The day closes in
hand picked blueberries
sit waiting
softly calling for sugar
in a batch of pancakes
spatula in hand
I wait
bubbles across cake lakes
dotted blue
the scent brings back Easy Bake
oven cakes
lightbulb heating
siblings and I wait
tiny yellow rounds
precious sun cakes
fancy fodder for ravenous children
Oh, so delicious
tiny pieces for all
Ariba Ariba!
Do it again
only a few precious minutes
to send my subconcious
into a digital landscape.
This is not virtual reality, if it were
we’d be skydiving through hoops
and reversing gravity.
There’d be an orchestra on the moon
and we’d all look three dimensional
if three dimensions forgot
how to use sandpaper.
We would be pinewood boxcars
moving faster than time
finding new definitions for the length of a lap.
Is it one time around the track
or the segway between races,
the place where you learn to be more
-learn to be better-
submitting your assignments well before deadline?
Not every line can be pushed,
can’t be snipped, shat, and retweeted to
every new school constitutionalist
who forgets Ben Franklin loved deviancy.
*Racking
*Re-racking
*Racous
*Ruthless
*Reverent
*Realistic
Foolish.
We have to do this
because we have nothing else,
and why would we need anything else
if this is what gives us what we love.
We compete with the pain because
without pressure nothing would be real enough
to love.
We want feelings to have names
And it’s the fuckers that don’t that scare us
How to say
Bittersweet
Only tastes like accepting the inevitable
Such lightness with all that darkness
It’s almost funny
And there’s that ghost of anger just hanging out
Feeling righteous and ashamed
It’s a party, and everyone is invited
Where you watch your steps kick up muck from the riverbed
Swirl about your ankles and folks say
Okay now name that one for the way it looks right there
In this light, balled up at the end of that couch
What do you call it?
When the camper fell off its hitch
on the interstate, on the bridge
over the Cumberland River,
we were up a creek without a paddle.
Actually we had four paddles
that go with the two kayaks
on the roof. What we didn’t have
was a jack that would lift the camper
enough to get it back on the hitch.
We tried to lift it ourselves
but we couldn’t get it high enough.
There were semi trucks speeding
by close enough that we had to pull
the mirror in on the truck.
But the worst part was that the road,
being a bridge, was bouncing with each vehicle
and believe me, the Cumberland River
is a scenic place but when you are stuck
on the side of a bouncing highway
with only a concrete barrier between you
and an Olympic-worthy dive into said river,
you don’t want to look down.
That was when we decided to call 911.
Definitely more than a simple AAA matter.
I really thought we were going to die.
Enter Deputy Butler, our knight
in shining armor with flashing lights
and a good knowledge of hitches
and campers and newbies like us.
Did I mention this was our first trip
with our new camper? It’s a long story
so let me just say, we made it home
with a tale to tell and more adventures
in our prayed for future.
there’s something about
this woman with me
that I have to grab her hand
as we walk
out into the scorching
parking lot
while she cradles
our road snacks
to her chest
she wanders
like a new born giraffe
caught in the blinding sun
and I loved it
I said I would never
eat in my own bed
but we sit naked
with blankets pulled
up around our waist
with damp skin
and sore muscles
sharing the snacks
we hid from the children
or how I deemed it
unhealthy for someone
to have a television
in thier bedroom
yet I can’t wait
to lay down
with the Golden Girls
as I slide my legs
in between hers
I found there were
a lot of things
I said I didn’t want
or thought I needed
until they bloomed
in front of me
as this tall woman
with wild hair
I foolishly assumed
I had mapped the power
of prose and poetry, of words.
But the other day,
I happen upon a notion
that took my breath away:
some words —
news articles, think pieces, exposes —
taste better fresh off the press,
like how soup’s best served hot
and the freshness of vegetables
dwindles through the days,
while others flow better the next day,
3 AM lyrics refined till morning
like the small joy of leftover pizza,
yet the sentiments of I’m here for you
and promises of We’ll get through
can sour at the hands of their baker,
can be appealing until swapped sugar
and salt assaults a tongue, cotton candy
words melting into sweet nothings,
just as the vow of forever
sits as soapy cilantro in one mouth
but is refreshing in another,
and the picked clean classics endure
like edible flowers persisting
through their networks of roots.
Truly, words are strange
and beautiful and unmappable
and unflappable and like food
(though I fudged the last bit,
whisked the ‘food for thought’
away into ‘food as thought’).
