Posts for June 8, 2021 (page 2)

Category
Poem

Bridges

I’ve cut my tongue acroos
the burning jagged edge of you
and saw that you were
like the evening crimson sun
angry-bleeding its true colors
into the uncaring and hungry sky
I felt your truth in the clamped teeth
around my fingers
you asked me to leave my story
in bruises where none could see

walked away covered in summer rain
smelling of something sweet and wild
too full of these hills and trees and fireflies
ready to break open the road and find
whatever destiny lie buried secretly 
between those two yellow lines

all the while

knowing that I would need you 
again
and again
and again
to move against
whatever had failed
to keep us caged


Category
Poem

type nine

maybe i didn’t mean to get this buzzed
or maybe i just didn’t mean for everyone else to be
more intoxicated than i am
while “coming down” from my medication
which just means that
everything and nothing
pisses me off
and i hate being pissed off
because it’s so much easier
to be the person that’s never upset about anything


Category
Poem

Letting go

Remember how you always announced
“We’ve arrived!” when the front
bumper tapped the wall at the rear

of the carport? Years later, if you forgot
either tap or announcement, we protested
“How do we know we’re home?”

Go ahead, Mom; pull in all the way.
When you tap the wall, we’ll know
you have made it safely home.


Category
Poem

beers not tears

let me get you another, the sour
tastes sweet, it’s liquid key lime pie

and this is what the sun feels like when
it sets on hemingway’s porch after

a long day of romanticism. we’re maskless
tapped and poured into a world of smiles.

she has my number, only two weeks after
i got yours. we write in the corner 

but what possibly for? beers not tears.
we are hopped up and giddy, a new

world sitting than slurped outta glass
there,  *GULLLLP* ,   that was easy. 


Category
Poem

My First Love Letter

from Joey arrived
Saturday via
snail mail
addressed 
with one name:
Nana
Chuckling I imagined
the mailman’s smile.

At six,  his lines

     were c r o o k e d

s p r a w l e d        Over the p a g e

           s h o r t

and             s w e e t

“Guess what ! I made my bedroom into a secret lab. Your letter
was the coolest I ever saw.”

Joey- first 
Grandchild lovingly nick-
named “The Sheriff”
for his rigid rule keeping
Yet his Valentines birth
resonates tenderness.

Tears of joy and pride
streamed down
my face..
Composed with pencil and paper
by himself
splayed across the kitchen floor
First love letter 
birthing 
many new
chapters to follow.


Category
Poem

Yersinia’s Hands

Fingers locked in mine once
regardless of my strength
I cant seem
to part
ways

Your flesh has
fallen off into
the dark
will you
not let me
go

Infection sets in
each fingertip
evokes black
weeping
sores

Pustules rupture
necrosis sweeps
through arms
while I yet
cling to
life

Lift
my hand
away from yours
Goodbye’s were never easy for me.


Category
Poem

day before

day before 
knowing it will rain
again
the normal course of things 

day before 
knowing joy will follow 
continuously
if I let it 

day before
hoping so much more
always
the day before 


Category
Poem

Self reflection

at end I claim a
heart that’s always breaking, a

catastrophic mind

Category
Poem

unaccounted for

my brain broke today  

halfway  

between therapeutic
yoga and survivor
fit club  

lost  

terrifying thirty minutes
unaccounted for

found  

bewildering brightness
on a street unknown to me


Category
Poem

this park is alive

how the squirrels dance
through early summer’s hesitant dandelions
and used needles mingling with greying grass

how the songbirds sing
in blue skies
and over the squealing of a speeding car
going too fast past the
“Caution Children At Play” sign

how the court resounds
in a glorious composition of all colors and sizes
united through the love of an orange ball

how this green space breathes in now
inhaling the scent of burning rubber, sweat, and
the soft yellow hints of summer flowers