Posts for June 21, 2019 (page 4)

people keep telling me
that it will all fall into place
in due time
that i will eventually have someone
to snuggle up with on the couch
when the storm outside
is so loud
we can barely hear ourselves think
that i will have all of my ambitions realized
that i will feel so confident
so comfortable
and so proud
of who i am
and the body my soul lives in
that i will be able to achieve anything

this is what i hope for
that all of this
and more
will be true
and i know it’s not like this now
but it will be
in due time

Days are longer but growing darker,
a three month span without distractions
where a poor boy loses his sanctuary.

People who cared and fed him everyday
offset the despair of going back home,
how crucial that lunch period became.

‘Cause daddy’s gone off to who knows where
while mommy’s drinking way too much to care,
someone has to brush little sister’s hair.

He’s just trying to hold on to himself
when the world stops paying daily attention
and he’s forced to abandon the child inside.

So he turns to hate because you can’t follow him,
can’t teach him survival between the terms
and hate so often comes from love.

What’s going to happen in the next few years,
will he hold it together to graduate?
Even then what does tomorrow bring?

‘Cause no one cares about a four minute mile
when all that talent’s chained to kitchen tile
cooking just to see his sister smile

meanwhile I sit here and claim summer hate
for the misfortunes I think are stacking up on me.
These are children who don’t have the choice to play.

Then I see the pain you, my friend, separately share.
Seems there should be something more we could do
for those whose summer break is made into prison.

All you can do is hope that you taught them
enough humanity to help them hold
just a fraction of their leaking innocence.

God, I apologize for every complaint I’ve thrown.
May each and every I’ll word I’ve spoken
get turned into a good day for one of these kids,

may this buy them a summer somewhat free
of these daily travesties,
for it’s the strong born weak who truly need the grace.

Suppose we lived in a world
without foggy mornings,
no soft, almost liquid dampness to peer through,
wouldn’t our humaness be less rich,
less textured?

Well, here we are 
the longest day
It’s all going back black from here

If it weren’t for global warming
I’d be freezing to death

You might not have noticed
the rice paddies where the corn used to be
Or that you needed a sweater to go out last night
Cause you don’t go out

Too busy listening to the dude
who only got into college (or out of high school)
Cause his dad was a senator

So the next time you see that private jet
And the caravan of humvees
Bringing him here so you can hear that gospel

Ask him who Milankovitch is
And to give you several million dollars

Buy a coat, you’ll need it

Having slithered
around subterranean bones
Litha rises
from between grass blades
veiny roots    clay and loam.

Daisies greet her     gather
on her head  

blue jay perches on her fingers
speaking his squawking
flapping language     impatient
for acorns and beetles  

sun    a distant but sultry
lamp     awaits her pleasure  

until evening
when fireflies     silent
capricious globes
light her way
across the darkest fields.  

With bark for skin
sap for blood
rock for bone
she traipses across moss
bee balm     goldenrod     thistle
and listens for autumn’s
windy moan.  

Until then
she sates herself
on blackberry clusters     robin whistles
musty aroma of damp trees     leaves that flash
and shush in wind    cool raindrops
that leave ground
steamy in sun’s rays.    

~inspired by A. J. Masthay’s art piece “Litha”

the bug bite on the arch of my foot

that tickles to touch,

but i scratch anyway

because any contact

is better than nothing

the drainage in the back

of my throat, because no matter

how many times i try to cough it up

it will always resonate

inside of me

the fake nail that keeps

popping off of my right hand

because i’ll glue it on once a week

just to watch it

tear away from me again

the charcoal after its turned gray

because it sat there, burning red hot

for hours, just to be left

as ash

getting belligerent drunk

because even though

one night felt like the time of your life,

you still awake the next morning

vomiting up regret

the miserable, regular

customer that expects

larger from me than what i can deliver,

because i know

i’ll soon become like them too

if i keep crawling

back to you.

Jet fuel for breakfast, skip lunch;
Dinner with poison on the side.
Unkempt and rickety as a scarecrow in the field,
Corvid covered anyway;
Picking a labyrinth apart with dirty fingernails.
I’ve been inkstained scarlet, red as church,
Tattered threadbare,
And pierced by sprouting Flora,
A creature of joy, elegant as cathedral lighting.
On days like these, I love my rotten guts and chipped canine grin.

We were in your van.
The one your mother gave you. 
You hated it, like you did most things.
Being young and angry was the only phase you never grew away from. 

We were young, you were younger, 18 and 20. 
We grieve about what we can’t change and swear we wont make the same mistakes. 

You want to run away and while I dont encourage it I dont try to talk you out of it. 
Because I know what its like to feel caged, you spend your entire life planning your get away and jump at the first chance you get. 

I dont think you’re ready to become so wordly, but when you dropped me off I kissed your cheeks, knowing the next time I see you, if I ever do, you wouldnt be the same girl im saying goodbye too. 

Spiders as big as your hand
A family of small, jumping frogs
gathered outside your door
A constant supply of bug spray for the mosquitos

Cool, balmy nights
Mountains, volcanoes, gravel roads, rushing creeks
Rain, more rain
Low fogging clouds

Sizzling fried cheese and bananas
Sugarcane right off the stalk
A constant newcomer’s blessing: rice and beans
Drug store American ice cream

Dirt, sweat, a seemingly unnoticed lack of deodorant
Battered shoes, no shoes
Long skirts, longer days
Fever scares, Ibuprofen, cold showers

Playing tag, watching projector movies
Speaking English, Spanish, and a strange form of sign language
Wheelbarrows, self-mixed concrete, chain-link fences
Dirt floors, concrete floors, lots of fans

Church services in unintelligeable Spanish,
yet somehow more powerful than 
any I’ve heard in English.

the night hums under a black felt blanket

a scarce peppering white-hot stars

fading in and out of view of glassy eyes

sirens, howling, moaning

electric currents darting through the air

the after hour oxygen a toxic substance inhaled

peeling, dry lips, tendrils of mist inhaled 

curled up in smoke and blankets

two bodies sweating and moaning

hearts beating red passion, lungs stealing used air 

minds racing like shooting stars

swallowed euphoria and dilated eyes

the sky switches sides and they close their eyes

the morning breath of the city exhales, inhales

tire-marked, bleeding animals lay on the road, moaning

a terrified, muffled world covered in a denial woven blanket

hides the dying stars

the sins of the night still linger in the air

And though they lusted in the hot air, 

feeling as though their souls and eyes

were connected, their bellies were burning stars

that eventually burned out. They inhaled

cigarettes at noon and peeled back the blanket

as they left the car it creaked and moaned

the domed sky trapped the groan

of a woman gasping for air-

a baby lay wrapped in a blanket

skin untouched by evil, having not seen with its eyes

death, mouth not yet inhaled 

the truth of the world under the stars

bonily wandering lost, plagued with starvation

wide eyes, wildly alive, peering up at the moon

in hail

and in storm, continuing on, a dirtied blanket

dragging behind. She laments, “If only I

had a mother, or even a comb for my hair”

and when the air grows hot, and the sky is peppered by white-hot stars

she too, will find a car, where all innocence will flee her eyes. She will not moan, 

she will not cry. But inhale slowly as the sky switches sides, and leave her blanket behind.