Posts for June 4, 2021 (page 6)

I had hoped for something less temporal
more substantial
I suppose the word is permanent

the color is not quite yellow
not peach and not orange but something in the family
glamorous and not simple
it reminds me of a ball gown
a fancy dress worn by a girl with golden hair

what though, lasts forever
certainly not a rose
the petals wilt and fade away

the reminder of summer ahead
and summers left behind
sunlight and the glow which follows rain
deep, deep color even though it’s pastel
purity in expression

lasting, I argue with myself
if only in my thoughts
real, alive, even if compressed to a season

Pine burns in piles
near Pee Dee river
dozers scrape pine bones
clay bare, red bleeding
making room, for
lake houses along the water
shaking the heron’s 
only home 

i yearn to be that plump drop of sweat teetering on the hairline of your temple    swollen with heat    i want to slide to the brow    float
                                                                          lower to your chisled jaw   
                                                                          cling to the chin for a moment    hurl myself into

                                                                                                   the a b y s s

                                                                           plummet
                                                                           through the steam of your body    SLAM myself
                                                                           into your heaving chest    navigate my way to the
                                                                           cave of your navel    push myself deep into the
                                                                                                   center of your being     

                                                                                                              dissolve
                                                                                                               intoyou 

High on a mountain range,
Heading for the top.
But will I ever make it?
Will I win the war against the wind and the rain,
and the rocky steep slope. Unable to glide peacefully down to the bottom,
but fall and tubmble with one mistake.
The big questions are different,
Will the flowers ever blossom?
Will the leaves ever turn green?
Will the sun come up tommorow?
Will my questions ever be answered?

for the longest time she was all I had-

pineapple bits and marshmallow bites

farmhouse noise and cake mix explosions

shawn mendes by the lake

snakes under the tent.

for the longest time that was enough-

now conversations are awkward

texts don’t go beyond the greeting

dresses and football are too child like now

red cherry trucks aren’t cool.

grown up.
grown apart.
the words have overlapped so perfectly.

an elder tree hangs on a cliff edge, leans into
the abyss, pale roots dislodged from soil, claws   

clutch nothing but air. Branches severed by wind,
lightning, rot. What remains unfolds green  

to mirror grass and moss-shrouded faces
of boulders it shadows. Twigs twist  

back on themselves, tortured positions
that remind me of dark, haunted forests  

in The Wizard of Oz. As I approach
my seventieth year, I’m drawn to craggy,   

roken trees—trunks debarked, scarred,
smothered with vines. Hollowed ones, 

with a gaping hole, mouth a howl of wildness.

~ Inspired by Casper David Friedrich’s Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon, 1824

You honestly don’t need to write a single word about me.
The way you look at me is enough.
Your smile reflected in those chocolate eyes of our perfect tiny child is brighter than the damn sun.
The taste of your lips, the smell of your skin, the perfect little crook I can nuzzle my head in is the only home I’ll ever need.
I don’t care what anyone sees,
I know in that deepest part of my soul that you are the only person I care about, will ever care about, who will ever truly know me.
Words are flowers wilting in vases, chocolates in crinkly plastic wrappers, a 14k gold band embedded with flawless shining diamonds –
Nice, but ultimately pointless, because they could never truly compare to loving you. 

hook weaves cotton loops
in out, in out, back, forth
patterns alternate
in color, how like a dream
checkered, he makes it
in out, in out, back, forth
until the image appears 
the one he held in mind
maybe a pattern, two colored
or four, with lines that strike
at uneven angles, resembling
a tartan, or herringbone
none solid, ever
always patterns picked
in cotton colors, looped
by aging fingers
same ones that dragged out
the steel frames, taught us,
in his younger years,
to enjoy something as simple
as a loom

When we first came to Swala, a serene
Oasis under broad acacia trees
In that wild corner of Tarangire, 
Our host told us four lions had been seen
From time to time at night outside our tent.
No cause for alarm, he said; animals
Perceived the tent as having solid walls, 
And did not like our scent. They’d be content
To feast on other prey, if we remained
Zipped in once darkness fell, and kept quiet.
We slept on fine white sheets, but bolted straight:
The roaring held and shook us, and we prayed
Our host was right about the cats’ eyesight.
At dawn, we found the warthog that they ate. 

This is just fantastic!
Absolutely every writer we’ve had to read in school
or any poet or any artist we had to study
Was either a racist or mistreated the ladies

No longer will we have to know anything
We can simply virtue signal our disgust 
And pitch our history in the dumpster

We can even complain it wasn’t properly recycled

Sorry Lou, that colored girl chorus just don’t cut it
Sorry Pablo, you made “The Weeping Woman” weep
Sorry Richard, antiSemitism killed the Valkyrie and you were mean to Minna

We got  perfect scores on our SATs
There were no questions left to answer