Posts for 2020 (page 210)

I sit on my couch and listen to the rain fall.
I have a few minutes to myself,
no tasks to complete in the moment,
only items on a To-Do list to ignore until later.
Time is irrelevant because it is my privilege to control it.

The rain’s rhythm lulls me into a quiet semi-slumber,
but I only give myself a few minutes to rest.
I have a sick obsession with movement
and my mind fights my body’s natural urge to take the necessary pause.

My mind slows from a sprint
to a brisk jog
to a light walk
to a slow saunter
And it rests on a vision I’ve long avoided:

I am in another dimension.

I am in the same position on my couch
Listening to the rainfall
Fighting this body’s natural urge to sleep
And my clothing is wrinkled.
A child rests by my side.
She is six or seven years old.
She has large brown eyes and thick, wavy hair.
She smells like fresh apples and dirt.
She presses her little body against my untoned tummy.
She reaches her arms and tries to get them all the way around me.
I feel my body cradle her featherweight frame.

But the phone rings
and snaps me back to time’s irrelevance:
on my couch
listening to the rainfall
dismissing my body’s natural urge to rest
and shattering the vision with a To-Do list.

I smooth the wrinkles from my t-shirt,
run my hands across my flat stomach
and look over at the empty cushion beside me
wondering if she’ll ever return. 

I asked the shiny black ball
if I should leave you.  

“Reply hazy, try again.”  

Great.  Even this damn toy is noncommittal.  

You are wavering.  And wavering is different than fluttering.  

Fluttering is falling.
Fluttering is feeling your heart
swell and contract,
grappling with the rush
of hormones and chemicals and arrows.
Fluttering is swinging madly toward the other
with Velcro fingers and sticky, tacky lips.  

Wavering is one foot in and
one foot out.
You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself out  

I told myself I would know
when it was time to call it.
When it hurt more seeing you than not.
When the air in the room felt suffocating with your breath added.  

“Ask again later.”

Long day to closing time, juggle fish tank list of beans to do
stiffy Charles junior mop and sticky worker bees in glue.
His name a fuzzy funny something, Ringa Ding J.B. Spearman Drew
built a mint on rags and bottoms, worded criticize and coined it too.
Beady pine corn cushion apron sideburn suspender,
tan tweedy slacks pop a gold watch money lender
double change on half a fifth of ones and twos
smoke a slim little yellow guy, some like reds and blues.

Three year old
in a tub
six times his size
splashes and squirms
until the water
storms around him
and he sits,
giggling,
in his own disaster.
As we grow up
we find ways
to do the same –
create the storm
just to sit through it,
laughing
at our own chaos.

Sigil commandment
spirits arise, solstice rite
summoning shadows

Grave grimoire conjures
staves carved into Ursus skull
rebirth, athame

Gather crimson blood
Vulpes gifted scarlet ink
stave sketched upon bone

Gather crimson blood
Phocidae gave orchid ink
stave sketched upon bone

Gather crimson blood
Häxa gave lavender ink
stave sketched upon bone

Chant olden versus
a feminine ascension
burning black copal

Invoke her rebirth
ethereal ghost rising
invoke her rebirth

Þykkt blóð, þreytast rekkar.
Þjóð mörg vos öld bjóða,
grand heitt, gummar andast,
glatast auður, firrast snauðir.
Hætt grand hræðast dróttir
hríð mörg, vesöld kvíða,
angur vænt, ærnar skærur.
Illur sveimur nú er í heimi.

the funny thing about time is
when you beg him to remain, he consistently changes
and when you beg him to change, he remains the same.

They keep stars 
in canning jars
shooting off the sides
of its glass smoothness
a cosmic letter 
in a bottomless sea
shooting stars 
streaking off the walls 
glass holding light
flickering celestial 
Morse code behind the safety 
of their star-stained cage
lid screwed on tight
a mason jar mystery
as shooting stars 
flick flickering
a bottled up night
on a bottomless 
ink-rich sea
paradox behind the glass
constellations spinning
canning stars in Mason jars

They say

absence makes

the heart grow

fonder.

My heart grows

restless

and

wary

and

at the end

of the day,

the only thing

I’m fonder of

is my

solitude.

A parked car

in the middle of a back road

2 in the morning

the music up as loud as it can go

Dancing in the headlights

Only the stars can see

Flying down a curvy Kentucky road

Hanging half way out the window

Like a wolf on a full moon

The outlines of the trees

Grow closer together the farther you go

The train tracks up ahead

Flash by like a blur

Dumb and reckless

You could say,

But for us,

This is the only thing

That makes us feel alive

These nights, our

Demons hide in the shadows

And our worries in a well.

Who knows how long we’ve got?

So we’re living, while we still are.

Sincerely, the wild ones

If the center can not hold,
To what will I?

Cities quake and tremble,
heaving with sorrowful sighs
uttered by those burdened with pain – 
Those holding onto a heartbreaking past
and pitiless present,
their outstretched fingers brushing up against Justice,
yet always with a slippery grip.

What do I hold onto now?
To what – I cry – can I cling?

I hold onto my husband,
and let him hold onto me.
I hold onto my children,
and whisper messages of peace and love in their small ears.
I hold onto Truth,
that finds dignity in all life.
I hold onto Beauty,
that blooms like the yellow flowers of weeds clinging to the sides of the gutter.
I hold onto Goodness,
in voices demanding change and a better world.
I hold onto my neighbor.
Hold fast.