trying to say god 4
desperate to find
silence
that place just
behind
the voice
Can a boy from South Jersey whose parents blocked hats for a living grow up to become a country music star?
How many lives have been changed by hands-free soap dispensers?
How could Captain Hook refer to his mother as Mrs. Hook when he didn’t lose his hand until he was an adult? (Yes, he sings about it in the musical theatre production.)
Why have we never seen Rush Limbaugh and Barney the dinosaur in the same place?
Did Shakespeare ever say, “Now, don’t quote me on this”?
Was e=mc2 just a lucky guess?
Will you ever get a straight answer when you ask how to get to Carnegie Hall?
Finally, are we actually descended from aliens who got stranded here on Earth while on a 3-hour tour? A 3-hour tour?
I should apologize for that last one, but–sorry, not sorry.
Residual hope
settles
in the bottom of my
heart,
like sediment
in a stream.
My mind is
clear
and
serene.
Yet the smallest
movement
(A touch…
a glance…)
and my resolve is
murky
with memories of
you.
I push myself
a furious fever-pitch pace
for days, weeks, months,
losing myself under the veil
of responsibilities,
and then it’s over,
this school year,
and I’m faced with space and light
and open air remembering
who I am
still staring back,
haunts and guilt,
why I left
the only place
I ever called Home
for here.
I live with a murderess.
A cold-hearted, loves-the-taste-of-blood-in-her-mouth, murderess.
A Black Widow of sorts.
I can’t claim innocence in the knowledge of her murderous ways.
I watched her sneak out, cloaked in black magic, scaling shadows.
Her destination, unknown, but I knew she was up to no good.
She has everyone fooled.
Her wide-eyed stare and come-hither sway,
melts the hearts of all who are honored by her presence.
Maybe that’s how she lures in her prey?
All silk and naivete’.
Stealthy and suave.
But if one looks closely, clues of her dominatrix are abundant.
The hint of a limp, a slice through the ear-
Battlewounds for sure.
A carnal bloodbath must ensue.
Her conquest, fighting for another chance at daylight.
But, victorious she is.
Victorious and proud.
I know because she leaves her trophies on my doormat.
Holding unfulfilled dreams in my hands
Remnants of a life interrupted.
Hopes grown stale
now crumbling in my hands.
I could weep for the younger version of myself
running races he could never win,
slamming into walls he never saw coming.
It is hard not to dwell in
the land of Might Have Been.
It is hard to say goodbye to this path
and proceed along another
with different hopes.
Thomas Wolfe said
You can’t go home again.
But sometimes you can’t be at home
where you are at either
nor can you reach for the home
that is yet to be.
It’s too bad I was born
this way. Stuffed in this box
of a body, this thin,
sickly skin so over run
with social custom.
It’s too bad I’m so appealing,
a thing to be had,
a desire to be held.
Not a person, a mind held
in flesh, a heart.
It’s too bad my name
is woman.
I hear the world
is so much sweeter
with freedom on your lips.
You beg unbind us. You beg set me free.
Unbound, you lay open, fanning apart,
as you once lay spread in the field.
Your oaty sweetness begs loose me.
One leaf at a time, held like a baby
in my left arm, I loose you, cover scattered seed
to hold the moisture in. You will return to the earth,
you will return to the soil, you will know yourself
again. One leaf at a time, my baby, you will know
the sprouting clover and shelter it into life.
The rain, come to settle you, won’t hurt. The rain,
uniting life giving water and sunshine and blessings,
will also unbind you and set you free. O my child.
