Hydro Cat Nurse Mouse
In hot pursuit,
I forget
I became water
to slip through cracks
and bypass my tendency toward
self-destruction.
In hot pursuit,
I found
I needed
to ease your suffering
and bypass your tendency toward
self-disjunction.
In hot pursuit,
I forget
I became water
to slip through cracks
and bypass my tendency toward
self-destruction.
In hot pursuit,
I found
I needed
to ease your suffering
and bypass your tendency toward
self-disjunction.
Like mint and basil swirled debris.
Like the smell of freshly mowed grass
but sharper.
Like a spritz of lime
that’s landed on iceberg lettuce.
Like parsley and ginger’s love child.
Like that chest feeling
when you’re tired from the summer sun.
Like my tastebuds are singing karaoke.
Or I guess if I were you,
like a curse word at grandma’s house.
Timid first
blossoming, cut
by germination.
Irritated push
abandoned, burned
by better what ifs.
Foreseen headache
sown, emboldened
by seas of excuses.
Bittersweet hatred
burnished, achieved
by cyclical mistakes.
Pure daydream
fantasized, crumbled
by reality.
Mutual goodbye
gifted, received
by distance.
Timid second
sprouting, spreading
by the day.
Cracked heart
stitched, soothed
by gentle fingers.
Wonderous landmark
discovered, declared
by self-reflection.
Which
will it be
this time?
Skipping Stones V
By the time my youngest son
Was old enough to fisH
His brothers had given up
Boyscouts and camping trips.
While he stood squealing
at live worms that climbed
The rim of the Styrofoam cup,
I thread their soft bodies onto barbed hooks.
He swung the Walmart reel,
His thumb on the release,
Swung it back and forth
Until casting barb and bate,
Sinking below the current,
Into the cool pocket at the river’s bend.
His brothers learned to fish five years ago
And now found other things to do,
Other than skipping stones and hunting fossils,
Other than running upstream to the place
Where clever fish evaded hooks,
Devoured worms in nips and tugs,
The bobber peacefully floating,
Unmoved by the feast below.
Tonight I’m running
the all bets are off algorithm,
a cramped curiosity cabinet
waiting for the letters to fall
in a pattern, arc, ray
while I scratch a turntable
bookmarked to the beats
of times gone by.
I know a little past tense, here & there.
Burrough ape-skulls
echo a Holmes’ violin
to the back-rhythm frenzy
of cyber edge nightlife pulsing
through a dirty Chiba City.
A literature lightshow
with everything but Romance.
Feral Angel, tears dry—
scars don’t.
Honey, it can’t be me.
I don’t have any heart left.
As I’m reading Hamlet, I chuckle to find
Shakespearean rhythms; they dance in my mind,
Their lines made of iambs, unstressed and then stressed,
In ten little syllables (well, more or less).
I scarce e’er use meter, I’d rather be free
To capture emotions in my poetry —
Or sometimes an image or sweet memory —
With words that express complementarily.
The sounds of the bard soothe and tickle my brain
And now that I start, I can scarcely refrain
From lining up feet in a novel old way
Inspired by this summer’s review of some plays
I first read in high school. It’s now time to share
The tragedies’ potency, magic and air
To sweep up a poet at start of the day
And nudge her to frisk in a language ballet.
It was where I thought
the synchronicity was leading,
the strawberry moon,
so I spent
so many days pouring
all of my hope into it.
It was going to be my pivoting point,
the fulcrum to the scales
tipping back into my favor.
And then the day came.
However, a reality check–what if nothing happens?–
in the anticipatory hours led me
into more questions needing asking.
Could I really believe
in everything I was hoping for?
What reason was there
to think that desire
was truly attached to the moon
and all of its reflection
of the sun I’ve been trying to raise?
What’s worse:
to need and not know
or not know what you need?
Or to know what you need
and not know how to get it?
Or to not know you don’t need
whatever it is you think you need?
I’m thinking of a girl
in a phases of the moon shirt
and all I’ve stored up in her.
What happens if I try to fall
into her and she’s not real?
Where would all that hope go?
Would I only shatter myself
on all the rocks below?
Maybe she, too, is only a reflection
of the positive force I really need to find,
something to pour love and compassion
back into my hollowed and withering soul,
to lift me from a night that entombs me.
That could still be her, though, so I will
still go through the motions, if given the chance.
After all, I’m just a random text away
from failing to claw out of obscurity, but…
the moon cycles we could spend together…
As it is, I’m just fortunate
to have a sense of self-preservation
strong enough to kick in
whenever reality is about to break me, so I don’t
accidentally give myself away.
Talking about us
Feels like when you have a bruise
And you press on it
You know you shouldn’t do it
And it hurts like hell
But for some reason
You can’t help but smirk
