Since I’ve only known your mind,
I try not to stare
as you pull the sweat-soaked shirt
from your body
and dive into the lake.
Arms slice the water,
legs kick powerfully
toward the deep.
You surface,
and cool droplets trickle down
your face
neck
shoulders
back…
Summer heat invades my core.
I sink into your ripples.
She got divorced not long ago
She’s figuring things out.
Note to self: let that shit go.
It still feels pretty raw
this learning to live without.
She got divorced not long ago.
Shiva is the backdrop of her phone –
the God of change and power.
Note to self: let this shat go.
Her poems speak of grief and loss.
That’s what she writes about.
She got divorced not long ago.
There is so much life to know.
She’s learning self-compassion.
Note to self: let that shit go.
I’m sorry, sister, it is slow
heart’s broken bone to regrow.
She got divorced not long ago.
Note to self: let that shit go.
It is the perfect night
To get lost in the stars
And the flakes
That pop wild from the fire
And drift toward the sky.
It is the perfect night
To feel like the world is nothing
more than the people
circling the fire
But it’s hard
At times
To connect
With people
So I connect with the stars
And the bursting fire
“I love you” I whisper
To the stars.
“What?” Baldwin asks
And without warning
The stars and the fire
Take their place amongst the background
And I notice every face
Around the fire
Staring at me
“I was talking to the fire”
I mumble in Baldwin’s direction
without meeting his eyes.
Maybe the little bumblebee
hates you, too–and the neighbors,
and your best friend,
and all the cashiers at all the places
you regular each bleary morning
with a “Have a nice rest of your day”
even when you know
they won’t. You’re silly, want the world
to be happy. For every stinking person
to win the lottery and go home
to calm dinner. You’re silly, how you want to feel
so normal. Ignore the pressure. The heat
isn’t compressing you
into shale coal.
Down an endless interstate.
A haze of weariness.
Each uniformed mile marker passes.
The phone rings.
My Father‘s voice.
You are gone.
Numbness overruns the once smile.
A moment stops forever.
Mile markers continue to pass reminding me I’m alive.
But you’re gone.
Exodus
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each
product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived
home again, we two …
from “We Two, How Long We Were Fooled” by Walt Whitman
Silence shatters like glass on what passes
for a horizon. No more wave-shudder, no road-tilt. The journey
ends here. Your legs vibrate. Blood staggers to your fingertips. All wheels
have stopped at last. From some crook-back tree, a rasp flickers.
You smell old lightning. An azure butterfly
claps once, silently saying home. Remember: We are all.
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness. We are each
an element made clean, to rub against and make light
in the falling shade. Glacial-white, a rind of moon
balances on the distant peak, the valley taunting it
to slide down its flanks, nestle in its recesses,
then roll back up again, chase after the sunken sun,
ignore its poxed face without a backward glance,
product and influence of the globe.
The present defies itself. Now
never really is. Gone at once. Always spent. Look
at the grasses, the clouds that morph and bulk and shimmer.
Transient, sentient as the river, the restless rocks
seeking a hungry sky through unfocused eyes.
And you. Stretch up. Capture what you can, while you can.
We have circled and circled till we have arrived
at some agreed-upon place, as this pool of shadows
washing our ankles and knees. With our hands, we shape
a structure, a building, a lodging-place. We are fire, earth, star.
We are hawk-breath and gold. We are pollen, free-floatinig,
ground down beneath shoes. We are the wheat
that fills each other’s mouth. We nourish each. We are
home again, we two.
I’ve stepped foot on the fabled shores,
Gold and glittering and joyous.
This silken year, this wondrous lifetime.
A mother of butterflies, a man one albotros lighter, and a young poet bolster me into the fray,
Gemini season on two good feet.
A soft touch to a painful end
I’m sorry, we know it had to come to this
Inhaling your words as I suffocate trying to comprehend
I wish I could’ve left in utter bliss
I wish I was good enough to stay
I feel the the unstableness in every shaky breath you breathe
So much pain in you to continue on and wake up every day
Begging, digging to just see what’s underneath
It’s hard, baby I know
I would stay you know I would
We’re all low
I know you don’t want me to leave, which pains me, but we both know I should
So here it is, for once, goodbye my love
I must be relieved from your intoxicating soul that I cling onto as if it were fresh air
I’ll look down on you from above
Even after you look me in the eyes and say you don’t care
Ill find you one day
Dont look too hard for me
the work will not have a rewarding pay
Because I will be buried six feet deep and that’s the way it will always be
It was lovely dear, don’t remember me harshly, but rather with a soft touch.
