Not a Superhero
Anxiety attacks like a thief
Leaving me barren and tired
But wait
There’s a way out
Drop a class
Take meds again
And be okay with not being a superhero
Anxiety attacks like a thief
Leaving me barren and tired
But wait
There’s a way out
Drop a class
Take meds again
And be okay with not being a superhero
Exhausted, fearing Mom’s slide
into another deep depression,
I stop in a fast food place to eat an egg sandwich,
relax and read before water aerobics.
Fifteen toddlers arrive from a nearby daycare—
singing, giggles, chatter, bouncing. Oh hell no,
I think, not now. Please.
They all wear the same T-shirts, deep aqua
of tropical seas, with a rainbow and golden sun.
Women accompany them, hand out crayons,
pages to color, large wide cardboard mouths
with handles to hold to their lips.
The children raise them, as if on cue,
and I swear they aim in my direction—
toothy, goofy, glorious smiles.
The woman in the poetry seminar
tries too hard to be obscure
in an Edgar Allan Poe kind of way,
18th Century melodrama, her milieu.
Striving for mystery–
after the fact, she’ll explain
what it all means–trauma
from childhood.
She should just add a footnote to each poem
for an ordinary English translation.
When the serpent emerges,
To swallow the sun at the end,
I will have beaten him to it.
Lipsmacking and glorious with a belly full of fire,
Neither the first nor the last time.
But today I bask as a reptile,
Between hot stone and a million lapis lazuli miles,
Blissful with knowledge.
A place where darling devils frolic,
And the queen of swords carves names into bedrock.
Stevie Nicks wrote a song for me
I swear she did.
You know the one
about the girl who is lost
and she finds herself through crystals
and smoke?
Not that one.
You know the one where the girl is lost
and you think
my God she’ll find her way
but the song ends and she’s still drifting?
Not that one either.
I think Stevie combined the two when I wasn’t looking
cause sometimes I think I’m finding my way
but the smoke blows in my face right
when the crystal ball is showing me
what I gotta do
to get out
and I’m lost all over again
left to wander on to the next song.
Winter white out memories
tiny world frozen in place
floating in a haze
carbon monoxide
disposable manly pride
remaining cigarette butts found
reused coffee grounds
searching through the trash
waiting for heavenly cash
prison of ice and snow
five degrees below
white out memories
a space heater
in the summer
it sits in the corner
reminds you these warm days
will soon become memory
but that when they do
you will not freeze
there’s value in the snow
even if you prefer flowers
and a space heater
will calm winter’s worst
