Babysitting
pigtails & pee puddles
pb&j’s & pondering
maybe womb not as dry as I’d hoped
heart not as cold as I pretend
pigtails & pee puddles
pb&j’s & pondering
maybe womb not as dry as I’d hoped
heart not as cold as I pretend
unlikely obit to see;
saw that you died, left your wife behind,
our classmate,
mismatched years
maybe it’s the drugs I was on that make it hazy
or the fear of forgetting
or remembering
the lust I had
for the concept of you,
the envy of you being
what I wanted to seem
mysterious, ambigiously straight but
comfortable enough to listen
to some youngster flirt–
maybe you liked the attention,
a deistic god?
religion was your major after all
was it you? in my backups
I can’t find the conversations
that we had somewhere
about nothing
frenetic lagan, to keep me from sinking
anyway, you’re gone
I can’t ask you how we were
what, my obviously subtle self
appeared to you as
or why you bothered to look
she looks happy
in the wedding photo
that’s public and you look
like you
I like picking her up at school
with a
cinnamon crunch bagel
hot buttered and waiting
in a greasy bag in the back seat
kids pouring out the door
laughing and loud
waving at Evie lined up
for the bus, chatting
about her day, our upcoming
theatre tickets
answering what a matinee is.
never had a chance,
so said the bless-its-heart,
shoulda-coulda-seen-it-coming
shakers of heads (with just a little
too much glee in their downturned eyes).
Today’s poem
squares up its thin shoulders,
checks to make sure
its bootstraps are still there
and walks out the door.
A poet … lifted himself by his own boot-straps from an obscure versifier to the ranks of real poetry.
British Authors of the Nineteenth Century (1936)
Roadkill twitches
on the side
of unpaved roads
and churches sit
on left and right
ten feet apart
all claiming to worship
the same god
under a different name.
You can always tell
who grew up where
because holler folk
smell like moonshine
and cigarettes
and all the rich ones
smell of the same
overpriced
Vanilla Bean
hand sanitizer.
I am living
in a false Appalachia,
a caricature of
the most beautiful place
on Earth,
because the Appalachia
I know
is sprawling mountains
from one horizon
to the other
and trees that turn golden
in the fall.
It is the sound of snapping twigs
at twilight
and lightning bugs
floating above fields
like little green stars,
twinkling in and out
and over and over.
The Appalachia I live in
is drug addiction
and urbanization,
the loss of those golden trees
in favor of cookie cutter houses
with square yards
and no horses.
My old Kentucky home
is at the edge of the mountains,
just out of reach
and I see them,
long for them,
belong to them.
I have been there
and they sing to me,
lull me with their melodies
and whisper to me
their secrets.
They tell me of labor,
broken backs
and withered, leathery skin
that has seen the sun
too long.
They serenade me with
shrieking laughter
and the cries of coyotes
and bobcats.
I will always pine
for the forests, trees,
and rolling landscapes–
but for now,
I must be content
here
in almost Appalachia.
You started in my face
when I pressed my wet wash cloth
close and breathed in so deep
I exhaled my courage
I choked on my inadequacy and coughed up my confidence
then you slide down my throat and
crossed over to my shoulders
and I suddenly felt the weight of my own world
rest easy on my brittle bones
what backbone I had left
you used as a balance beam
and found your way to my knees
where they wobbled in submission
they could not bend to pray you away
and you laughed your way to my weary feet
but thankfully my thick calves made you so slow
that by the time you found your way to the bottom of my body
you were directed by a tongue regaining strength that you had long overstayed your welcome.
When you come back
which you always do
we will try again
and maybe stop you
before you have a chance to leave my mind.
Meditation don’t work for me.
My brain just won’t shut up.
Deep breathing is fine,
But is it really doing anything?
Yoga can be fun,
But it’s isolating and I get bored.
Give me a ball,
A volley ball, soccer ball, pickle ball,
It doesn’t matter which,
And let me chase it around
With a group of fellow human beings.
I want to spike, dribble, and lunge!
I want to set, pass, and throw down!
I crave playful banter, high fives, and rallying cheers,
Where nothing matters, but the game,
And everything else fades away.
Go ahead and roll out your yoga mats.
You’ll find me on the courts.
My healing comes through playing sports.
Here in the in between
The been-between
The sin between
We are the men between
The ocean and the sky.
Stuck in the borrowed now
With furrowed brow
We don’t know how
Our lives are born to us
Where all things go to die.
I
we ditch the canoe on a sandbar
for a smoke and a beer
turn our faces to the sun
and slide with the current along mossy rocks
into an emerald pocket of ice water
around a bend
we count one two three
four five six seven eight
huge heron nests
magicked in the treetops
II
thin, high clouds filter the sun
Nothing is familiar
the river has shifted the sandbar
into an island
forcing us to choose a side
vultures like men in black trenchcoats
loom in branches
over exposed roots like claws
snaring a bloated cow
we smell before we see
III
I follow the river from the road
a white plastic bag waves at me
like a flag from the tangle of flood brush
I would be a fool to step into this river alone
