MISSING MESSAGES
by David Ryan Palmer
The White Letters
Dearest son,
I hope this letter finds you well. I have not seen your address since the accident, but my friends here have interesting ways of knowing things. I was not sure I would like the white, but once I realized that I was not looking anymore, I became used to it. I have found that I can become used to anything.
I do miss your father, but my new friends here told me that he has his own friends, now. They tell me that he is still looking, and so is not used to his new color. I do not have much time to think about him, and they discourage me. Instead, I write to you, my own darling son.
Are you still seeing that man? Even as most mothers want to become grandmothers, and I know I harped on that so much in the past, my new friends have told me that more children are not always the answer. They discourage me here, too. Grandchildren without a grandmother are not grandchildren, they say. They discourage everyone here from asking for grandchildren. My new friends do not think it is worth the effort, any longer.
Do you still have that calendar I gave to you? You should mark December, any day in December. The day itself does not matter, only that you come. Bring your man – my new friends would like to meet him! They would like to meet everyone, even if when they meet them, they do not much like their color. Like with your father.
Oh, there I go again. It is a bad habit, dear, dwelling on the past. My new friends tell me about the future, about December. Remember, my son, and come to us in December. The end of the year was always my favorite time. I only regret that my new friends here are not overly fond of New Year parades.
They do not see the point. But for me, I do not see. I became used to it.
Love in eternity,
Mother
Ink Heavy Dawn Clouds
It is ebony black.
If you ink heavy clouds
your other senses report in:
smooth and cool, soft, with
raised goose down as I explore.
Some would come to this land
seeking conquest.
A quickening wind, waves
which signal codes,
followed by a low tone
it escapes, rolls down
smooth and cool wonder
alights on waiting ears.
Conquest means different things.
This land responds to my touch.
It is red orange.
If you stay up all night
your sanity’s reports will garble:
first, a crawling sky blushes,
renewed and flush as a lover.
Some would come to the sky
seeking answers.
A quick open panic
the deep sky
spreading through as a warm drug.
It overtakes, swells up
a crawling worried wonder.
Your hand covers mine.
Answers mean different things.
This sky awakens to our touch.
Hungry Moon
In school, they encouraged them to shoot for the moon.
The engineers, who never really worked in metaphor,
sent men atop redirected violence and hit lunar paydirt.
They found grey dust and craters full of void.
Three years later they stopped going,
left the lunar scape littered with metals and patriotism.
In school, they encouraged them to shoot for the moon.
The poets, whose skill at metaphor increased with age
sent words out into the negative between mother and child.
Curious, the moon drifted close to look,
and in looking found it wanted.
In wanting, it found hunger, too.
They found meaning in phases and cycles,
cause poets will find meaning in all places.
They didn’t expect meaning to find them.
In school, they encouraged them to shoot for the moon.
And landing there, the poets and engineers did not guess
That the moon would come for them.
The moon found red movement and green silence,
it cast a metaphor about its marble blue neighborhood,
a mind woken by the feet of ants on its skin.
In school, they encouraged them to shoot for the moon.
The military opened up more constructed explosions,
this time in dense packages to the silver lunar soil.
And all the explosions of the engineers
and all the maneuvers of the military
may have scarred the lunar surface, still it came.
In school, they encouraged them to shoot for the moon.
But when the moon rose last the only thing left
were rust and wilt and young dead words.
About the Author:
David Ryan Palmer is a graduate student pursuing his Masters of Arts at McNeese State University in Southwest Louisiana. He spends too much time on Youtube, and just enough time petting his two cats, Quinn and Foster, and not enough time petting his fiance, Michelle.