Posts for June 3, 2020

Mama always said,
“Don’t rise above your raising” 
But how can she blame me for rising above Her teachings?

The worlds ever-changing.
 The people who refused to get moving, they are stuck in an old way of thinking. 

That outdated mindset will poison the minds of their children.

And those children will grow sheltered by the belief’s of a generation that refused to acknowledge their projected destruction.

They see no fault in their ways,
“I was raised this way”, they will say, the excuses of the ignorant spewing into the streets.
A toxic waste that was meant to be left but still remains the beast that raises its ugly head. It’s glittering teeth stained with the blood of the ones who thought they would never have to fight this fight again. 

Growing away from the soil you were sown in isn’t as hard as you may think. 

And rising above your raising shouldn’t bring bring you shame. 

But remaining the same, well, it should. 

When a limb
is wounded severely enough
that it spends months
enshrouded
no light of day, let alone water
The skin
takes on characteristics of alliums:
layering itself over itself, or rather
under.
What one might not be prepared for
is what comes after:
not
the reptilian shedding, no
but the rebirth
of every scar previously acquired. Even
the ones long-forgotten, the ones Time
sanded & smoothed,
the ones you weren’t sure anymore
which limb they’d happened to.

hatred, mistrust, blame
suspicion, disgust, shame
all the king’s horses
and all the king’s men
see evils that’ve taken their toll
all the while following a declaration
given by the yellow-haired troll

Ask the right questions!
What will the new normal be?
Oh  – that’s up to me?

Get back to normal?
Just go back to how things were?
I can’t be doin ‘ that!

What change is needed?
Will love heal a broken world?
It begins with me

There’s so much that happens when you get that moment all to yourself
If you let it
A poem or a song
Sometimes it’s earth shaking
Sometimes you cry with joy
The heavens unfurl giant green staircases
A stranger has a look in their eye you can read like a novel
You find yourself inside a character you invented, packing around your suitcase picnic table
Drinking tankards of beer at a 300 yr old bowling alley, wandering streets made of ledges that curve down into glowing infinity
teeming with cats and silk scarf filled handbags
The scent of tobacco rolling you over into empty cornfields, some devilish, fierce rhythm beating into your neck
a mocking glance to set fire to an imaginary man named Nielson Bainbridge, riding in his full armor upon a horse
into a dark pool of shellfish
The water now sucking your body down
like thick warm oil
And sunflowers bursting from the glint
Yes, all of that
In a few moments
You stole back from the crowds
You panned from the moonshine
You found gifted on your doorstep by the wandering Tanuki
Or stuck somewhere in the 8 apochromatic lenses of a voightlander

In between all the real things that were happening

    precaution paranoia
  funjoke 
humor           wit
      glee       sadism
 poison eruc 
  want                       hunger envy
love
u
s
t
       care-free
                                  blind
fic
   truth
         ion

I always felt so close to her

when she would lay beside me

asleep at night.

And I would want to text you

the next day

and tell you

“I love her so much”

as if it were a secret

or a sickness,

because I thought

you were the only person

who knew what it meant

to love someone else

that deeply.

And I hoped

you could tell me

what to do

with this

deep, deep

ache.

in the morning the sun
is pink in your hair, in my
hair too. the dry frosted 
grass has more life than
you think. we’re like
black cows yawning
on February dew

we can’t ever just 
touch, especially
when we’re so blue
your neck bends, extends
a Picasso painting 
in my corner

I mirror my hair a waterfall
though it not yet spring 
could you please grab the scissors so I can be
a little pool of a pond, please?

could you please tell me
why i let it grow so long?

could you please cut it, cut it out
the dreamer girl is gone

wasn’t pity though
was it it was

a nod
to possibility,
                          that near beyond                 
                                         
                                                         ol em herself’s                                         
                                                         dwelling place;

see ol grumpfuss bluehair didn’t know
how to find lightning outside of the sky

but the lady gazed a spark in a poor shepherd’s eye, got all zingy with hope and the maybe just maybe this might work like in star trek when the only option is blah blah blah
                       
                 and lo, the bridle is ours             
                 let us separate the saucer section
                                                                       onward and on and such                                                                                                                           second star to the right stuff                                                                                                                                                                       we have to be lucky                                                                                                                                     right and ready–

but it ain’t looking good hoss.

all the books say pity, it was pity
(a lie i sort of made up without looking. a captain’s hunch, a flamboozle)

the gods are gonna have to go
no contact or gray rock

the reins were not for us
to conquer stuff, but for a sad man
to ride a pegasus                                      

                                                          what say you                         
                                                          did it work?
                                                                                                       
                                                          athens is burning
                                                          ice sheets are crumbling
                                                          faster than we thought

                                                         there’s just not enough god 
                                                         damn poetry in these poems
                                                         not enough hamburgers

                                                        in my bunker the locusts
                                                        have waited 17 years to click
                                                        and grind this summer down

                                                        someone just died alone.
                                                        someone else. and another
                 
                                                        another. turns out nobody
                                                        cares that there’s aliens

                                                        they are trying to make
                                                        a more human mouse

Layers upon layers upon layers, each covers  a tiny crack in the one below.
More prominent and painful than a pea beneath mattresses,
the slivers run deep.

Sometimes she forgets which cover she wears.

Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of her without one: the exoskeleton of armor removed, dirt along her brow.
She raises her face to the sun.