breezy thoughts
moments I hold onto
wrong motives or right?
balance is an impossibility
I want for kindness, newness, forgiveness
and am offered a portion
I swim underwater, in the shallow
as opposed to diving deep
what is available if I reach?
darkness is unnerving
as is silence
when will I accept?
more is offered
Black Lives Matter
in Charleston, in Minneapolis
in Buffalo, in Louisville, in Kenosha, and on
and on and on…
In 1950’s Kentucky,
my father the school superintendent
integrated the Black schools
into the county
so white folk
who did not like this progress
threw rotten tomatoes
and eggs at our house
that splattered our front porch,
covered the windows
Daddy said you respect
all your fellow human beings
and treat all as equals;
remember, you are no better
than any other person
Posters pasted on walls
covering store fronts,
headlines in the papers
Marchers with slogans
on banners
Slowly disappear,
people disremember
Lives Matter
Until they don’t
i think i might be using you
because somethin’ just aint adding up
my best friend and i send each other screenshots
every time a mutual “friend” gets back with her ex
we sit and laugh and say
bless her heart
somehow when it’s you and me
it’s not so funny
i love you though
i do
i used to daydream of what it’d be like
walking down that aisle
with you at the end
looking into your eyes
trusting them not to let me fall
tears start to trickle down your face
you mouth three words to me
that must’ve been the cue for the butterflies
to flap their wings
hard as they can
now only thing holdin’ my body upright
is your smile
but the thing is
i can’t tell if it’s real anymore
physically yes
you look at me and my whole body quivers
i feel the pull bringing us closer together
you move
i move
like magnets
but you know when two magnets attract
and you gotta fight like hell to rip them apart?
i think there’s some outside force pulling on us
i don’t know what it is
but it’s stronger than anything i’ve ever seen
and it’s pulling us
it’s pulling us
wait
it’s pulling me – only me
and i’m trying to get it to pull you too
but it won’t work
you have to stay behind
i’m confused
and alone
by myself but you’re beside me
can i use you
if i don’t know that i don’t want you?
The joy of watching cooking
shows while eating a simple meal.
Simple, ha, ha. Elaborate foodways.
You admire how deftly someone
rolls out a flattened sun, though
you’d rather eat the moon, like
any other self-proclaimed poet.
It is 12:18, and you pour a ramekin of
blueberries to justify a few more minutes
with the screen. When lunch ends,
it’ll be the wad of your brain you work on
unloosing from the upholstery
of your thoughts where it has become
so stuck on one thing.
“I can’t tell if the old tree is dying or tired,”
the man says on his phone; I eavesdrop,
a bad habit that led me to writing.
Our cars are cheek-to-cheek. I’m awaiting
medicine, the pills that pull me together
somewhat–a luxury without insurance.
I dream of a tree laying itself low, its limbs
mounting soil over trunk: a bed of itself.
Wouldn’t it be nice, letting gravity alone?
I cannot picture anything in my mind’s eye.
I cannot lift my leg, cannot go too far, dragging.
I claim the parts of myself no one else wants.
I will hold you no matter
how the world works to
separate us: Here, safe,
in my arms and heart.
What good is compassion,
the softest dressed strength,
when the states are parted
by winds of alien hatred?
How do we move a world
when it isn’t whole?
Set your ear to my heart,
listen as it whispers hope.
Not one of us is alone,
helpless against fear
and darkest storms,
if some one dares care.
(after the painting by Julie Rotblatt-Amrany)
Saw the old man sitting there by the ocean, wearing his angry red cape
& his floppy hat. I said, Are you sad that time is passing, that sky
ignores you & ocean still ripples with joy on sunless days?
He did not reply—he no longer had a mouth. But I saw the birds
flit around the cage that his torso had become, heard their
rustling, wings wide open against their metal hills.
Those hills rang blandly, but deer still came up to him to beg food,
robins hopped around his flat shoes looking for worms,
squirrels rifled in the surrounding shrubs.
Are you empty? I asked. Sand shifted, grass crackled
in a dry wind, & gulls shrieked an answer.
Old man remained faceless, headless,
hollow.
~inspired by Magritte’s “The Therapist”
