MICHAEL A. GRIFFITH - POEMS

Michael A. Griffith began writing poetry to help his mind and spirit stay healthy as he recovered from a life-changing injury and its resulting disability. His poems, essays, and non-fiction articles have appeared in many print and online publications and anthologies. He resides and teaches near Princeton, NJ. His first book of poetry is slated to appear later this year.

---

Parsley
​

​The herb's own greenness,
its firm texture and feel,
peppery-sweet taste and sharp smell
all take me back to my great-grandfather
and to my first true home.
 
Pappy's yard garden,
brick-lined and mostly flowers,
held remnants of his life as a farmer:
tomatoes, onion sets, five stalks of corn,
and the parsley that grew beyond the brick borders.
 
I could play with his tulips and zinnia,
but had to respect the “crops” he was growing,
for they meant work and tending,
a level of care reserved for
Depression-survivor menus.
 
As I learned to write in lower-case
and to color between the lines,
I learned to pinch off beetles
and how much water was too-much water,
that tomatoes like heat, onions like cool.
 
And after Pappy died,
still Abraham Lincoln tall and dark,
I tended that garden until I left for college.
Came home and it was a ruin,
but his parsley grows in that yard still.
 
 
 
 

Double Helix
​

​Sometimes I forget
how I am remembered by you
 
then I become too familiar
by trying to get too close.
 
But we are close,
close as two blood cells -
 
A B Positive.
 
Close as chromosomes
we are etched on each other,
 
shared DNA
strained.
 
 
I
apple
     not far
        from
      you
tree
 
 
Are we:
contemptuous of the familiar,
tempted by it,
frightened of it,
jealous of those more close?
 
 
 
 

The air crumbles
​

as he closes the office door.

Turning, he pins you
like a butterfly to velvet.

His voice the only soft thing about him;
his cologne a sharp sting of spice.

If he were your husband, it would be no worse;
you are the target, the trophy, a conquest too easy.

Helpless, your voice to protest lost
in his power, his very destruction of the air.

Slow spider approach; he draws near.
Strokes, strokes your hair, then holds you there.


The kiss, lingering as chilled honey, just as thick.
A whisper, then a murmur; a promise, then the thrust.


You are his today, and you will be again, again,
until you become
                             
                                                                                              unpinned.
​

A Snowy Man
​

​A snowy man walked into town.

With him, a lynx, a badger, and a tall bull elk.

His pipe was always lit,
fragrant cherry clouds following him and his friends.

The elk drew the most attention, as the badger was smallish
and the lynx was a mistress to hidden places.

The man never gave his name,
but he also never challenged questions put to him.
He was able to answer you without answers,
and you'd leave him, fulfilled with some truth or other,
of your making or his.

His smile was as warm as his pipe.
His eyes had the spark of the bowl,
but were as black as the brier.

The snowy man stayed a day shy of a week.

And as he left deep past midnight
on that sixth day,
a warm spell came through and
robins, ivy, and cherry blossoms
were all seen that next week.

We don't know the way he left -
no tracks of lynx, badger, elk, or man were ever found.
 
 
 

Embarrassed or Ashamed?
​

​Consider the difference
between the words naked and nude,
or rock and stone,
the professor says.
or, for that matter, hug and embrace.
 
Pens and pencils move,
but not all of them writing.
Minds are moving, too;
not all of them considering.
 
My mind moves to you, naked and nude,
and then I remember the rock
                     (Or was it a stone?)
that cleaved my head when I was 10
                                                      
The solid crack of pain,
the blood in my eyes –
 
A boy whose name I don't remember
threw that rock like a deadly Frisbee
and his teasing stopped
once he saw my blood.
 
All his stuttered apologies
lost within my mother's stony embrace.
 
My mind moves to you. I think of your hug,
as I think of you nude, not naked.
An ache, not a pain.
 
I embrace you after I hug you,
after I am made naked before you.
 
Embarrassed or ashamed?
 
The professor is still talking.