Posts for June 27, 2018 (page 2)

True love is only found between two people
but that doesn’t mean one cannot love truly.

I think you have a heart free from blemish
with love like a cloudless sky.

You have chosen and are still choosing
to see the best in an evil man

which hurts because he’s yet to show a reason
to be held in such high regard.

Your love is the kind where forgiveness is a given
but that removes the need to reciprocate.

Worse, i think he understands this and uses it
to take advantage of you.

It’s not your stupidity that brings the pain.
Rather, it’s his selfishly wicked choice.

You look past it because you want to believe in him
and that’s what lovers do.

We embrace the recklessness, we take that risk
because true love is worth a step too far

and we so need to take that step
because its our only escape when we are wrong.

So no, I don’t think you are stupid for the choices made.
I think you’re just having a devastatingly human moment.

Quite simply, you’ve fallen in love with the wrong man.

it’s not fair to tell you the porcelain started to just bleed on its own 
as if there was no shaking
   as if the bone-ash didn’t hiss where it met the clay
because it is not body of carbon
it’s glass body, quartz body, wet body
pressure will not make this sticky thing clean 
   it will not shine and sparkle when pressed, 
it will begin to open instead,
and that is how we have obtained this bleeding glass.

see, eyes sit heavy on my skin 
coerce joints into limpness and jaw into stilling 
i keep staining hem lines with this many eyes on me 
bleeding out onto shirt sleeves and pant ankles. 

i am cracked in all the soft places from so much looking and hearing
i don’t know what to call it   

Hands  smooth

Another rough 

Eyes that know little of weighted sorrow

Eyes weak with from repetitive crashing waves 

Soft innocence and roses fill her cheeks

The marks of the Grand Canyon line her face

Words are shared along with heart

Ears accept the broken heart with love

Her spirit soars over mountain and dares to dream

Two alike spirits which soar over the very gap of time. 

Damn you wren,
relax.
Your delicate film of
mites and feathers
clothes you,
almost fleshless under so much
abstraction,

drumming wildly like Zeus on
Leda till the brittle tiny
bones break
How in
God’s name
can I,
or even someone
caring,
re-
hab-
il-
i-
tate
this ego monster
WHO COULD FLY
like a bullet,
disdainful of blundering
mammals,
IN THE
OPEN 
AIR, JESUS!

But now is broken as
clear glass
marked down to almost nothing.
Nothing.
No one will take you
even for free.
Enslaved of fate.
Such shrill pain
squirming defiance, preferring
finality to capture by a
kindly Higher Power.

No one is your
better. No one your
equal.
nevermore.
never.

The quiet is shock
before death,
like the boy in Frost’s
poem about the chain-saw
or the car-hit
dog after he’s
screamed himself out for
a remembered mother,
lonely for her teat
at six weeks now
lost alone again
without any 
comfort in the world.
nevermore
never

For those of us happy here 
Those who’ve read some history written before 1960
And know the danger of idiot mobs
Crying in despair about something they can’t even explain

Today is a beautiful day

For the rest, it’s time for screaming and printing t-shirts
spitting on people who wear a different hat
hating people they’ve never met

Who helped your grandma when her car broke down?

If the situation was as bad as you think it is
You would be building a railroad across Alaska
with an axe and a hammer
stealing bread from the sick
quivering at the sight of the whip

Today is a beautiful day!

  Outwards they pull they pull the people.
  Into open air, and they drop them into their holes, the world’s too cold for this.
  I can see for a second, infinity, as my head grows lighter and I start to leave.   I’ve chased shadows that turned on me.
  Pulled closed the curtains, and let themselves cease to be.
All my words given weight, by some chance it’s afterwards that you’re given chance.
All through these tangled masses, a priest and a child.
  Given purpose to make mankind worthwhile.
  The gift you’ve given, but dust in my hands.
Always taken back from me, and I’m tossed into the promised land.
  Everybody goes on promises given, and they have to keep moving forward or they lose all their sense of living.
  It’s funny you’ve searched, in the prophets words.
  I saw them painted out, and they were washed away.
  Everybody’s so different, this world’s created by whims.
  All the art created given, to a strangers hands.
  It’s all weightless, in the scope of your mourning.
  Given depth by pursuits of another morning.
  It’s all I have to give, and it’s poured from my soul.
  All my problems twisted, into a new hole.
  It’s not yet twilight, and I have to breathe.
  All my feelings growing, taking over my stead.
  All imitations, and things done before, but with new purpose, you can open every door.

I.
to those gathered/present/I ask
are you still here?/and do you
read & savor them/recite & chant them
his song/to the song/sung by his father
hear the echo to guide me/find
speaking the truest truth

II.
back in the days when no one refused to sing
when politics was an argument among friends
you might expect a pinch of pluck/of backbone
may you be counted among the fortunate/though the state
might hope for clear/specific steps/whip
thumb & index/this is now your prayer
the necessary art of ignoring it as it curdles
we can no longer speak

III.
the seed must be strong enough
of lack & want/will it return twofold/threefold
do not think
each disappeared
I sent my roots up into the atmosphere
to/cleanse/
you back from death/weep you present

This poem and its title is a Cento of lines from each poem in Jeremy Paden’s Prison Recipes, (http://broadstonebooks.com/Jeremy_Paden_Page.html) a powerful book dedicated to the victims of Argentina’s state-sponsored violence, often called the Dirty War. This new poem composed of those lines holds my own country in its heart. 

When we leave, when all this is passed away,
if you need us: remember the decisions
you made. Whether walking or shopping, voting
at the poll in your old elementary school, 
Remember,
you can’t say you love me
then hurt me.

*

Actions lead 
to reaction. Damage 
creates damaged people.
So go ahead and sing your goodness.
I won’t be there to see

your kindness. Instead,
I will live at the corner 
of “should-have-been.” I will
live in between
the hipbone of our democracy.

*

You can say love me most, that you want
the best for me. Prove it.
Let me live by my terms.
And not by the box
you’ve made for yourself.

*

Remember: we could have built
a world together. We could share
love like it was a pet or ripening
fruit. Instead I will give my love

to the hurting, will build
a body, together in this
broken place.

I go into my Monday morning appointment
and sit in the same place 
I always choose.
Sometimes I laugh,
imagining switching chairs
with my therapist.
She could sit across
from the coffee table
with all the fidget toys 
in that weird clay bowl.
Her kids art is on the walls,
and it’s really not good.
Something only a mother could love.
I think all these things while she’s asking
about my week.
I tell her 
what came up 
in the last 7 days.
Each time I touch a hard emotion, 
my throat tightens.
I laugh it loose again.
Her brow furrows each time.
I already know what she’s going to say.
”Is it really funny to you?”
I nod,
“I mean yes.. It would make
a great episode on my sitcom.”
She tells me,
“It’s not our goal to
compartmentalize it all
into a TV show.
You aren’t watching it..
youre living it.”
I spend the rest of the time 
in her office
mumbling through
unimportant conversations,
while thinking of the perfect name 
to pitch to HBO. 

Indulge to your heart’s content,
liven your path and never grow older
for that’s a young man’s game,
but wiser, truer, and adventurous
for fulfillment is the true sign of age