One morning on a pale golden sunrise beach
my son and I came to a tiny tidal pool
full of small mollusks,
a seething wet morass of color
bubbling with their thousand tiny breaths.
The water was draining into the sand
and I thought surely it would be gone before the sea reached them again
so we ran with seething handfuls,
relinquishing the tiny creatures to the sucking tide,
wishing them a better life.
But as we did it
I wondered if it was the right thing.
After all,
who was I to think
I knew better than the ocean?
Fingers don’t forget the dance,
they just get stiff
when interpreting thought,
words waiting
to join the world.
All that is needed is there
but all that they know to do
is push buttons and see effects
in navigating the impasse.
Poetry is something,
but it doesn’t settle the storytelling itch.
If anything, it serves as a vent
for creative energies,
a place for novel ideas
to escape a day’s crush,
but a crown it does not wear.
These fingers know the truth,
the epic in the mind.
They know it only unfolds
a thousand words at a time,
so for hours they’ll pace the keyboard
building words later scrapped
for being too weak
to hold the towering dream.
The daily thousand hiding
as a dam between synapses
once used well.
They block fruition
by disguising themselves
as raw negativity.
These fingers
and the characters they give life to
cry in their stagnancy.
Idle, they become depression,
they are restelessness,
longing.
Today’s thousand,
like ants working together,
push against the trigger.
Yesterday’s thousand
pulled the hammer back
and the day before,
put gun to temple.
But the fingers fought
and brought
the mind aboard.
They saw
there is no life
without their dance
and if a few steps are out of place,
movement is movement,
they’ll be righted
when the music plays again.
And the daily thousand fell,
a thousand words hit the page,
the story started rolling again.
Today may be random luck.
Tomorrow will be dedication,
the days after, progress.
And the progress will be peacefulness.
Following the movie
She walked out onto the wet
Parking lot, dodging some puddles
Stepping in others.
The lights made lightning
Shapes in those left undisturbed.
Her shadow walked before, mocking
The movie had stumbled onto her life
She hadn’t cared for the ending.
… the kite up in the air and
once it’s there do not bring it back down
to earth.
True: earth is fragrant with lavender
and snow and speckled with the skulls
of snake and shrew and bear
the spines of spruce and willow—
and softly cups bodies after mind is silent
True: ocean is profound
and shatters under the sun and its fish
glint cerise and citrine as they part
and scatter for the ocean liners
that ride limber on waves.
True: many people pack this planet
dress sharply—their suits gleam
like sharks along the avenues
and they haul briefcases like bricks
and thin screens swirling with shapes.
But to fly
even by proxy
is more amazing
than flower and wave and flesh
seen at eye level. From above
all shakes loose
in the throes
of raven eye
and wind.
~inspired by paper collage by Lorette C. Luzajic
A once knew a young man and a woman
The woman made her living
Built her house
With foster children, two who were deaf
Ran a storefront on weekend nights
For troubled youth
And said she would slap my daughter, 4, for her “look”
The young man, bought a house near hers on the corner
And made the mistakes of asking her to keep
Her kids from riding their bikes across his lawn
And smoking a joint on his back deck
The woman and her neighbors
Harassed the young man by proxy
Calling the cops about strange smells and odd lights
Until a SWAT team showed up
He was busted for a grow light over some orchids
A kitchen scale, some sandwich baggies
and a quarter ounce of weed
He beat the rap but lost his job and his house
She stood in my living room on the night before we moved
In a beautiful paisley dress and peasant blouse
And denied it
I hate belts cuz they remind me of needles with orange caps
ain’t no trucker hat
ain’t no comin back
ain’t no more to that
floor collapsed
end of story
your life shoulda been novel
but more short story
courted morbidly
sorta orca whale in a sea
of simpletons
livin with addiction
they’d rather take your hand than lend you one
lock you up with violent types, then you one
nah then you done
when you run
strings tied from both sides
played against you
I hate to sense you
feelin so helpless
but ain’t no healin the hell that’s
inside yet so cold feelin below zero Celsius
been tryna climb out ever since you fell to the abyss
I felt the kiss of death, those cold lips
but I won’t go with
not now, it’s now or never
rock out at the beacon of forever
point a shiny spike in a rusty spoon(rusty spoon)
rest your tired head on that dusty tomb(dusty tomb)
kill yourself under this lovely Kentucky moon
death touched me too soon
locked me in the living room
I hate belts cuz they remind me of needles with orange caps
remind me when it was all about scorin a pack
fuck snortin it back, aint the same endorphins in that
compared to the mighty stab
of the shiny spike
ribs on a slab
against a grimy knife
I know you feel slimy, right?
times are frieghtening
warning signs heightening
survivin like lightning
strikin twice in the same spot
those veins not without scars
fuck packing dope into sixteen bars
got six dope fiends packed into one tiny car
remember when we used to wish upon shooting stars
now you only wish to shoot stars in your arm
point a shiny spike in a rusty spoon(rusty spoon)
rest your tired head on that dusty tomb(dusty tomb)
kill yourself under this lovely Kentucky moon
death touched me too soon
locked me in the living room
Shootin stars shootin stars shootin stars
takes you so far
so far
so far away
shootin stars shootin stars
take you so far
so far away
shootin stars
so far away
so far
away
far
away
away
