(mis)Communication
Burning the color of skin
through photographs.
Pouring drinks down cackling throats of static.
The only communication
through dialogue like foreign subtitles
Poorly translated but
still taken for granted
Burning the color of skin
through photographs.
Pouring drinks down cackling throats of static.
The only communication
through dialogue like foreign subtitles
Poorly translated but
still taken for granted
you ever snatch a bit of courage
out of a rabbit’s jaw?
twixt cloven clovers chewed to the root
and
thick thistles crammed tight ‘tween milk-sipping,
milkvetch-munching molars.
as a child, who wasn’t sure that they could learn
the rabbit words?
take on that rabbit skull, tiny foot bones, trembling ribs,
say the word for terror.
where are your
whiskers?
shake with sense that the world was designed
to confine and consume you.
what a conceit
to think
your fear and helpless, peaceful fists are to protect the world from you.
but
if they’d just remember—
the Prince of the warrens
was a thief and not a warrior,
and
he had wits for blades and blades for brains.
The doctor kept spouting numbers
As if percentages were meant to ease nerves
As if you can trust any kind of majority these days
We already knew there was a chance.
60 percent chance that everything is fine
2 percent that it turns out to be nothing in the first place
But that 38 percent is all we needed to be worried.
We will take the chance we are given.
We have no choice.
But I wonder
Who else has taken the chance
and trusted the numbers
and ended up being in the 38?
Why are we still quoting the Bible?
Even god built a gate around his kingdom
and called it heaven.
If I should die one day
and go to the binary divide,
I promise to take the road south.
If everything happens for a reason,
I’d still like a moment alone
with the creator.
I’ve got a lifetime of why’s
still looking for answers.
Silhouette syndrome
asphyxia reverie
tormented short films
Latins last lament
prometheus afflicted
wilted with shadows
Contour vertigo
conceptual visions pass
frantic semantics
Green blades tremble
Leaves rustles
Saplings bow
Aged oaks moan
Gentle
Fierce
Ripping
Swirling
It is all but ever still
Ever walked along and suddenly a poem appears?
Or it rings quietly in ear while driving?
Before you can write it, its gone.
I can only wonder,
How long it must float
Till it finds another.
For whom can grasp it
capturing it into a page
To be released unto another.
Perhaps poetry is not an art
But struggle.
To be still enough to listen.
Bold enough to capture.
Strong enough to share.
Whatever poetry is,
I find it unearthly.
For it makes the hands tremble to write.
It leaves the soul naked
Heart bare
Mind gaping
Yet it floats along through the air
Beckoning to be captured and shared
Binding the intended together
While leaving the rest confused.
I dont know about you, but poetry scares me.
Playing piano for the 3:30 singalong at Best Friends Adult Day Care
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” is the first song in the songbook
I call it every time, raising one finger
Most participants sing, some of whom don’t do very much verbalizing otherwise.
The song is from the movie SONG OF THE SOUTH, which I saw when I was very young
Didn’t really register the racial stereotypes, although they were obvious
Didn’t know that Uncle Remus was named after Romulus’s brother.
Used to read the “Brer Rabbit” comic strip
Once Brer Bear and Brer Fox caught Brer Rabbit using their tar-baby decoy
When he was caught, Brer Rabbit begged not to be thrown in the briar patch
Reverse psychology, it was his favorite place
Maybe I’ll try that: “Please, Mr. President, you can do anything you want, but please don’t send me to Canada.”
Her laughter is a smelling salt
waking my heart as we share
kaleidoscope logic of dreams
while sipping coffee on the couch,
our hair still sleep whirled.
