Posts for June 14, 2019 (page 2)

i walked up winding footpaths
and crossed stone bridges
i sat at a deck
and admired the view
i brought a book
and expected fairies and gnomes
to come crawling out
there was a grand tree
with branches
that reached up to the Heavens
the awe i felt
reminded me that
God was there
this was His church
i felt God’s presence
in the wind
and i knew that
He was there more
than He’d ever been
in any physical church

when i stood
and looked out
at the hanging leaves
and drooping bushes
i dropped my head and
saw a small, green snake
i could feel its fear
but i had no urge
to kill it
that is how i explain
that God was there
when people shake their heads
in disbelief

i drove back home
down a nightstriken road
stopping under streetlamp lights
i ate a greasy fast-food cheeseburger
right before the restaurant closed
i wiped my swollen eyes
and brushed my mess of hair to the side
and wished that i could go back
to the big woods

I remember when it was my turn
to be young and immortal,
to play endlessly with no sense of time.
Hours felt like days.
Days felt like weeks.
Weeks felt like months.
Summers went on and on forever.

I think most of my heaven
must be my grandmother’s house
when I was a child,
my father and grandparents still alive.
Long summer afternoons by the pool.
The freedom to feel so carefree and safe,
surrounded by the ones I love.

Perhaps this is the feeling I am chasing so hard.
Perhaps these precious lost moments
are what I hope in vain
my vices will bring me.
The security of laying my head
in my grandmother’s lap
as she soothes me and tells me stories.

it started when he was–six?
they would come
in the middle
of the night.

he would awaken  
to their presence
around his bed.
he could not move.
could not yell out.

they would float his body
on a beam of pale blue light
out his window and
up
into their
silent ship.

they would do things.
things he wanted to forget–
wanted to forget.

he was nineteen now.
still, they came.
his family had moved twice.
still, they came.
he got a dog.
still, they came.

he tried to tell his mother once.
he had reached the point of naming
it.
she stood, turned, and left the room.

he tried to tell his friend, Jacob.
Jacob thought the story was an
elaborate setup 
for some hilarious joke. 

so he bought a shotgun.
plenty of ammo.
slept with the weapon
chambered.
safety off.
finger inside the trigger guard.

he knew this was dangerous,
but he had learned to lie motionless–
still as a mummy in an unopened sarophagus.

besides, he never really slept anymore.

worst-case: he blows of his legs.
best-case: he takes one down.

he waited.

waited.

waited.

September:
they came.

he felt them before
he had even tried 
opening his eyes.

felt their evil, hateful
desire boring into 
his biddable skull.

if he could only bend the knee on which the barrel rested–
just a few inches–
and
pull
the trigger.

he breathed out–
bent his knee–
squeezed.

the shotgun fired; wrenched his shoulder
back and down.
he dimly heard
–or felt–
the thud
of its body,
hitting the floor.

suddenly, he was awake,
sitting up,
in control.

they were gone,
except for the thing 
in pieces on the floor.

the thing that had been
his stepfather.

In the meantime, enjoy
the breeze. Consider its sweetness
and how the sunlight extends
over a mountain valley, gossamer
in motion. In the meantime,
think. Wait for the sun and moon 
to paint the sky in months. Know
yourself. Even the old red maple knows
when to lay down its boughs.
Even the midday summer sun
knows winter will deposit 
the slushy sidewalk snow, gray as
a morning. In the meantime, it’s hard
on the body, to wait for anything. 
All we have is space and time.

A spiral vision
seeds indicate duplex light
surreal sunflower

Infrared picture
black hole symmetries pulling
emission petals

I’m going to set the world on fire
she repeated
as she smeared rose, lavender and
spring yellow across her eyelids

You inherit
this legacy.
Want it or not,
it’s yours.
Deep hollows of
discarded items
tossed to fate
on the hillsides.
Family history fills
decaying tobacco
barns – a past of
brazen decisions –
consequences
echo through
the generations
and shine out
from your eyes.

There are items in memory that require disposal
like dying sperm on post orgasmic skin
they must be wiped away– then bleached
in the fury of the wash

Tables
The mid-day Summer
Longs for kisses and picnics
Touches of breezes

It is difficult to have an appetite 
for everything. So much to take in
that you end up empty. 
It turns in to a search through the dirt, 
a great digging and picking and fussing 
over every particle.
Each rock- I want. The flecks of rotted 
timber, a mushroom paradise with 
winged and unwinged citizens, 
everything there, in the tiny patch 
of grass between my crossed 
legs- I want. 
Look! Now my limbs are warm from 
the Sun (traveling a million miles to touch 
my thigh) such great intimacy- I want. 
I close my eyes and find 
a dewy green darkness, 
the heart sound in my ears.