In all your sage and whoop de doo
what are you burning?
Wandering through the house
like a blind person
expelling the ghosts of us
expelling the savagery
expelling the person I became
when you pushed me to my limits.
Positive energy isn’t worth shit.
Burn it down
I say.
Burn it all down.
he played his cards
so close to his vest
that the queen of hearts
burned a hole in his chest
she spent too much time
tightly lashed to the mast
on a ship of fools
borne back into the past
gambling and losing
anchored or sailing
wide-eyed and snoozing
laughing or wailing
choices
consequences
changes
now things have slowed down
rough edges smoothing
with time to look around
stronger arms for soothing
no going for broke
no hell or high water
a wheel from a spoke
fresh ink for the blotter
playing and winning
unbowed and unflinching
awake and alert
all things in ascension
decisions
outcomes
variations
(after Gaby Bedetti’s Lessons of Floracliff)
after 20 years on our farm
I recently discovered
an anchor oak in a deep hollow,
the wing span of three people
could not embrace it
we put a rope swing on a low branch
that angles out 30 feet and tips
the rising ground, we bring our grand
children here for picnic and play
and to tell them ethereal stories
i start things that never get finished
like words about mental health
and that one time you asked me
to do that one thing
and i said yes becuase
i love –
the way everything i write
tastes like shit
and all the inspiration
comes from a broken mind
i’m lying, i’m lying because
an art grad told me –
if you can come up with an excuse
why snorting cocaine & frenching your aunt
counts as “drawing,” then it is welcome.
it can be bullshit sometimes
but it’s also pretty
liberating –
he tore them stitches out
(none of this may not be true)
O what a condescending God we have!
Our simplest universe littered with falsehood
Designed to fool us if we ever tried to understand
Like poor Charles Darwin, hoodwinked
His almost perfect theory a mean joke
Played on him, played on us all
When the chemistry of amino acids is examined
We see that each one has a mirror – the left has a matching right
How many are there?
Our knowledge is narrow and shallow
We do not know
But we know that we’re made from 20
Expressed by the original 4
A, T, G, C
DNA – so incredibly simple
But the key is
They are all left-handed
Even though the 4 we use to make the 20 we are
Each has an identical twin
Everything that we call life is always all left-handed
The odds that these joined up by happenstance
In some lukewarm tidal pool excited by the storm
Is like flipping a coin and getting heads a million times in a row
We are the output
Of incredible artificially simple software
A program written to make us
And everything else
By that condescending God (to be continued)
(please respond)
at what point did it
present itself: the decision
to make the sav-a-lot cart
your mobil camper, your home
away from home.
did kroger baskets
have the more daunting
escape route?
was the target red
too much of a bullseye?
how deep into the fray,
the foraging, before
the cart plan was hatched
for a deeply un-premeditated
impoverishment? was it
a simple snatch and grab
or did you pull away smooth
having first stood in line,
a single roll of paper towels
in the entire cart in exchange
for a life savings boiled down
to .79 cents (plus tax)…
your remaining post-apocalyptical
commodities stashed safely
(you hope) past the corner,
out of sight.
was there a blood rush
when you first ran away,
the wheels wobbling / head
bobbling as you looked over
shoulder for security officers?
did you employ a steady gait?
a dead sprint? running into ruin…
do you ever stop
in contemplation, with hands
deep in the trash (the treasures
of this transient championship)
now claiming your time
to ask yourself how it all
came down to this?
did you not do everything
right / live all of life exactly
as required of you?
how infernal this fairness.
…
when all
of your contiguous
kaleidescopes are done
cascading, do the wheels
ever stop their wobble
carrying you to your next
avocational cataclysm?
I must have been about my toddler’s age in this memory:
trying to fall asleep for an afternoon nap
upstairs in the farmhouse, my mom lying
beside me, me putting my arm around
her, wanting her to stay even after I fell
asleep. She was always gone
when I woke.
My youngest child asks me
to lie with her, crying
when I don’t, and when I do
she wraps one of her small arms around
each of mine, hugging me, falling asleep,
her head propped on my torso. She
is always damp with sweat.
I remember that fear of being left
and I stay,
so many of my own early memories filtered
through an anxiety I recognize now
in that sensitivity, creativity, quickness
to tears, as I am now, always
have been.
I lie here with her, and often drift off
myself with prayers for her peace, a life
of bravery and courage, I ask
on her behalf, and sometimes
I wonder but have never asked
what my own mother prayed
for me in those moments
as she snuck out.
