Posts for June 1, 2019 (page 6)

Pride makes for an
unreliable compass.
For centuries, we traversed
oceans far, coaxed by nature’s whim.

Our parents mean well.
They’ve navigated their lives
before us, circled the globe
a time or two.

Whatever seas they’ve sailed
and named? Always
unanswerable questions:
unapproachable leagues
of monsters and sunken treasure,
towers of wild storms and a fool’s calm waters.

Our parents mean well.
They protect their legacy.
When a psychiatrist asks, they
forget to anchor an offspring’s admission
to a behavioral health ward with the memory
that once before, their firstborn had landed
upon a similar disparate shore.

Our parents have their own
stack of devils in their cards. The Hanged Man
at times comes in multiple. Each one tossed
by rough travel, faring well enough that at least
we can chart a course anew, steady ourselves,
look each of us at the same impression and say,
“Here. We explore a new perspective.”

Do I have nothing to say
Because I’m content? No
Boring, dull? No
Complacent?
…..

The storm will roll through town and
Leave me standing in its wake
But for now, all it is
Swarms overhead
Berating me with qualifiers

The recession
Into oneself can be so alluring
Luxurious even
Cutting bait on everything and everyone
Floating above it all
Until every problem, decision and dilemma
Dissolves, smears
Into a single shade of grey

Maybe I’ll drift up to the Dakotas
Suspended above
No longer ascending but
With just enough inertia not to fall
Dallying in the clouds
Perched on a cumulus
Just for a bit longer
Just a bit
Just…
…..
…
.

Discernible pulse
transmitted luminescence
sedated tempo

Velocity shift
translucent dispersion on 
photonic crystals

she has paced the polish
off the hallway floors

small wide feet
toenails layered
with flaking paint
blues covering pinks hiding chipped yellows

always spring colors

she tells you fall colors make her feel old

she tells you sometimes she forgets
she was in love with you
and those are her favorite days

days she thinks the way she feels now
is the happiest
she has ever been

she forgets how you
would pour whiskey
in soda bottles before church
when her parents weren’t looking

how you would share sips
throughout service
lips numb against slurred prayers

way your hair smelled
like chemicals for days
after you’d lighten it

how you’d never tighten
lids on things
so they were always spilling

how you’d kiss the edge of her mouth
so her lipstick wouldn’t smear

when she finally looks at you
it feels too late

she tells you
that you are the one
who taught her how to love

how she hates you for it

Go in to a room that’s quiet
close your eyes and focus 
on that thing that you lost. 

Grab something in that room
that’s like the thing you’re thinking about. 

Squeeze it tight and don’t
let go until you feel like
you got the thing 
that you lost back. 

as night falls, the mingled exhalation of trees rises
from wooded slopes; misty breath of forest

collects in the creases between mountains, rolls
downhill to inundate farmsteads and towns,

a snowy river of quiescence faintly aglow
and blue in the deepening twilight

When I was a child,
I wanted to grow up to be tragic.

They say no one wants to grow up
to be an alcoholic.
But I did.
I fell in love with UB40’s version
of “Red Red Wine,”
alcoholism made even more attractive
by Ali Campbell’s handsome face
in the music video.
A siren song sung by a beautiful singer.

(It is only two decades
after coming out to myself
as bisexual
that I realize many of the guys
I thought were “cool”
are ones I felt attracted to.)

I watched The Lorax over and over.
I loved the Once-ler,
the Norma Desmond of Dr. Suess characters,
living alone in his tower.
He sings a song to himself about
his own wicked nature,
how he’s ashamed of it yet unable to defy it.
At the end of the cartoon,
the Once-ler gives the boy
a literal seed of hope.
“It’s too late for me,” he says.
“But maybe in your lifetime
you can undo all the damage I did.”
God, I wanted a regret that big!

At 13, I discovered Casblanca.
Hollywood’s most celebrated romance.
I wanted to be Humphrey Bogart’s Rick,
another broken-hearted alcoholic
full of regret,
of course.
But a really cool one.

My grandmother made me promise
to be careful with alcohol
since alcoholism ran on her side of the family.
I have mostly kept my word
except for a handful of times
when I felt self-destructive.

No one ever broke my heart
to the point of
driving me to addiction.
I never destroyed an entire ecosystem.
Or had a forbidden romance.
Even worse, I didn’t even get my own dog
until I was 34.

          –for Charlie Whittington, 1948-2019

Let his notes vibrate above the market
as he jokes with the shy busker
playing her bassoon, his face
reflecting the light like the surface of a pond.
Let his strumming attend our acquaintance
with artichokes and asparagus–
his whitish beard, flowered shirt,
baseball cap harbingers of peace.
Let his whirlwind voice convey
anecdotes and good words,
a sly wink and easygoing gaze
hovering over the town square. 

a pedal wagon driver’s
patience to always endure
and maybe enjoy songs
in the key of drunk

Have you ever seen a picture so beautiful
you cried,
only because you knew
nobody else in the world
could appreciate it same as you?

Or heard a song so intimately moving
in its genius composition
and truth to the human experience
that becomes little more than an idle hum
for how few you can share the melody with?

Have you ever written a poem so personal
your tears mixed with the ink,
together until it all dried,
where no reader could possibly comprehend
the immense level of soul you bare to the world?

All around us are these kinds of beauties
begging to be experienced and shared
but somewhere along the way
our eyes and our ears
lost their abilities to see and hear.

These beauties are the beloved pets curled beside you
because they just know that something is wrong.
They are the rainbows that remind you of promises
and hopes you try so hard to ignore.
They are the words of a true friend cutting straight to your heart.

But I guess, what I’m really trying to say is,
you and I have been wanting the very same things out of life
and we cry ourselves to sleep without them,
when all they are waiting for is a moment of recognition
of the endless beauty that has always flowed between us.