play No I love you the most
No got you first I love you the most all in fun
and so we went fishing
he never mentioned his hand again
it healed but I didn’t
that is love expressed again
in a fishing trip at dawn
Love in baiting my hook all morning long
there is love in frying for lunch those fish
there is love in shucking corn together as a side dish
but in a flash the weekend is over and tomorrow
I’ll be gone not too far ever …
[photo here of Papa baiting my hook at dawn]
[photo of Jabez Mann Ponder, Jr., and III, respectively fishing in Mexico]
--
Preacher Man
26 March 1998, ppm
preacher man says he can take my blues away
but nobody knows how the demons play shop
in my head
my friends say I’m going crazy yet
they beg Pleeeeease take my along
but truth is I just get lazy when
the days are passing long
see nobody knows inside the way we feel
nobody casts my line and
I draw in a slooooow slow reel
because I’ve been kind to be stomped on harder ‘cause of it
still every day has its appeal
so I say preacher man you not getting my blues today
instead I’z going outside to play
--
Ode to Every Dayz
when did I start not stopping to watch
the hummingbirds at the feeders?
…and since I greet the dawn each day anyway
when did it become just greeting the dawn
my way?
I sense something then…
it MUST be time to sleep in…
until
I can appreciate the dawn again!
ppm 17 September 2008
---
Grandchild’s Lament
written on a plane back to SLC, Utah, after leaving my Grandmother’s funeral
The last bit of her leftover hand cream has long soaked in to my skin
each time it is harder and harder to
shake out what is left of her Corn Silk
face powder to dab on to my own face
each day her memory is clearer
her tenor laugh rings louder in my head
but I do not smell the coffee she is brewing for us and though she was old and everyone said it was a blessing it does not help so many months later
and it seems all the stores should be closed
because the earth shall never be the same
[photo here...]
Photo taken and developed by Paige Ponder for Photo Journalism Class, Auburn University, 1987 or 88 “Grandma Lalla” Mary Ella (Nelson) Ponder
--
To be loved, be loveable
early February 1998, Paige Ponder
The Snake has all the lines and
he will test you that is true
but when you side-snag his lip in your line
He won’t shake off -- have to use your shoe.
By now the Snake has done his time
but it bugs you that he’s blue?
Well, honey, what you care ‘bout Snakes?
Does the Snake’s poison
feel good to you?
You know he’s playing with your time
and your time’s for searching truth
but when that Snake casts his filament line
you know he throws it right for you
you hear what he wants you to hear
you do what he tells you to do
‘cause those big black eyes cast a spell
of iron that no little girl can undo
but a lady has the mind
to stop the games so oft
being played by a fool.
--
Ever since…always
Paige Ponder Monaghan, 21 may 08
the world it does not make sense
to me
until I have had time alone
Life comes in terrible stints for me
until I have had time alone
It is futile to try being otherwise
until I have had time alone
even then my time can go un-utilized
sans my solitary stints alone
more difficult to play and seize the day
until I have had time alone
the world it does not make sense
to me
until I have had time alone
until I have had time alone
my brain won’t stay sane
my heart won’t bear pain
my soul won’t relish a good needed rain
until I have had time alone alone
it is harder to see
all the ones who surround me
with love that flows as deep as
blood and bone
still
the world it does not make sense
to me
until I have had time alone
it is all I have ever known ever since… always. Hmmmm...
--
Song for Summer Solstice 2010
Paige Ponder Monaghan
Well I don’t have time for a shower today /
As for sprucing, primping / not so much /
Have the same 24-hours as everyone does /
But I don’t seem to have their … touch.
Oh how I admire my friends so much.
But admittedly it is a dream casting chronos with my baby
For shore no one could call us lazy we run the rivers and laugh
Play toss in the streams we stomp in the puddles and
Paint ourselves in the construction of ours dreams!
Papa’s house is being built near ours… he is SO, right on,
on our team
So close to us how grateful can we be
Building this Castle of her dreams
Where memories are made and candy eaten freely / grandparents have the means
To show how to know how Love is eternal, forever fresh and so clean
Oh parents, yes, we are on the same team /
Yet only a grandparent / knows how to sew up any seam.
--
Lady
sometime before February 1998, pp
I don’t think you’re ready
for a Lady like me
I am calm; I am wild;
I am bonded; I am free
Most of what I’m made of
the eyes cannot see
I don’t think you’re ready
for a Lady like me.
I am here and I’m there
scattered everywhere
…following my heart
“taking leap after leap in the dark”
No, I don’t think you’re ready
for a Lady like me.
--
HE
Paige Ponder Monaghan
13 August 1998
I thought I would know
what Love would mean
when the Knight rode in
wearing details of my dreams
I thought I would know
what I in you have seen
but at once when I saw you
Life surpassed my dreams…
they got sweeter, meatier!
for in Life I may hold you
although gently
more than less
had I have known you were so
dashing, strapping
I could have skipped all the rest:
[the relationships
with arguments
amid periodic complacency]
I recognize you grow in you
an oak around an iron fence
I thought I would know
until I saw you hugged you smelled you, better than cedar
and as it goes with Truth I recognized you. Thank Heavens!!!
and now soon it is October and
we grow in a familiar mystery
the bounty of infinity …a slice, a sway, a certainty
like a tree and the sun who grow and roll respectively
as I go from now on
may I know more more more…
more of thee
my beloved, is he.
--
poems to be continued...
Next poem here…
