Posts for June 18, 2017 (page 4)

I caught myself thinking
“why do we even have
a father’s or a mother’s day?
when did the government decide to step in
and make sure we remember fathers and mothers?
I dont need no government all up in my…”

and I had to stop and laugh
‘cus that’s probably what you’d be thinking Dad
I live on my own now
but for some reason with each passing day
I become more and more like you
the good and the bad

hell even the way our lives panned out is kinda similar
you wanted my story to be different, to be a happier one
and it is, in the fine details
but the archetypes, the tropes, the themes still remain
I only wonder
will I be like you Dad?
gone through two divorces three marriages
having three kids three step kids
driving a truck a car a van a car an suv and right back to a car again
going from a starter home to on the street living on friends couches to a small apartment to a small starter home to a bigger home where grandkids could one day roam
with an ocean of knowledge; about architecture, building with your bare hands and your brain.
with a world weariness, for in your youth you joined the army and did things you still cannot speak of
with a quiet kind of discipline, for all it took was one look from you and I knew to behave
with a rockstar humor, a rough-around-the-edges wit, and a way with people that meant you never met a stranger

What am I gonna do
if and when I have a son of my own
and he looks up at me
and with my father’s grin, says
” I wanna be like you Dad”

i exist, squinting
at god’s divinity through
sweat & blood & a bruised
soul, so forgive me this attempt
at cumbersome rememberance.

you see, i was braised
in western fires / in selfish
ways / obeying gods
so heavy with fundamental
happiness that they
knew not how to laugh…

so what need i of robes
of white & streets of gold
in that pale definition
of heaven?
and what wants a man
with so many voiceless
virgins if his life lived
was one of virtue?

tell me / mr. televangelist,
why not is the esoteric
also everlasting? wait,
don’t answer… for the riddle
has already wilted and 
my spirit has fasted long
enough on generic faiths.

Life is the Orchid in Direct Sunlight              

        “The very things that make you live are killing you.”
                                             –        Ray LaMontagne

                         “I’ll put/ words in jars like bugs/ to see if they’ll fight.”
                                                                     –         Bernie DeVille

What if we stopped—

For just a moment.  Just a fragment, of celeritous fraction, of an instant?

What if we halted

this procession, this parade, this sharp charade of genuflection

and worldly sight?

What if we spread our thoughts like blankets on the grass
to catch the awkward skies of radiance falling, in our laps?

                                              ***

If there was a balm in Gilead, I would rend it from the wood,
would tap the seeping flow from nails, to know; to really know

but not to pry it from his hands, oh, no.  For nothing ventured,
nothing gained.  Nothing lost, and nothing named.  The cure is

but the stain that gives the heartwood deepest, darkest roots:  That pain
provides the beauty–not the healing, not the meaning, knowledge gleaning

“sacrifice of self reveals the self.”
                                                                ***

Give me charity and vice! A thousand trials!  I’ll pierce my flesh
with needles of this life, that life would gather them, like scattered shells,
 
like abalone shells along a string, these salty bodies strung with gut
and service to a world and to the Self and to experience beyond the joys

of lighter, brighter
days of empty mirth.    

                                                                                      ***

The leaves within the trees are rustling—whispering—speaking—
the breeze becoming prologue to a storm.  I’m here.  I’m waiting—

I’ve shed my shirt like serpent’s sheathe; my skin, like loamy soil.
You gathering clouds, you darkened heights, bring cleansing, stinging

Truth!  We are not bodies bearing souls; we’re spirit, part and whole,
strewn like stars; the freckled nights and birth-marked wights

of countless lives.  This mortal shell is but the earth and rock and dust,
the memory of all that’s gone before, of forest growth and forest floor!

Come Storm!  Come frightful flash, come rumbling roar!  Descend
and lay your vigil to the side; Forget that wrath-borne duty, dear,

don’t hide!  Your wings were made for action; your intellect and gift
for clashing swords—for iron against the iron, for throwing sparks

like spears from heaven in the distant dark!  I want your light.  I want your Truth.
I want to drown in every driving drop, to feel the gash that cuts through flesh

and grinds the bone to artist’s throne.  I’m here.  I’m ever here.
Awaiting home.

                                                                                    ***

What if we stopped—

What if we waited?

What if we opened and were opening
the wonders of a universe beyond our deepest fears?

What if we spread ourselves, like vivisected urns, like vesseled mouths
beneath a sea of greater winds and fiery rain?

like lotus blooms in lunar gardens
asking not, but wanting all

that we might know

that life was sewn in orchids
born to die?

days slipping  
one into another
sell the farm
go on the road 
just you and the cat

today i’m here for the little girls
and the grown-ass women
who never had a Daddy
and never needed one.
i’m here for the bad bitches
with loud voices
refusing to be silenced.
the ones who might’ve been princesses
heaven forbid. confined to fancy balls
and kitchens and the beauty parlors
of the patriarchy.
if only Daddy had been around
to oversee things properly.
i’m one of those women

brought up by women
who brought home the bacon
and fried it up
and saved the grease for hard times.
the man i never called Daddy,

brought me a present once.
a cabbage patch doll
missing her adoption papers
and the bottom half of a bright green glass bottle of Mountain Dew
and a single Reese’s Cup. 
while i was getting dressed up
like a curly headed, itty bitty,
blonde, porcelain doll,
he got hungry along the way. 

you bred me without
this frown without these
scales i scurry in without
these voices im caught between

yet you still lift me
as im limp in your
brain as my anemic
screams stifle inside
of you

a loose screw a
forgotten vital i was
raised to be yours yet
i slashed your mind

im an aneurysm
ready to dishevel

that face you make,
the way your fingers wait,
the tone you create,
the strings just as tightly wound around my neck,
your force on the faucet,
– cathartic release.

Springs of time loosen, you slide
through the dream membrane  

hurl of winter wind in trees
at the edge of a trail, a cave  

ice blossoms embedded in rock
arc pools of light  

a scarf of live salamanders lines a door
only your voice will unlock  

your life peels back
in one long hush                                  

~ Found poem composed/modified from words in the poem “Almost Ghazal with Thoughts Toward Spring” by Patricia Fargnoli

Today
there
will be
no
epiph-
anies,
no
con-
clusions
drawn,
there
will be
no
sudden
clarity,
and
Araby
will 
remain
Araby,
the dead
will
remain
dead,
and 
the 
living
will go
on
just as 
before.

I won’t call
or write. Again. 
I won’t post
or share or like
anything
for you
in public
or private. Again.
The last time
we spoke,
you dangled
yourself a carrot:
“I know I’ve never
been the greatest dad,”
waiting​ for me 
to disagree.
Tell you what,
I’ll go ahead
and let you be
right.