Posts for June 30, 2018 (page 4)

Mountains release their wall
of cold pearls.
Pearls invade valley
forge lake
full of pebbled roads
and amber reeds
blossoms with petal-
tentacles and the cups
of balloon flowers
pointed on ends
and dappled
wildly
with bubbles.
Trees lean below
surface and waves
serve as wind
for leaves.
Footbridge waits in gloam
of unclouded
afternoon while roots
oblige as handholds
and wrinkled rocks
as push-off points
for divers
natant through teal
cerulean    moss
muffled blaze of sun
cool umbra of steady dusk.

It would have took a lazy teacher
to give him satisfactory in socialization skills.
Old timers used to call guys
like him dickheads, and not in an offhand way,
but hateful, from the gut, like a bullet.
They would say it under their breath
since he was the boss’s son, and then the old man died.

His brother still calls him that
and he means it just like everyone else
when he says it, but he doesn’t whisper.

So you know…too much money,
nothing to do,
ruining good women for other men.

It’s a shame he never got
religion before he killed that
little girl driving drunk
at ten in the morning.

His daughter wishes he was dead in the wreck.
His own son won’t sign his visitor’s list,
and he stands to inherit the dickhead’s
money, after his wife commited suicide,
if there’s any left after
the wrongful killing lawsuit.
What a family. It takes all kinds I guess.

I’ll bet Jesus is hiding from him in prison.
I’ll bet Jesus doesn’t want to listen.

Dr. Dolittle’s Pushmi-pullyu
Is a made-up animal
That reflects the
True state of most lives.

We are the animal
Being pushed and pulled
By external and internal
Forces.

A maelstrom of demands.
Buffeted on all sides
By the desires of others,
And of ourselves.

Until one finds
Methodologies for equilibrium.
And transforms into that ultimate made-up animal —
A unicorn.

So that I can enjoy my potato bread sandwich
with turkey and cheese layered, but not too
heavy, Gloria, who works behind BJ’s deli counter,
will push the oven-roasted breast into 
the spinning blade and hold up a single slice
for you to decide: thicker? thinner? good here?
She will do the same to the mild cheddar,
quiet except for the beep of the scale, routine.
So that we can relate in  the moment, your companion
will make a kindly self-deprecating comment
and Gloria will smile with off-center teeth.
Your own smile will – later – make her work,
those ‘good here’ slices, disappear on rolls
fed well by another’s perfect judgment.
Lord, bless the hand that steadies the knife.

High strung
They called her
Unsettled
We come home
She’d clawed her a notch
Jerked the planks right out
Said the witch needed her.  

They said it was my fault
How I carried on when
I carried her
Ginseng they said
Ease the hippo
Help her sleep
Start slow
Build the dose
None of us knew
What it would take
To smother her.  

i.
Honeycomb headed,
I’m hungover and buzzing,
Half delirious; I’m a king among bees,
A bumbling fool.
But I spill forth honeythoughts,
Wake in the flowerbed,
Bloom in the presence.
ii.
Yellow with sunshine and a teaspoon of cowardice;
I’m a marigold mongrel,
A mutt of majesty, half vile and violent.

Do you ever think about that night?
Does it haunt you like it does me?
The way you forced yourself onto my lap
Extracting what sense of self-esteem I had left
Do you think about your mother?
The way she shamed me to cover for you?
I was asking for it, after all

Do you ever think about that other night?
When you called
Bottle of pills in hand
Offering me an impossible bargain
And forcing me to choose
I guess you wouldn’t remember the hospital calling the following morning
Being in critical condition will do that, but
Did you take just enough to spare your life
But enough to ruin mine?
Did you just need a partner to suffer alongside with?
Did I deserve this for being so weak?

These are the questions that I ask myself
Sometimes fantasizing about asking you directly
Well, wouldn’t you know…
Now I have my chance because
There you are again, this time on my screen
Just a single DM away
With a cute boyfriend and a clever handle
Like nothing ever happened

Social media is trying to kill me
Just like our relationship
It’s parasitic and maybe just a little evil
All I can do is clear my search history
And hope to maybe forget the whole thing
Someday

Announcing plans to my sleeping lover
is no kind of revenge; instead, like the desert
I must change raiment in the chill of night.

Awake at last, he will find a strange landscape,
his old compass shattered, useless, his eyes
will stare on plateaus rounded, mesas pointed,

under a cloudless, foreign sky. Thirsty, he will
fall to suck from bottomless pools of dust, dreaming
of my wild wet, there, in dry canyons whose arroyos

have no source, wishing himself a postcard
with no return address.

if my teeth were made of metal
i wonder if leaving you would still
make my mouth taste like dirty rainwater and stone

i’m pressing myself to a phantom death 
nothing has left yet but
the threat of permanence is pulling at my eyelids, 
forcing my eyes to see and see and see 

and i have kept your Leaving sewn 
into the creases of my palms 
I build all my barns with it 
and rub out my aches with it 

The Transience of Man, 
and The Love of My Life,
and a Flight at 5:50 Tonight.