Posts for June 5, 2019 (page 3)

Category
Poem

Benadryl

Pink really is your color—
like the flush of rosy  
sunsets signaling
good weather
letting us rest
easy

thank you for
that plush
comfort 
 


Category
Poem

Me Too

Bright, cheery
crayon and marker
ink pen and pencil
narrate her
painful
soul rending
experience

She puts the 
completed
12-week booklet
away
in the coat closet
aka 
the catch-all
shuts the door

A chapter folds


Category
Poem

For Hard Times

My heart is sewn into these hills;
written into the tender bark of maple
saplings and vined up the side of aging
tobacco barns like Virginia creeper.
Glimpses of sunlight cascading through the
forest canopy or glinting across the gentle
current of the creek bed silently answer my
wish for serenity and a moment’s peace from
a barrage of bad news and worse marketing
for the next “must-have” item popping up
across the tv, my phone, even the pump at
the gas station – this world is exhausting.
The calls of the whippoorwill lure me out into
the forested night to watch as lightning bugs
dance across the darkened valleys, and I allow
my mind to wander deep back into these
hollows where the last of the wild things are
tucked away shielded by stewards holding
onto fragments of our old stomping grounds.


Category
Poem

In a Perspective Moment

Have you ever had a night that buzzed
with bad energy? And your body 
is cold and numb. The cigarette (pause)
you smoke. A reflection
in tobacco.

It could be worse,
my mother always said.


Category
Poem

when you wouldn’t help me pay my bill

bathroom all one room,
ha-jong-shi –you would someday laugh.  

empty frosted vase atop yellowed
stack of directories atop kitchen table  

and then a plastic bag shower, jabbed
by plastic white McDonald’s fork  

from a breakfast you never
stayed for.  

First with hot water,
suicide song Townes Van Zandt

then with cold water.


Category
Poem

Is there Something in Nothing?

I sit and stare at the screen

Nothing comes

Looking desperately for inspiration

Nothing comes

Maybe if I’m still it will come to me

Nothing—

All I see is a blank page

Nothing comes

Then all at once, a glimpse of something—


Category
Poem

I need a minute.

I need a minute

To think.

To breathe.

To get my shit together.

Quickly

My happiness turned to sadness

My control turned to chaos

My calm turned to anger

My thoughts went dark

And my heart started to hurt

My breathing is heavy

Everything is dizzy

I can’t remember a thing

I don’t know what’s going on

Even when I’m clam

Or relaxing I’m still

Stressed

And confused

And I need a minute

Because I’m fucking tired.

Please.


Category
Poem

Non-Linear Nucleotides

Collapse structural 
information genetic
helix sporadic

Fragmentary strand
disorganized polymers
membrane erratic 

Painting, photo taken with the FujiFilm XT-3


Category
Poem

Give me no grandbabes

The Earth has 30 years
until she’s had enough
of us. She’ll make real our worst fears,

conjuring the stuff of nightmares,
of fire and flood and poison slough.
The Earth has 30 years

to choke us with our own tears
and smoke and acid, her final rebuff
of us. She’ll make real our worst fears.

Ravaged and rueful, she will sneer
at refugees of famine and drought.
The Earth has 30 years,

then humankind will disappear.
Our mother has had more than enough
of us. She’ll make real our worst fears.

Give me no grandbabes, daughter dear.
Such tender skin is not meant to be tough.
The Earth has 30 years.
Of us, she’ll make real our worst fears.


Category
Poem

Getting in the pool

Like a worm,
the sun eats me until 
I’m ready to squirm into the water