Skip to main content

Grandma's Puzzles

White boxes, three of them
Now four. Back to three. Up to five and
Down again. Frustration sets in. Face gets hot

“Damn Rubik’s cube,” I say.

The living room is full of family
Full of death

My uncle sits across from grandpa, their both
Stout and have big lips just like mine
Uncle Stan’s eyebrows are ruffled, muttering
Humorously. Wooden puzzle pieces won’t fit
Together for him.

“Where’s my saw at there carpenter?”
He says towards his cowboy boot, feather
Earring wearing, dark skinned, thirty year old
Indian looking son.

We laugh, puzzles unsolved, pieces
Jumbled on top of each other – Pushed aside.

Cowboy Indian, shooting to be a genius plays
Pegs, trying to jump down to one.

“Got down to three – It says that's average.” He reads
Indian lips trying to kiss the ceiling.

We laugh, puzzles unsolved, pieces
Jumbled on top of each other – Pushed aside.

Grandpa’s puzzles not in his hands
Stares off somewhere, wheezes through
The cancer hole in his neck. His face wrinkled
Looks hot, eyes, glossy and old.

He doesn’t speak. He cannot speak and
Wouldn’t speak if he could.
Grandma’s heart stopped last Wednesday.
Grandpa’s heart broke last Wednesday.
We stop.

Rubik’s cube sporadic, wooden puzzle pieces scattered,
And three pegs left on the board

No more laughter, just this blood
Pulsing silence in our ears and Grandpas
Silent weeping fill the living room

Grandmas living room full of death
Unfinished stacks of cross word puzzles
Sit along side Grandmas recliner veiled
With an unfinished quilt for a family member

Nobody knows who.

Grandma left puzzles for us all…

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Recent Development

If you were a dandelion flower how would you wilt? like all the rest? Fragile and weak, lost in these words A confusing prison mistaken for freedom Quick sex of spring brings freedom To these shivering acres of flowers dribble their seed on concrete prison floors. Caught in the wind, they'll wilt And wallow, with hard worthless words Stuck in a structure so fragile What feeds this pitiful fragile Growth? A sad hope towards freedom Where no one rules but your words? Has no one told you? You're a flower. Beautiful but brief. You'll wilt Like the rest. A cycle, called prison! We'll live and die in this prison. Together, inseparable and fragile Til the end. Here's where souls wilt Into each other. Passing this freedom Onto the next bright yellow flower They'll scoff at the seeds of our words Begging and searching for the right words, They'll whore themselves out for a prison Wet with dew, sprouting a different flower. The soil's all the same. Give into fragi...

Letter

Representative Murkowski, Greetings from Juneau, Alaska! This is Forest Kvasnikoff. I am a young, lifetime, resident of Alaska, and I am writing you to ask for your continued support and championing of Senate Bill 1756. As you may know, in the month of April the University of Alaska Southeast in conjunction with the Hiroshima Peace Museum, the Marshallese government, The Leighty Foundation, Juneau People For Peace, Juneau World Affairs, Juneau Veterans For Peace, and a Seattle based educational program called Voices in Wartime, all worked together to sponsor and put on a Nuclear Awareness Conference. There were speakers throughout the United States including: Victoria Samson, a ballistic missile specialist; Andrew Himes, Voices in Wartime promoter; and Shegeko Sasamori, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and currently a California resident. In addition to these speakers, were guests and powerful speakers on behalf of the Marshallese people: Mayor James Matayoshi, Lijion Eknilang, and ...

The Thunder of David #68: In the Fifth Tone

No longer let our voices fall to a whispering march of death. Jam your baritones and inflections through songs for a god gone dead Make the earth shudder under your footsteps as you let the wind take the pages like a flickering flame Make your presence known through the howling sleet and rain - scream in the faces of distorted kings, spit on their robes and shit in their eyes Cast your fury like the waves and witness the smoke of god vanish in the shadow of a cat, feast upon the words that wither like the grass Smear the self indulgent prophets in sweat and mud, drown the child of the Euphrates and piss on his holy stone Go horse in your burning wrath, sodomize wretched Isaiah, suffocate him in the wallowing tears of Job, let the blood of your hatred flow like wine Drink of your consummate supplication steeped in rage and disgust. Let it sustain you to shake the pillars and columns of his temple to the ground Dictate your commands and bask in the boundless power your existence brings t...