Posts for June 10, 2018 (page 6)

She was so unsure of herself that she never learned to drive.
After a while she was too embarrassed to ask. 
She had just the right amount of confidence to take the bus. 
She attended a ten week course to become a dental hygienist 
She got perfect,  porcelain teeth- just like her parents. 
It was on the bus that she saw
the ad for the course,  now that you mention it. 
 Her Co -worker texted to say, “Have you ever been to the desert?”
There was so much promise and possibility in those few words. 

What she didn’t say was she had been looking her whole life 
For porcelain veneers and garages, comfort. 
All the while, ALSO searching for a spiritual experience. 
A true one. So,  yes,She did want to go up to the canyon this weekend

While there she had a vision , 
A vision on the true sense of the word-
Of a white deer. 
She said to the deer,  “An answer is not
the same thing as a solution, is it? “
And the deer said,
 “I don’t know. I don’t have the language for this. 
I’m a fucking Deer. “
“Donald Trump is President now”
“are you really surprised,  though? ” said the deer. 
“Are you really surprised by anything anymore? “
“Back to reality”  she thought. 
Whatever that means. 
One day instagram will be deleted. 
Then she won’t be a model. 
But right now she’s posting 
A pic of the desert sunset. 
And the canyon makes her think 
Of crashing meteorites ending dinosaurs 
And giant ground sloths 
But she posts anyway. 

anybody who has ever sat under a white tent ducking the sun
knows how little the people who attend arts festivals are willing to spend
and how much easier it might be to sell loaded nachos for a five
and to what extent art is useful to a group of people showing off
their bike gear and boyfriends.
only visit peddlers who pull the curtains down all the way round
who sit out front with a sign “CLOSED TODAY. THE END.”
(it’s not really the end they just need love and attention)
like everybody else, they’re just weird about it.
your pit bull rescue makes them very nervous
one time they got their leg thoroughly licked
for coming out from behind the counter and smiling at you
because you noticed a tiny speck of Tyrian Plum on a postage stamp
and then stepped next door to grab a beer

I’ll call you pagan
cannibal bosom friend
spouse heathen
Prince of Wales

bound by the monkey rope
I’d sink and drown with you

search me with your
harpoon scepter and find
lodged deep in my breast
your small innocent idol

Downtown
at Triangle Park
beyond the bronze horses
under the trees, someone
is still sleeping.

Behind the library,
a threesome sits in the parking lot
facing each other,
a dog snuggled
on a lap.

In front of the Pam Miller Art Center,
a man is lying on the steel bench.
I don’t notice his friend
as I rush past,
trying not to notice.

Out of the corner of my eye,
I look for the usual cluster
standing by the library,
waiting for the door
to open.

Steel rebar and urban infill
attend our walk to the farmer’s market.
Two giant cranes hover above
still decked with Christmas trees,
a snowman.

In June, street folks mushroom.

Your voice takes over mine

When I read poetry,
it is your voice I hear
as each word passes my eyes.

On long syllable words,
your voice hesitates
and mine takes over,

but when your voice
takes control again,
it whispers, sexy

as though
into a lover’s ear
on a dark night.

The final line,
surprisedly, is read
like the gentle rhythm

of rain
on a green,
metal roof.

Thanks for sharing pictures of 
places I don’t know
knowledge that there’s more than this,
places I could go

As If

if i had the nonchalance of
these field sparrows calling,
i might brave the throaty opening
to the creek
for a better look at
the tattered green heron,
who poses the blatant equation 
of sky and land, like it was
ever a question.

In the windowless room she laid. 

Distant gaze into blank wall
Her dark eyes spoke it all. 

Solitary tear appeared upon wrinkled face
Wiped away with trembling hand

Smileing she recollected

Walking to barn in darkness 
Milk pail clanging. 

Tripping over the cats
Persistently pestering. 

Asking if ever I listened 

To the silence of darkness
Before dawn
Ringing silently in ear.

Or the wind that whispers
The hay dry
In July

She smiled at the thought 

Of her daughter dancing 
Breathing the mountain air
Blowing through her hair

Through the hearts open window 
She gazed upon the Jackson county farm. 

For age could not contain 
Nor dementias cruel eraser remove
The young imprisoned spirit within   

Beckoning to be free

don’t you ever just wanna be Luke Skywalker?
it’s twenty minutes into Return of the Jedi when through light into darkness Luke appears
          in Jabba’s palace,
          all cloak and face unseen, that anonymous, subtle, audience-has-no-trouble-knowing shadow.
you think, ‘it’s Luke!’
(and you don’t think, ‘fifteen minutes ago, Darth Vader came through the dark of space
          into the light of the second Death Star,
          all mask impenetrable and face unknowable,
          so why must Luke fall into these footsteps, reach his fingertips up as if to strangle?’)
at Jabba’s throne,
          he holds his hands clasped like he knows what he’s doing, so maybe you think,
          ‘if I knew what I were doing, I’d clasp my hands like that.’
at Jabba’s throne
          he opens his mouth and speaks like he knows what he’s saying, or at least
          he’s very good pretending, and his blue eyes are lightsaber hand-shorn,
          Obi-Wan dead and slain, cloud-ice-and-vacuum calm, so maybe you think,
          ‘he must know what he’s doing.’
(you try not to think through all her anger built into a blank-faced un-scowl, ‘Carrie Fisher
          lived through this, and it probably wasn’t the worst bullshit she survived, but
          if I could go back in time, I’d tell George Lucas where he can put that bikini and that chain.’
but you do think, ‘God, I miss Carrie.’)
he tells Jabba, ‘Profit or be destroyed,’
and even if he doesn’t know what he’s doing and even if you haven’t thought it yet, maybe
          now you do:
 
Things Have Changed.
(Mark has changed, too, and it might just be me, but there’s a mystique about his nose and
          a mystery about crashing and living and carrying that life and memory on your face.)
 
he tells Jabba, ‘Do not underestimate my powers,’
and you know
Luke isn’t the moisture farmboy, blue milk, pulls up into Mos Eisley in the speeder
          his uncle bought him (it was actually just his uncle’s speeder),
          ‘never got to go to Tosche Station to pick up those power converters’ nobody
          he didn’t have time to appreciate he was.
because even if Lucas wants you to forget, you can’t forget the music that Williams used
          to wound you when Luke’s home and family were black smoke on the white sand of Tatooine,
and now Luke, himself the black smoke on Tatooine,
          is younger than i am and dressed like he knows,
          really knows,
          that Anakin Skywalker is his father,
and I wish for him that white sand back, the long two-sun dawn of a galaxy whose weight
          he doesn’t yet bear on his shoulders.