The Holding Tank
by Janet I. Buck
All the glitter, red and green.
Color clashes brutally
against these walls of vivid gray,
the soft chenille of death
arriving in its given time.
A nursing home needs Christmas most,
but all the toys and posters seem
like fallen flags in battles lost.
This is mortal's holding tank.
Grief is septic, then ignored.
Love shouldn't be a sport to quit
from stinging marbles of the rain.
A group of buzzing carolers
surround a bed and close their eyes --
crickets under wooden decks
singing of the summer lost.
Life itself is now a fist on punching bags.
Nurses wear their angel pins
on collars greased
with wishing someone's family
would waltz the empty corridors --
huddle close on frozen bleachers,
attend the closing of the game.
Reaching for that miracle,
the brush does not believe the paint.
A habitat of agony to decorate
with tinsel threads since stars
have flatly disappeared.
Hairs are thick with winter ice.
Distance rubs the darkness in.
In lieu of idle mistletoe,
perhaps a hand, an olive branch
that says: "I stand beside you now --
I'll walk the water to the sea."
Janet Buck is a five-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four
collections of poetry. In 2003, her work is scheduled to appear in Zuzu's
Petals Quarterly, Recursive Angel, Moondance, The Montserrat Review,
and dozens of journals world-wide.
Note: Featured
author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The
Orphan", "Caught
in Lesser Tragedies", "The
Broken Promise", "The
Gargoyle", "The
Going", "The
Bag Lady", "Rushing
Toward Entelechy", "The
Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen
Sonnets", "New
York, New York", "Live
on CNN", "America
Under Siege", "Gutter
Balls"
Links: Hot Links:
Janet I. Buck, Janet's
Latest Interview, Desideratum's
Doggie Dish, Author's Den,
Active Amp.org—Features
Janet I. Buck, Poetry
Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The
Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San
Francisco Salvo, Moongate:
Janet I. Buck, Offcourse,
The October
Country , Cafe
Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga
Square, The
Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com,
Funky Dog Publishing—Janet
Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens
Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One
World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil:
Issue 9 September 2000