This time on my neck.
The nurse apologizes
for the pin prick and sting
of the needle, numbing
tender skin. No,
I don’t feel anything sharp
There?
There?
There?
So the doc proceeds
to slice, excavate, cauterize and stitch me up.
No pain,
just pressure, the smell of burning flesh, tugs and snips.
Beneath the surgical drape,
my vision is reduced to opaque white;
the paper crackles next to my ear.
The doc and I chat about the vacations
we’ve decided not to take, this pandemic year.
I feel both acutely aware, and disembodied.
Afterward, the doc says,
You know the drill
(for post-surgery wound care.) Yeah.
I could write the instructions myself.
His eyes smile above his mask. He pats
my shoulder.
And that’s that
until next time.
Notes to myself—
Check word choice & syntax
from Papa Hemingway’s SAR
for matador poem.
Review Ariel & Daddy stuff.
Am I stripping enough veneer
off the reality?
Lighthouses & Fear make
uncomfortable combinations
but great imagery.
Sexton. London. Wallace. Berryman.
I shouldn’t be this comfortable in the dark.
But when I re-read them, they shake
the grip of the earth and live again.
I used to think that everyone who was creative
Had good morals
Naive, I know
My own mother, for instance
She threw away her art, her poetry
For a man full of vinegar,
An abuser,
Her and him both
I used to look at other girls with tattoos and colorful hair
And think, “Wow! cool!
They must be awesome!”
Then I would talk to them
And they believed
Women shouldn’t have a choice
It sickened me
It hardened me
I soon came to believe that not everyone
Is who you think they are
I had trust issues anyway,
You know the abusive parents and all,
But they put on such a good show
Just like those girls
Poor things
Thinking they have no choice
Their bodies belong to old white men
Who think women are just devises
For sex and parenthood
Where a mask is an embrace,
an open palm is a shelf for the cosmic,
a ripe strawberry is a long and tender meal,
a blade of grass is a meaningful conversation,
a barking dog is meditation,
a crack of lightning is a cool balm,
two palms pressed against glass is communion,
a blooming flower is a field of stars,
I ask: what room is there for dust?
Frank was a singer,
Frank was a swinger,
He made movies,
He ran with the Rat Pack.
But he was also a cowboy.
Remember the song “South of the Border”?
He also made a movie called JOHNNY CONCHO,
With cowboy hat, gun in holster,
Kind of like Gary Cooper in HIGH NOON,
Only with Frank as more of an anti-hero,
The cowardly brother of a feared gunfighter
Who has Johnny’s back–until he dies (the brother).
OK, he was no Roy Rogers,
But Roy Rogers was no Frank Sinatra.
Also, Roy Rogers wasn’t Roy Rogers,
He was Leonard Slye.
Frank was really Francis Albert Sinatra,
But that’s close enough.
Happy trails.
Just a reminder that some nights
just aren’t beautiful.
The air turns to boulders
settling at the bottom of your lungs.
The ground you walk on grows uneven
impossible to safely traverse
in danger of dark.
Cloud cover blocks
those little spots of hope,
weak as they may be from so far.
Simply seeing them can be enough
to drag us through
whatever storm ravages our heart,
making the stars the hardest to lose.
There’s no escaping those nights,
life’s cruel counter-balance to fortune,
but sometimes we need them.
Another night
all the elements will paint
serenity into our minds.
The occasional disorder is instead
an invitation for self-reflection
to find the beauty within ourselves
the world cannot give.
Santa wears a steel helmet as he makes his afternoon rounds of the orphan homes and hospitals on foot. It’s lined with metal foil to block the signals from the satellites, the ones that tell him to start drinking again while there’s time and to hell with the children. While the coded lies are silenced he can focus on what needs to be done so the kids can take over the world next weekend. It’s an odd looking hat he wears, olive green in color and shaped like the top half of a flying saucer. He could probably get the elves under the sidewalk to make a sportier one, bright red with white trim and pom perhaps, but they’re busy enough with the toys, with repairing the sleigh and trying to find new reindeer. And the children’s laughter tells him they don’t mind the current model, no matter the grown-up frowns.
I hate waking up in the morning
And closing my eyes again
I got plenty of sleep
Yet I’m exhausted
I roll out of bed feeling like
Today is starting just like yesterday
My motivation and my energy are low
I push myself to do something
And get on to myself when I don’t do enough
I start to feel lonely and numb
And resort back to my bed sheets
I’ll tell myself to go on a drive
To let whatever this is out
And when I park my car back outside my house
It feels like I did nothing except waste gas
I hate these days because I’ve yet to figure out how to fix them
I want to wake up tomorrow with a crazy amount of energy
And purpose
I want to live and I want more than this feeling
What if I wrote like you?
What if my poems pose as prose?
What if I hide intentions in entendres?
What if my lines happen to rhyme?
What if you don’t relate to those?
What if they bury your goals?
What if they say poetry is dead?
I say I’m a blooming rose
