Single Again

Before you remarried.

Before he was Dad and just Archie.

When you were widowed.

I was six -- chicken legs

and summer barefoot -- watching

through the knotted fence.

The neighbor boys -- half naked

and burnt -- battled like sperm

for a spot in the pool.

Water sparked like a scalpel

and the splashing drowned out

AM pop pouring through the radio.

I didn't scream when the nail

pierced my foot. Not until I felt

the warm and saw the blood.

A candy ribbon of crimson

drip to a gush and

spread at my foot.

Cousin Cathy carried me home --

a limp Orphan Andy yelping for mother.

They took me to the hospital and waited.

You were at the races

winning laughs and kisses

from your future husband.

And waited because they couldn't find

you. Then patched me up with string

and strawberry ice cream.

The next day -- chicken legs

and summer bandage -- I watched

you from the porch.

A Jackie O in oversized

sunglasses scrubbing blood -- thick

as menstruation -- from the sidewalk.

A matron on hands and knees.

Sweat dribbling from your forehead.

When you were single again.

poem and photo copyright Robert P. Langdon

Check out my other website of photographs

Check out my other website of photographs updated on a regular basis.

http://robertplangdon.blogspot.com/

The past is hunting me.

The past is hunting me.

Blooms in my old room

like a snail.

It leaves cum smears

on the mattress.

Feasts on fallen

lint from my navel.

Redecorates and makes use

of every stained corner.

It follows me to work

like a ratted dog.

Plops itself at my

desk and answers

the phone. Lapps

at the ear piece

and gobbles the wax

I left behind. Digests

slow allowing for time

to become familiar.

Its presence here makes

me uneasy. The gilded horses

in my stomach prance

up and down up

and down (an E ticket

ride) as the slide

show in my head

introduces the next freak.

The music they play here

is frightening.

Poem and photo copyright Robert P. Langdon

Malled

The Disney dream is a lie. Bambi has been rewritten.

No longer is it the danger of flames and firearms. It's crossing

a four lane highway and being trapped against a median.

A warm blood Flower streaked by the wipers of a Humvee.

The roads are littered with animal parts

scattered like pummeled puzzle pieces.

Turkey vultures claim their day—an overkill of death—

their feathers defying the cars zipping by.

Displaced crows pepper the sky above Walmart

soaring around the naked tree branches or

feeding off discarded fast-food French fries.

Their guttural caws—thick with resignation—trumpet the air.

Woodland creatures claim a piece of their space
that has been replaced with snow-specked cement,
white-washed fences and air-pumped Christmas
decorations big as the SUV sentries standing guard.

We have raped the land. Stolen the forest
and rebuilt it with doors and bay windows.

We have given the mountains a mastectomy.

Condos and spoiled children sprout up like mushrooms.

Fungus much too wild, too rich, and much too toxic to the touch.

poem and photo copyright Robert P. Langdon

Alone Still

Four years ago you left.

Tossed me aside like a Sweet Tart

when your tainted mouth craved mint.

A part of me died when you said

"You can't give me what I need."

Once you liked sucking sours.

You snacked on Jackie Collins like a bored

housewife licking up the trash

dialogue as if it were sweet cream.

I recited Anne Sexton across the New Jersey Bell.

"Too depressing," you said.

You always liked cheap words.

On Fridays we romanced with pot,

take-out and sitcoms.

Lucy and Ethel made us wilt in laughter

like a wax tulip on a hot Connecticut day.

Our very own coushioned rut.

Once you liked that Lazy Boy.

On Saturdays we went to garage sales.

I pouted outside. You returned

beaming like a nipple toting mismatched dinnerware

that belonged to someone dead.

"Something for my hope chest."

You always liked a good bargain.

A lifetime later and I sit in this darkened

theater ignoring the sun like a roach.

I think of Lucy, her mouth pregnant with chocolate,

and I cry remembering I'm alone still and that

once you liked my smile.

poem and photo copyright Robert P. Langdon

Venison

I didn't hunt that weekend.

I stayed home with the girls and rolled cookie dough.

My father came back with a deer blasted from the woods

and tied to the roof of his Chevelle like a Christmas tree.

The neighborhood men rushed over to gauge

the size of his kill. Most of their homes

have something dead hanging on the walls.

They carried the deer on their shoulders in victory

and hung it by the rear hooves from the backyard elm.

They circled. Arms crossed in judgment.

"What a beaut," they said. "What a rack," they said,

caressing the antlers and petting the pelt as if it were alive

and obedient at the foot of their armchair.

They slit the animal from throat to crotch.

Blood emptied with a rush.

Intestines unwound to the ground.

He plunged his arm deep into the animal, pulled out

the liver still warm and full of bile. "We can eat that.

The other guts can be used as fertilizer."

They took turns pulling off the skin

--stripped from the animal like contact paper--

and carved the meat into chunks.

After the deer had been packaged and frozen, and the organs

decomposed in the garden--I once again protested, "I am not eating

that deer," as brown meat and onions were spooned onto my plate.

"It's steak," he grumbled, grabbing himself a heaping helping.

Over dessert he announced with a sly smirk, "You just ate deer."

I left the table and vomited in the garden.

Next year's tomatoes will be nourished by bile and shame.

They'll have a deep blush.

They'll be irresistible to pluck.

And gulp down like a man.

poem and photo copyright Robert P. Langdon

Photographs

As an adolescent I would finger

the belongings my sister left

behind. Boxes brimmed to their

corrugated edges with photo albums.

110mm memories mounted on crusted

adhesive. Snapshots of Teddy

and Gary basking like beefsteak

on the flat rocks that line the Delaware

River. Their eyes weighted with weed.

15 years and 3,000 miles later,

I return to find my own photos

niched next to the crates of Christmas

ornaments. Forgotten like a bastard boy.

Their plastic pages protect memories

of dally days--Judy and Rose, eyes

and smirks stewed with Smirnoff, slump

on the couch, beer bottles high

in salute. Rose is not wearing underwear.

Her denimed crotch is damp.

In the family room, my parents,

like beacons, watch made-for-TV

movies and cooking shows. On the wall

hangs a photograph of me at 12 years old.

Plump cheeks and tired eyes.

Confused smile and simple stare.

Captured like the other

ghosts in the attic.

poem and photo copyright Robert P. Langdon