apologies to m.e.
I want the skin of you
the smooth sink through
the split sweet in my mouth
I want you
down to the pip of flesh
to the heart of you
the unbreakable part
of you
you grew
(July 21, 2016)
-
for every season
by
Crepe Myrtle’s shadowsways slowly across the fence.There is time for this.(July 21, 2016) -
Reflection
by
I dislike the me I seefrom others’ conversation,from the echo checks I send,simple pings through the waters.Shallow, I know, to be soself-obsessed. Yet, to knowyourself is to know whatabsence you are not.We are all some other,even to ourselves—the not knowing becomesa line we define,the cliff edge we look frominto the distant hills.(July 21, 2016) -
One Less Filter to Intervene
by
Worn thin, I remove my glasses,and the myopic world readjusts.Clarity’s a matter of degree:step to the right,step to the left—Hokey Pokey, Hokey Pokey.She sat behind you, one row over.(You were soul mates! Truly.)She knew, but was afraid of love.You, you never knew. Hokey, Pokey.There is no sadness here,not even a cynical joke.Must everything be ironic?Yesterday, I tried to write a poemabout thinking and dreams—hokey pokey, pokey hokey.All very philosophical, yet vague,like art, and life, and laughter.As once, when late at a party, the person you came with had left without you knowing. You were exhausted from too many small conversations, too many convivial shots of bourbon, and a woman you don’t know who was sitting close to you on the couch said something deeply profound, but your cynicism missed it. Until much later, after she left, and you were still sitting there alone. Step to the left, step to the right.Or,You read a poem again, years later after never really understanding it the first time, although you always pretend that you did. You read it again, perhaps repeatedly. You see a bit of light in a line, a phrase, a word, some fissure, and you enter. The walls tight against your shoulders, the dark pulling you forward in slow pulsing throbs of fear toward the light, until you cry gasping for air. With the beauty of your comfort ripped asunder, traces of blood slip across your face.(July 19, 2016) -
Not the Promised Paradise
by
She wants something not this—the teeth grinding dreams,waking worried about work:as if she has done something wrong,not completed an unexplained task,failed to live up to the repeated lie.A snake’s hiss whispers nearby;a peach wetly ripens in the sun.He’s in the garden calling her name.(July 19, 2016) -
Four Haiku for the Buck Moon
by
We come to ourselves;patterns repeat as patterns—You, me, each our own.*And then we grow up—Almost as if we planned it:earth’s procreant urge.*I’m too drunk to thinkbeyond the now of this page—Who am I to doubt?*I desire you still,to hear your voice in laughter—to begin again.(July 18, 2016) -
Silenced
The words liein wet trenchesalong the road;I no longer knowwhat I know iswhat I know.Trust’s membrane thinsan ache alonga spent vein – –a rupture in truth,as if an aneurismblurs my vision.I am afraidto speak out loud.(July 17, 2016) -
vita
I am evaporated mista breath of dusta slough of skinI am a dry cougha mortician’s soft handthe blur of thought and sleepI am what you claimto be the partyou slice away from meI am the absencean open doorthe close of a book(July 12, 2016) -
Garden Meditation
Her roses break into my hands;the petals drift through my fingerslike stars. I don’t know where I’ve been,or why she disappeared that night:the trees danced darkly against thedarkening sky, like the troublededges of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.Each moment glistens like morningrain, the sun sliding through the drops
as we slow dance tangentially.There are no contours to divide,no green topographical mapsto consult. If I knew whereI was going – – I couldn’t be lost.Instead I am here, befuddled,as her roses tremble to earth.(July 12, 2016) -
It is Itself Enough
by
apologies to ws
no explanationsuntil later, heexplains:a differencebetween his handsheavy on my shouldernow and the ache–the moon’s crescenthere now, and Paristhen, but not himthen.the sky’s less grand,or am I smaller?wisdom was simple,or we were naïve:despite the poison,the drowning in air,the grappling panic,I am here without change;patterns are patternseven when I see them.the house across the streetgoes dark;there are no screamsleft.(July 11, 2016) -
A Part Apart
by
A story’s comfortcomes in retelling.The pattern laid outlike a blue quilt;each square tightlystitched to someoneelse’s contribution,someone’s scraps.It’s taken timeto listen close,to follow a threadfrom knot to knot;until I, too, amwoven whole.(July 9, 2016) -
Shantith, or Original Sin
“Behold the time of the Assassins.”Arthur RimbaudIt is not that stories don’t matter, but they are not justified; the margins neatly matted. Each spring, as a child, the carnival would arrive in town for the fat stock show. The kids in the local 4-H and F.F.A would compete, trying to win best of show and scholarships from the cows, pigs, sheep, and goats they had loving raised over the year for slaughter. We ignored the poison in our veins. Instead we spun, and flipped, and screamed tightly to each other on the carnival rides, held safe in our laughter. The horrors lurked somewhere else, some other state, some other country’s small town. Someone else’s children burned in the magazines stacked securely on the living room floor. From a blue sky, the sun shone brightly upon the cottonwoods in the back yard. As neighbors leaned on rakes talking quietly to each other, the sounds of lawn sprinklers spritzed through the evening air.(July 8, 2016) -
Dream Journal #30: Desire
From dreams filledwith flirtatious texts,and tentative conversationin bars and beds tangledin reconciliations,I wake into silence;the cat through a windowwatches a cardinal singon a branch out of reach.(July 4, 2016)
subtext 