Posts for June 1, 2020 (page 2)

An hour left in day one
where I’ve been pulled
in dozens of directions from eye-open
to now. I don’t have
the energy to educate; so I work at
illustrate / elucidate / re-late
doggedly & to my detriment, but yes & then
the evening was summarily
capped-up
with having to sweetly tell someone
they could ‘go ahead & be bothered’
and ‘die mad about it’. This
is not what I wanted today: a soft span,
some household-chore Zen,
pen and paper and breath. This
is what I have now: electronic tapping,
quick mind-scrape for words,
screen and fingers

and breath.

Breath I am grateful for, nonetheless.

“hands up”
the words hang
in the air
like the deafening
silence following gunfire
“don’t shoot”

and in that moment
i came as close
as i’ll ever get
to understanding
what it’s like
to be a young, black man
to knowing that if
my skin was darker
i could be dead

and in the solitude
the mourning
the suffering
and all the sorrow
that i’ll never endure
i joined as we all knelt
and prayed with our breath
our shudders
our silence
our tears
that there is hope
in our future

Smudged sage burns her skin
immolation of the past
moondust, over ash

Soft sighs hide echoes
lips glossed nectar vermilion
lavender spells, calm

Sunrise ritual
hormonal invocation
eyeshadow kissed eyes

You gutted me with lies
throughout our wasted years.
Once I questioned if you were happy.
You countered, “Let’s make a baby”
even though you’d already decided
we were a mistake
and sought other beds to warm.

Now, I listen to you lecture our son
on the character of a man.
(The teenager swears he vacuumed;
sock balls, cereal crumbs dispute his facts.)
You preach:
“Your words should mean something,
and doesn’t your mother deserve better?”
I turn so as not to laugh at the hypocrisy.
But in your admonishment, I glimpse
a remnant of the man I married
once upon a time

before deceit devoured us.
Not the monster
that finally ripped us apart,
but the little lies
that gnawed at the edges of us
— like when you curled against me in the dark,
whispered I love you in my ear.
And I swallowed the truth, mumbled
I love you too.

The sound of pandemic is silence.

I drive to work in silence, unable to enjoy

music anymore for some reason,

my thoughts too anxious and loud.

We rarely play music at work

though one of us is still pushing for

Christmas music.

The lobby is closed to the public,

so we work with the blinds closed,

without sunlight,

me in my windowless room.

More silence on the way home.

There is nowhere else to go.

No stops to make.

I am getting to work earlier

and staying later,

taking a shot at

my mother’s favorite addiction.

I keep ordering CDs I don’t listen to.

The new Lucinda Williams,

the new Lady Gaga,

the new Indigo Girls,

a Christian band I got nostalgic for

although I’m no longer Christian.

I hear the bass of my neighbors’ stereo

at all hours.

No words,

just loud, meaningless thumps.

There is nowhere to drive to anymore

to get away from it.

My summer concerts have been cancelled.

The movie theaters are empty.

My muse barely whispers anymore.

In the war for my soul,

reality has finally won.

I sit with my thoughts
and bourbon
these long evenings,
dipping day into dark
when edges of the woods
creep closer,
but no one notices
and the birds
and the frogs
and the salamanders
all mate in our yards.
They cry out songs
of love and loneliness,
and the chill coming
down from the mountains
pokes goosebumps out
all across my skin
while I listen and wait
for lightning bugs
to rise up
off the creek banks.
I wonder if this is how life
is supposed to be:
fueled by hot desire,
peaking in sunshine,
and then this desolate hour
seeping in our mortality and
waiting for the end.

God is totally pissed off. 
Her sweaty closed fist pumps overhead. 

God is completely disappointed. 
His head hangs between slumped shoulders. 

God is engulfed by disgust.  
Her gentle spirit broken and torn.  

God is filled with anguish.
His deep dark moans bellow. 

God is overflowing with sadness. 
Her salty tears flood the land. 

God is profoundly weary. 
His heavy feet drag through the gravel. 

God has left the building.   

Furious defeat
Then barely escaping death
This is how we live.

she hooks her way between 
my half-way forward fold
and breaks my sincerity of stretch
for i can not say no to
a belly-up pearl-of-a cat 
who twists her own savasana
around the thing that loves her
 

First Hummingbird

In this time of social distancing,
I fill two hummingbird feeders
and you flutter near my head
eager to feast.

Being in the highest risk category, having at least
kept the silent virus at bay, and thankful not to be dead,
I vow to keep the two feeders
filled as though we are remancing,

and beg you not to fear this mask I wear.