Sandpoint, Seattle - Photo by Eskimo

THREE POEMS BY MARILYNN FUQUA

Derelicts
(a person or thing abandoned as worthless.)
~ by Marilynn Fuqua

There they lie anchored…
side-by-side
row-upon-row
stretching…far into the distance
a ghostly stillness
permeates the thick grey fog
it gives me shivers
the hairs on my arms
under layers of clothes
are standing at attention
these huge hulks
retired battleships
all but forgotten
in this eerie graveyard
in the cold grey waters
of Carquinez Bay
they remind me
of the homeless
the unfortunate humans
no longer counted
no longer acknowledged
barely cared for
pushed back
out-of-sight
so we don’t see
their grey dismal lives
their eerie graveyard
full of shelters
and soup kitchens
and hand-me-down clothes
once they mattered
now they are discarded
relegated to the shadows
pushed as far away as possible
from the glitz and glamour
of our new government
…run by the rich
…run for the rich
…run into the ground by the rich
move over…
make room…
our new government
has sold us out…
…our savings
…our jobs
…our lives
our new government
no longer cares…
only the rich will survive
we will just be added
to the never-ending lines
waiting…
in a cold grey dismal fog
…for someone to remember us
…for someone to save us
…for someone to care
about America.

It's not about you
It's not about me 
It's the collective we
you know
us
humans
the species
It's about the species
and its legacy
to the universe
if it is a universe
maybe the universe
is really just a graveyard
of abandoned dead Earths
unable to sustain life
in any form
destroyed by abuse and war
arrogance and neglect
greed and power
pinned by gravity 
into declining orbits
around the sun
each rotation pulling them in
warming them up
for eons and eons
until they're sucked back
into the furnace of the sun
and God gets a "do-over"
again.



Fireflies and Fairies
			
Fireflies and fairies
sparkly, light breathless things 
that are supposed to dance 
through your dreams
have never danced through mine.

Since childhood my dreams
have been chock full 
of Snydley Whiplash 
who has had me tied to a log
going through a sawmill…
or tied me to a railroad track
with a train steaming towards me
……. at full blast.

I was weaned on a mattress 
in the back of my family's 
Chevy station wagon
fed buckets of salty buttery popcorn 
that were washed down 
by twenty-eight flavors of Nesbitt's soda 
at scary run-down edge-of-town 
dollar-a-car drive-in movies
nightmares were a guarantee.

I was taught to live
with an open mind, 
open arms and open eyes
to scream with both delight and fright
to cry from joy as well as pain
I was taught to live 
while still alive
and not act like I'm dead 
before I die.


Copyright Marilynn Fuqua