melissaahowells


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o The Petty Player Who Rarely Sleeps

o I'd Like A Taste (The Wolf Said)

o The Crow Is A Black Bird

o When I Start to Bloom

o I'd Like To Be Your Shirt (when you wake up in the morning)



o All Beings Considered

o Words Between Edward And Jane

o Nothing's Sadder Than A Rose

o The Great Tsunami Of Our Growing Grief written 3/2.2021--retitled 3/14/2021

o After Wide Sargasso Sea ( For Those of You Readers Who Have Empathy For the First Mrs. Rochester.)

o WAITING ON THE WORLD (March/February 2021 poetry)

o Wild and Unraveling

o What Must Be

o These Hands Exist July 4 2023 rei-edited 7/12/2023

o I Am The Color Of Black

o The Tide of Your Lies (2019-2023)

o How I Wanted Your Pearls 6/24/2023 WRITTEN DIRECTLY TO THE PAGE

o Love Wants What Love Wants re-edited 5/31/023

o Winter's Been Too Long.... 4/18/2023 (LONGING)

o The Dreaming Life ( A Series Of Dream Vignettes)

o Like A Small Street Dog Lured In By The Promise Of Meat

o This Is What Mermaids Dream Of

o At Night, As I Dream of Vampires Who Have No Bad Intentions

o And You Will Be Called Ashes As You Leave ( from a dream)

o Certainly No Bread 3/16/2022

o Someone Send Out A Search Party

o THE FAN , AT NIGHT, GIVES GOOD ADVICE completely re-edited, an entirely different poem

o What Is The Price For Your Touch? re-editied 5/31/2023

o Where Is My Bed With The Pleasing Tree -Lined View(NOW REEDITED)

o Oh What Fine Physics (Before Me ,Lies) re-edtited @4/17/2023

o If Prejudice Were Dumb And Could Not Speak

o THE COMPANY THAT WE KEEP WITH THE ONE WITHIN



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It is hard to loose a parent (at any age)

it was an odyssey of sorts

the long haul from Dakota to
Colorado
for my Grandmother's funeral

we took the El Dorado
and drove it like a first class
hotel

parked it roadside the first night
along a Wyoming highway
and woke the next morning surrounded
by fog and prong horn antelope

I was 20 years old
barely knew my Father
but on this trip
we would get to know one another

driving fast through the edges of Boulder
the Flat Irons made a strong impression
with their mountain rapids rushing along side the road
and the giant green lillipads large enough
for Godzilla to hopscotch across

on campus
my Father pointed out
all the buildings, sights,
the married housing
where I was conceived
the office where he and his brother worked
the mountainous area where they discovered
the infamous uranium ore deposits

we leave after visiting
an old friend , Mr. Lou Canaro,
the newspaper man,
we examine all of his old vintage
penny mechanical bank collection
and exchange rarified pleasantries
from their mutually shared past
I think Lou and Dad must've been
like adopted Father and Son
at one time

upon arriving in Pueblo
we're beaten and dusty from
from our 1,000 plus mile journey yet
I am amazed at the number of our relations
1st and now 2nd  and even 3rd cousins,
Uncles, Aunts and Great  and Grand relations...
seem to have gathered like large cotton ball mows
from everywhere in the country
I try to remember their names but its an impossibility

I am the only child representing my family as
my parents are recently divorced

As we get closer to the funeral
lots of confusion ensues,
emotions ran high among closer girl cousins about
who was going to wear what dress
on the day of the funeral

in the corner I our Grandpa cried so
hard I didn't know if he'd fall to pieces
so I let him talk as much as he needed to
about Grandma and their lifetime of bumming
together since they were teenage lovers

it did him and me a lot of good
I sat in front of him on the ground
and put my hand on his
I don't know my cousins or family
yet I did my best

Father was entrusted with the eulogy
and he looked overwhelmed...before we left for our
trip he was in treatment sober,
now, I didn't think it would last
it could see the threads of him fraying

the funeral service was simple
the music, familiar, comforting
but odd how one cousin kissed Grandma on the lips

the girl cousins who fought about the dresses
now sat strangely quiet prim restrained

the church was full of people
people standing in the back
my Father shook as he spoke
I wore a dress I pulled from a dumpster at home
its wrinkled but I liked it when I found it
because of its sweetheart 1940's neckline and the red hearts
sprinkled across the rayon fabric.
I also wear Grandma's girlhood shoes and red short gloves.
I didn't feel Aunt Johanna take my hand at first because of them.
But she gave me a real squeeze.

soon everyone piled in to the hearse
to go to the wake at 444 Goodnight.
mentally I note my Grandparents address.
Good Night.
my cousins single file into the car
in one long sad procession.

I feel something big welling up inside me. I look for my Dad
at the graveside. I say..."Daddy." And he was right there.
This was the first time we have experienced death together.
Without thinking, we reach for one another. We hold on for a long time.
Then I realized it was very quiet. No one was there but us. So, I ask him,
"Are you going to be alright, Dad?" He answers..."Some day soon, I will."

Don't know if I believed him then or now.
But...
I understood what he meant. It was hard to loose a parent.
At any age. I told him I loved him. Maybe it was the first I
ever said it. Maybe it was the first time he heard me. Maybe
it even sunk in.


I found this written in 1984/ I have done a bit of editing here...
otherwise entered as found....Copy written summer of 1984/However, my Grandmother died
the summer of 1981 in August.

All Rights Are Reserved By This Author
All poetry/prose/rants/ideas are the sole legal property of this Writer,
Melissa A Howells/Meloo straight from her Tilt-a-World


This is in honor of my Grandparents Howells
and my Pop-pop.





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