It stopped raining
right before dark.
When the skies
cleared and the sun
sank behind the hills,
frogs started hollering
all around the house
and lightning bugs lit
up, painting patterns
across the night.
I stood on my porch
breathing in the soaked
air, bathing in countless
echoes casting out calls
of love or woe and
drinking in the sight
of dazzling small beacons
longing for the thing
we all want.
In the wake of Woodstock Cincinnati had a Rock Festival. Mott the Hoople, Grand Funk Railroad, Ten Years After, Iggy and the Stooges and Traffic all came to town, along with hordes of hippies looking for peace, love and clean acid. City fathers said they could camp in Clifton (where lots of the local hippies already were) in a lovely park by the U.C. campus called Burnet Woods. Sounded like a scene to make, so my girlfriend (first wife to be) and I and another couple split two windowpanes and headed to town. We got there at dusk, and along with hundreds of friends we’d never met, were blown away by bugs. Countless stroboscopic fireflies lit people’s smiles, and seventeen-year cicadas jammed all night long. That was my second spin with brood x, and tonight at the same park on my fifth go-round, a sweet soul singer, invisible behind her full-face cicada mask, turned up her amp.
some of the things
I remember best
actually happened
stop. keep right.
right on until morning.
right on until you or I look left or we look left to see that all we have left is we.
we are heat and muscle
writhing beneath red electric
skin vibrating our data
across the room to one another
in zeroes and ones that wind
through in wanting that can’t
be found but deep in our bones
all of it causing us
to press against the glass
waiting for the moments
where we can forget
we are human
just part of the explosion
that created everything
finding a way back
Should the horse be brought into the city?
exit: warriors bent on destruction.
Nesting dolls, the tiniest face the hardest
to read – can she ever climb back in?
The ills of the earth fly in her face,
box open, lid lost in a dingy Athens pub.
A quiet corner table – Married and the Maiden
drink a toast to the Trojans and the Dolls.
Vows recited, his ring throbs on her finger;
Aunt Jennifer embroidering tigers on a leash.
“Our world is built
on competition,” the teacher says.
We listen closely,
each trying to sit up straighter
and look more engaged than those next to us.
“Cooperation is more effective
than competition,” the teacher says.
We nod in understanding
as we fight to be the closest to the front,
to hear and understand the lessons the best.
“Now what have we learned?”
the teacher asks,
then watches as we all scramble
to give the loudest, best, most detailed answer.
Talking over one another,
pushing and shoving with our words
it all swirls into a cacophony
from which one answer rings loud and clear-
“Nothing.”
the light dancing into our room
at sunset
is so beautiful
and it drapes you in a blanket of gold
and you are so beautiful.
i’ve never been a morning person
but when our cats decide that yesterday is now today,
even though the deep blue sky is still sleeping,
and we sleepily roll over to laugh about how bad they are,
i realize that mornings
are so beautiful
and i see your face
in the soft morning glow,
your legs tangled in the duvet we chose together,
and when you look at me
i see that you love me
and that you know i love you
and i tuck your hair behind your ear
and you are so beautiful.
Aglow in twilight, a large ball of fluff
drifts over shadowy grass. It stalks
prey through the yards, certain
it is an invisible killing machine.
