you liked to ask why
i never wrote poems
about you, and
i would say it’s because
i couldn’t put you into words
a mere mortal
i was incapable of constructing
a proper monument to my miraculous
infinite
unattainable
legendary love
with such small and
imperfect tools
but truth be told,
i don’t know shit about love
and now i can tell you
it’s because i just
didn’t
want to.
Four trees in the yard are dead from lightning strike:
a locust behind the laying house, a hackberry that shaded
the bee hive, a maple inside the border of my drive,
a tulip poplar along the fence of the weanling field –
now a bird perch which sheds its branches one-by-one.
And in the garden among the stone-berry bushes
a pine pole stands and holds the line that brings light
for the pleasure of my reading until way past dark.
Today, weeding the asparagus bed as a thunder storm
rushes in from the west, I turn in time to see the sizzle
of the wire before the tumultuous bolt of voltage
corkscrews up my spine, kicks me like a wicked kiss;
then the brutal slam, a heavy frozen fist, where even
its near miss is a direct hit, a breaker in my flow of time.
Has it really been a whole year
Since I forced myself to attend a social
When I wanted to be anything but?
I hoped to see your face and hoped you would
Give me the little nudge I needed to act
You gave me an awkward wave and nothing more
Yet now…
Has it really been a whole week
That I told you how much better off I am
With you in my life?
You nudge me when I need nudging
Avoid me when I need avoiding
I’m a temperamental little shit, yet there you are
Cool, calm and collected
Has it really been a whole day
That I told you how much I love you
How truly special you are to me?
Timing has never been my forte
Yet there you are, by my side
Being anti-social right along with me
Has it really only been an hour
Since the last damn social?
Okay, okay I’ll stop
Such sentimentality will make you blush, possibly puke
But some things need to be said
No it’s okay, I’ll go upstairs and get the nausea pills
Let me take care of you, for once
In the middle of the desert I found a well
Why it was there I couldn’t tell
The land was cracked, parched and dry
Burnt by Sol for all of time
Still there it sat, clay bricks all caked
With dried mud that slowly baked
Into brittle pieces which then would flake
Off and small confection it’d make
A bucket sat there to the side
The rope hung limply awaiting its ride
The handle was bleached nearly white
Yet something still did not seem right.
Ponderous as the world itself
A well sat here in this forsaken hell
Miles of nothing as far as I could see
I had walked here to die peacefully
Curious I must peer down its maw
Greeted by a black hole inviting fall
The coin that I carried i deposited in
And realized not wishing would be a sin
So I wished for all to be right
The hurt, the pain, the day, the night
The loves I gave and also denied
The forgiveness of those to whom I lied
I listened to hear it tink tink tink
Ricocheting walls before it’d sink
Into waters that barely *plinked*
Dropped into oblivion all I could think
And now that bucket seemed to loom
Beckoning me to fill it soon
I’m not sure why but I decided then
That maybe it was not now the end
The handle offered barely a creak
Turned on wooden spits that speak
Whispers so soft to nothing but wind
As I cranked it over and over again
Minutes turned to days without a single sunset
My arms grew tired enticing me to forget
Why I sought the waters below
Heat and doubt are terrible foes
And the moment when I could turn no more
I felt that bucket hit a watered floor
Ten times as heavy now pulling it up
Ten times as long before I’d see the cup
I’m not sure what makes us go on when we cant
But I know I didn’t stop or recant
My wishes I offered so long ago
Nor my shoulder from turning to row
Time flew slowly to a halt
When that bucket peeked past that dot
Of inky black as it emerged
It’s contents upon my head I purged
The joy that’s found when so little is left
When heartache has left your soul bereft
Something so small as water on skin
Forgives a myriad of all our sins
I dropped that bucket and sat beside
The well in the middle of nowhere
For a million reasons then I cried
None of which seemed fair.
– After an NPR interview with the author of Smile Stealers
I don’t believe we are dead
but there is anonymity to our dreams,
like the dead, like spirits fleeing
the body, each visitation
a careful return — broken in pieces,
an examination of individual parts (some
bearing delayed response, some) stiffened
by rigor mortis, cold to the touch, the face
concealed until all else can be
considered.
I cannot believe we are dead,
so I set aside the work of the physician,
(of the Head), so far removed (from the Hand),
from the surgeon, shouldering the shudder
and what lies beneath formality and a sheet,
a thousand tiny incisions/the crackling of structure
to discover what might remain, meticulously
weighing __the tissues__
lost to disease, to entropy,
to time.
This is not an autopsy; we are not dead.
Dreams shiver depths far deeper
than memory. But the Head remains
covered in quietus, quieted by
the Work.
In this way, I can pretend
to understand how
the soul can wander
testing mortality and what
yet remains.
How many times have you let me down?
My memory is hazy
From all the times you threw me on the ground
Your character is shady
Telling me you love me when you’re never around
Think I never learn?
It’s only your books I burn
I see a fool crying cause they lost their turn
And you were fucking crazy
Kicking and screaming
Yelling, “you’ll never leave me!”
Fostering dependency since infancy
I hate the way you look at me
Obstructing what I’m trying to see
A heart and soul full of empathy
But time has proven the inconsistancy
You’re careless and empty
Deadly
I’m in a recording studio with my niece, Natalie (who’s only three years younger than me), and she’s made a video with Miley Cyrus that will play on a college campus-vision channel. She hits the “Submit” button and it goes live, so she asks me to check it out on the way to class. I walk through the hallways (I’m back in college, I guess, and I wonder how many classes I’ve missed) and I stop at a video with a “Disney Channel” bug in the bottom right corner. It’s showing a mash-up of Ren & Stimpy cartoons and music videos. I grab someone over and say, “My niece made that!” and they shake me off, moving back on their path.
I get to class and I’m in my old room at my dad’s house (before he died and we had to give it back to the bank, I guess). I’m with some friends, but can’t remember who, and my pocket buzzes. My phone has a notification and the app is something I’ve never seen before. I read this message before waking up:
YOU HAVE SINNED ?
for clare
i loved to fish. it was akin to church and prayer when i was little.
(In that most gauzy age, when you are tenuous but invincible)
monsters under the bed and imaginary friends were freshly dead
but cutoffs, county fairs and the accidental brush from a cute boys hand
were just being born.
i stood, on a rocking dock
bugs like a cello
the green-black membrane surface seemed itself alive (and almost unpierceable).
i heard the stories. i knew about the town submerged down there.
thriving with algae. gar in and out of broken windows. rotted but alive.
i cast my lure to the magic places my eyes ached to see,
and retrieved from its solemn depths on the end of my line
a shimmering, writhing, gasping glimpse of mystery and hope.
Anna
After David Hernandez’s “Lisa”
The back of my hand knows the scar
on your knee like I know the back of my hand,
who’s traced and kneaded and sanded it
without ever smoothing it out completely.
I can hear the scream of the field,
the drama of a live ball, cleats chugging,
scratch of body against painted dirt,
and the base that didn’t break away;
ligaments wriggling loose like innards
of a busted home run ball. Adrenaline
carries you to your feet before you realize
the leg won’t hold. Again, bodydirtscrape.
This is the part I don’t like, and why I’ve
kissed the raised earth of it so – I’m
nowhere to be found, somewhere even
younger and more aloof and helpless.
I want to be the base that gives, lets you slide.
I want to be the lightning wingspan calling safe!
I want to wave you home, crowd the plate,
collide with you, leave a dust storm in our wake.
