Posts for June 19, 2022 (page 7)

Orange dawn

the vacation person
buried under day-to-day
the person I used to be
when I was a kid
or each time I fell in love
when past and future hid
behind thick velvet stage curtains
busts loose in
a nine-year-old on a boogie board
a pod of porpoises leaping
fiery orange and yellow 
of a parasailer lifting
touching down
skimming across endless blue sea   

I’ve started dreaming again. 
Stories seem to be 
coming back to me, and 
they’re woven so intricately 
even as I silently sleep. 

I used to love my dreams. 
Years ago when they weren’t 
dark hellscapes of nightmare
and pain. As chaos consumed me,
it took hold of my dreams with force. 
So I stopped dreaming. 

But now recently, 
every once in a while, 
I’ll dream a nice dream 
that might just make me smile.

Sardonic
Socratic
Stoic  

Fierce
Faithful
Firm  

Loyal
Legalistic
Laconic  

Complex
Complicated
Careful  

Brilliant
Benevolent
Brutal   

Father
Friend
Foe

Sunlight illuminates thin lines of darkness that exist between weathered wooden slats of a fence that marks the imaginary line
separating my neighbor’s property from mine.

I’ve begun to eye
the older guys, the
poets, chess players,
retired brick layers,
how they scribble on
the back of envelopes, 
how they get up 
out of chairs, how 
they use old age to look
a beautiful woman
straight in the eye,
I can see my cohorts
angle out of fishing
trips, decline
the incline, prefer to
be unmated, play for
the draw 

I’m thinking of my old man
this Father’s Day, how he liked
his cocktails and cigarettes,
the Cubs, and Connery’s Bond.

I’m thinking of the pinches of 
toilet paper stuck to his chin 
mornings when he was rushed for work. 

I’m thinking of the time he hit 
a grand slam to win the company 
softball game, when he caught 
the big muskie, and the medal he won 
for loving his country.

I’m thinking how his dad would cook
him a steak for every touchdown he scored,
and how I never beat him at arm wrestling — 
even when I finally could have.

I’m thinking how I could use his advice
right about now — now that I finally want it. 

I finished cleaning

the Casita today.

Now my guests

have clean place to stay.

Leaving the city

to come to the lake.

I watch as their stress

takes a needed break.

Swimming, fishing,

kayaking and more.

Nature, barbecuing

and of course s’mores.

The kids chase fireflies

while the adults sit and chat.

The fire is crackling

there is nothing we lack.

Every year

it is the same routine.

We never get tired

of living the dream.

Avoid burial.
I hope you remember nothing.
In ten years, maybe you will stop thinking of yourself so much.
If not, blame a political party for holding you back.
I fear you will not have time to see what we see in you.

Our vision for you has changed
from savior to whiff.
You are going to get rich
in pursuit of one morning.
The first thing that comes to mind?
Bullshit. Do the work.

Everything frightens you.
You will not love the way your skin falls into it own lines.
The hardest thing? Unsticking your smug.
It will take great strength to sacrifice all of the pain
that never happened to you.

I watch her rise and fall
fade and grow large at will
always from the corner of my eye
never sure where she’ll turn up.

Sometimes dull, sometimes glowing
light beams slash a midnight sky
the predictable pattern