Glitter Tree Milestones (poem) by Odin Roark on AuthorsDen

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Glitter Tree Milestones
by Odin Roark
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Rated "PG13" by the Author.

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Recent poems by Odin Roark
•  Finding Home
•  Dying Alive
•  Showerhead Liberation
•  Doors and Entrances
•  Mind's Labor Camps
•  Funhouse Distortion
•  Rust-framed Reflections
•  Cobblestones Gasping
•  Age
•  Poem as Surrogate
•  Colorless Tears
•  Scar-like Healings
•  Scattered Ash
•  Malignant Avarice
           >> View all 476

Do we all create a "Glitter Tree" life until we don't? Perhaps it's inevitable, given the aspirations we are conditioned to work for.

Glitter Tree Milestones

SCRAPBOOK FIRSTS

A Teddy Bear propped atop the crib's corner
a bell beneath its neck
silent
that's fine
I just realized I can see

No discomfort yet

Learning's first skirmish begins
the blanket's got my back
the rubber sheet's got my blanket
just lie and wait
soon mobiles dazzle my eyes
excitement sends my legs kicking
spillways' open
wow
Mommy says that's okay
I just discovered I exist

FIRST XMAS

I sit beneath a green triangle
strange creatures circle the bottom
high above
pointy triangles twinkle
colors blink at me
curling around the tree
coiling in and out of prickly things
globs of white fluff softening the glare
funny
my nose tells me this lit-up green thing should be outside

What do I know
I just learned to crawl

BIRTHDAY 5

Teaching me
I'm important
‘cause kids give me presents
just like Santa Claus
be good
maybe get more
planting my own tree
what do I know
I'm just learning to party

LOWER SCHOOL

To be or not to be

School yard bully

Chalkboard genius

Teachers soft
Oh so soft
Sending entitlement askew

HIGHER SCHOOL

Frat life

Suds life

Study life

Suffer life

GRADUATION

Gifted new car
congratulations
one
two
three girls
future nights
travelling decorations now

FIRST JOB

Brooks Brothers pledge
button down promises
watercooler lessons
grab ass slight of hand
all part of Tree's irrigation

That's fine

I learned well

I'm a career man now

FIRST WIFE

Draped in luxury
first child
staring blankly
even as I position his own Teddy Bear

FIRST FAMILY XMAS

Tinsel climbs to the top where
five point light touches ceiling
lights coil about the vortex
ever squeezing tree's life
childhood's white cotton fluff
now but gooey flock
hardened to rock
smothering prickly defense

Once of Nature
now synthetic
less time for yesterday's real
that's fine
I'm a family man
a man of responsibility

MARKET CRASHES

Wife
Son
House
Gone

EAST VILLAGE BAR

Hunched over Jack
permanent crippled scrawny tree atop TV
ragged angel leaning sideways
every-day-of-the-year Xmas repeats
glitter time always there
happy hour always same
guaranteed

Feet no longer kick
nothing's got my back
spillways can't open
can't pee
can't cry
dam about to burst

SLEEPLESS DREAMS

I coulda' been a ...
but a tree started growing
tinsel
flock
lights
glitter
each year bigger
touchy feely creatures at the base
wood
plastic
metal
marble soldiers

SOMEONE ONCE TAUGHT ME

Teddy's bell would ring

Mobile's precarious balance would remain real

The star
haloed angel
bright luminance
now an abandoned lighthouse
guidance amiss
fog enveloped waves tossing everything
against cliffs rising
pushing upwards
reaching precipices anew
seducing
always seducing
readying edges

My legs

My balance

Falling

Where's my Teddy

My blanky

My...

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Reviewed by Diana Legun	10/1/2012

This poignant piece is actually a sweeping saga for me. Somehow it brought to mind the motion picture "Up." The accelerated flip-book of a life splaying out in chonological pages beginning with joy and zest for adventure, evolving into depletion, ending on the rise from the place of depletion. Sometimes, as you illustrate, the story ends at the depletion mark. "nothing's got my back' are a gasping four words, Odin. Your poetry reads like paintings about which I can pour over and respect even the 'gasp' they bring. ~~ Diana




Reviewed by Asa Seeley	9/17/2012

when one is 'conditioned' for 'glitter' and teddy bears...how hard it is to stand...without them. almost makes one feel that those whose 'beginnings' are the complete opposite...are the blessed ones. thanks for share asa




Reviewed by John Flanagan	9/13/2012

in this personal evaluation i sense underlying disappointment at almost every turn, the 'where's the dream' i was promised and told to go after; in the context, Teddy is more than apt, comfort and consolation and innocence thwarted from the heart, Odin john




Reviewed by Ronald Hull	9/13/2012

A life in the life of… Very interesting. A bit early for Christmas, but most interesting. Ron




Reviewed by richard cederberg	9/13/2012

I know that you are gifted with metaphors, Odinsan. I choose, though, to see this the way it played out in my heart. For me you have composed a dolorous auto-biographical piece. A careful cathartic that touches on very specific occurrences that left scars, continuing curiosities, and unquenchable yearnings. I can relate!!!!! We will never change the system-machine that thunders forward, crushing, destroying, and forever changing, everything and everyone. we are all victims of what man has created and the relentless force of entropy. Well done poet!




Reviewed by Roger Wayne Eberle	9/13/2012

What happens when the glitter loses its glamour? I think that if more people treated every day as Christmas, in the trues sense of that all-too-gaudy tree of a noun, then the world would be a much better place. Love and understanding... if the money spent on the military machine was channeled into enhancing love and understanding, pretty soon the militants would be rendered obsolete, and the hawks would be hawked for spare change. (but what a change that would be!) Roger

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