Maple Syrup

Maple Syrup

A dappled touch beneath the maples,

The flickering light caress brings

Sweet coursing through the erect trunk

As the beaming touches up and down

The standing member…

The glorious fulfillment with

Sigh of pleasure

Come.

The hardness only shelters

The soft, sugary liquid love within…

Opening…then insert…

Open more…

It pours out in spurts into the

Rounder catcher of nature’s love juice.

Then drips.

Light and heat boiling down to

Essential syrupy goodness.

ã1 September 1999, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

Nimue, the Faery-Enchantress

Nimue, the Faery-Enchantress

Quietly supportive, brooding love

She waits, presence everywhere

In shadows wafting

Aroma filling the air

He breathes… the Merlin

Seeing her there…

Enchanted, entrapped…

Unfulfilled love pair

May meet ‘neath the wings

Of the crow heir

To her love…

The cave now a lair,

The love once entombed

Now brought to bear…

As she grows

Into Nimue the fair.

ã29 July 1999, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

The F-4, Frostburg, MD

The F-4, Frostburg, MD

A tension unexplained runs through me,

As I watch the animals and birds skittering about

In a way rarely seen.

Even my dog seems to feel it…

She shakes and stays nearby.

I scan the horizon…

Towering clouds still of whites and ecrus,

But that could change in moments…

There is a calm in the air that is not calm.

I shudder.

I know what I feel…

I have lived through these storms before,

But these are the mountains,

And supposedly it doesn’t happen here.

My instincts and the dog’s say differently.

I go to prepare supplies…

Where are my loved ones?

I worry…timing is going to be close…

I check the sky again and continue to prepare.

Oh, please return home, I pray for my men.

Just as the storm begins, they return…

Quickly take these things, and let’s go to the basement—

NOW!!!

Rain is light, then it stops…

A stillness beyond still…

“Whatever is going to happen will happen now.

I love you,” I tell the guys and the dog.

The whirling, horizontal rain-wind comes

Up the hill just to one side of us…

So close…feet away…

The noise so loud,

The wind fierce and chill,

It seems forever in a few moments…

Then it’s over.

The moon comes out.

Animals begin to make noises again.

The neighbors flash lights at us, and we respond.

We are alive…alive…

Now to help all of us recover, rebuild,

And go on…

Humbler and grateful.

Now it’s a year later

And the scars of that evening linger

In our community and around us,

But we’re alive…

And still grateful…

And watching the skies.

ã2 June 1999, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

An Article in The Baltimore Sun

An Article in The Baltimore Sun

The Christmas beat and bingo,

An electrical blackout in Baltimore!

Giddily…act professional now…

All sides of the story, hear…

Remember the homeless make people uncomfortable,

And this is Christmas…

So be even-handed,

Show no priorities of morals…

That doesn’t sell papers.

ã28 December 1996, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

A Baltimore Christmas Shopper

A Baltimore Christmas Shopper

Gawd, I only have a week’s more shopping days

Until Christmas, and I’m at the mall, hon,

And the lights go out.

It’s a jungle in there, I tell ya.

Anyone could hurt me or steal

My Tickle-Me-Elmo doll, my purse,…

Maybe I could get out without paying…

Gawd, where are the lights?

A person could get hurt in here.

ã28 December 1996, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

A Baltimore Med Student

A Baltimore Med Student

Countless cups of coffee, a few pep pills, no sleep…

A few more hours and boards behind me,

I can sleep before my internship duties start again.

My sacrificed health for short-term memory

Is a good deal to be a god or demi-god, at least.

Then some bozo lights a fire in some trash,

And the electricity goes out…

WAH! Now I have to wait a few hours

To take that shit test,

And I may forget all I crammed for—

Or sleep through the whole damn thing.

I paid my dues. I did all that was asked of me.

This is the reward I get.

Great. Instead of becoming a demi-god,

I may flunk med school…

And I even have a great bedside manner, too.

ã28 December 1996, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

A Homeless Man in Baltimore

A Homeless Man in Baltimore

I used to have a home, a wife, some kids,

A job, even the occasional friend.

Then I was downsized—

A fancy word for canned…now I live from cans—

   To eat, to sleep, and tonight to stay warm.

It’s so cold in this city this winter.

God, I’m numbed out of my mind.

All I want to do is stay alive.

ã28 December 1996, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

This Patriarchal Scheme

This Patriarchal Scheme

If one person’s rights are threatened,

Then no one’s rights are safe.

The weaker ones are the first to go—

The poor, the despised, the waif…

The few will rule the many

When the Masculine rules supreme,

It is our good earth’s trauma—

This patriarchal scheme.

The spoil and ruin of treasures,

Both human and of earth,

As the unbridled, unbalanced greed and lust

Desecrate real things of worth.

ã3 December 1993, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.