Posts for June 1, 2023 (page 3)

used only for a single
supper of summer soup
the cheap white curve
of plastic is soon buried
in the bin of other
reckless waste. how deep 

in the earth will it burrow
before it snaps and breaks? 
will the eternal object, only
once used, be transformed into
a primordial highway for
the insects underneath? 

or perhaps its stark clean body
becomes a god to the ants,
bowing their antannae
to the artifical being. 
oh hail great plastic one 
they chant as they soak up
water from it’s flimsy basin.

or will it be nothing among nothing
piled among thousands of its own
left in a stagnic stupid splendor 
a hell created by us alone. 

I am grateful for the birds outside my window, singing their Springtime melody 

“Awake, sweet girl, 
morning sits and waits
To mingle amongst 
the wind whistling 
through blades of grass”

I am grateful for the rain drops sprinkling down on flowers, leaving iridescent pearls

soft tear drops from the Sky
sandness or joy
I believe the latter 
for all the beauty this brings 
One would believe such hope

I am grateful for the sun that dances in through my bedside window shining upon on face

Hot, Springtime heat
dotted against skin 
nature’s own freckles
panels of light
bend and move
The dance of sunlight across life 

grief takes
time and then it
takes you it takes
you. It takes you. 
It took you and I 
am

stuck here still
I am here, stuck
I am still here 

taken

It can become putrid if left too long
in the heat of summer, even nestled
softly between rows of sweet corn
or tobacco, or among blackberries

or briars. It may rot in the humidity
of a late Kentucky June, but handled
correctly, with respect, with love –
how we learned from ancestors, how

they taught us patience. Love shared
with weathered hands, spotted dark
with wisdom earned through troubles,
through toils in sandy, stripped soil,

that love can heal. If we listen intently,
heed wisdom passed down, follow ancient
songs, bend ourselves to rhythm, & nurture
every voice, we shall be properly prepared.

Craven Jay Mogumbsey
(sheds yet a shred of his
clenched and stridulous soul,
still chasing that stalwart rhyme
of a story left supine, forcing
         a chafing breast stroke):

Wet rags and ribs of pervasive sentiments pinned
in the holed up, tarred and feathered, and plucked,
obscenely corroding pall of a murmurous sternum
incensed, alas, at last, to
                                             open—
                                         to let a sere feather
                                                         distend its
                                             nib in some measure of
                                             crusting blood
                and scratch across
                        runes defaced
                or mud pies maybe,

one whisper of what her pert pulse percusses.

The moon worn down to a chalky fume
or a blistering spoondrift shouldering swollen
stars she took for a rash of insatiable sigils;

and, creakily cowing, she cramped some petering pain
in a figure of baying and tolled their tortuous nicknames
over and over the broken bowl of her runcible bone, her
whilom instrument clacked across chattering teeth, her
tool for refining cantatas and straightening torpid tangos,
                                          tuning the grooves of a bas relief. And
Hear ye, hear ye.
                                Hear ye!
Hear ye, the keys
all sharp as a tack
or flat as a pin depressed
through a plugged and spluttering breast:

the owl, the starling, the tambourine,
some shimmying snare of diminutive cymbals shuffling
                                   jangly staves of a trembling
                                   dream enlaced in a creaking gait;

how the rusted greaves sloughed, nuzzling
sparks from macadam and feldspar,
                                                  teething really,
must cling to still splintering shins; or the raddle of

river stones cracked to a callus of glistening
calcite, blistering pulp of a swollen orange
once toddling fingers struggled to
pull from peel and pith, a fish in the
throes of the Mariana trench grown slim
as a grease-slopped slab of soddenly silenced parchment pitifully pitched

to furnish the din of a kitchen, the well-worn
                glow of a boisterous bardo bracing
to burst, this frankly unslakable thirst
for yet love unlaced, or something akin to it,
traced in a filliping, twilit sea of but
thrumming, unplumbable feeling, thin
as a hazing dream relayed amongst rests
abating some molten pulse of unsoundable music,
strange transcriptions strangled
                   in limp transpositions,
                      a fissure of oghams
lost in a furor of fumbling fish hooks
        bent to a litter of slippery notes—this
torpid gorget smothering scabbing gills,
the honeycombed heart that rolls up the taken hills
and beats from a curl of coal
    some tickling trill of an owl,
    or, maybe, some stuttering cymbal confused
                                                    
                                                                     for a starling.

Trepidation of forward motion, is this healing
or perpetuation?

                   Rhythmic lullaby of misery quiets,
makes me believe I am whole as the sun yet
months from becoming something beautiful.

My sorrow is intangible, my body is here,
so here I am finding control where I can.

Find me pretending I believe in happiness
while I thin to the bone as the moon does,
emaciating under the guise of my peace.

Walk to clear my head,
                                            my stomach,
                                                                     my life
into that empty sky,  blue as thoughtlessness.

Falsify my adoration of movement, of change,
dance as though it is without compulsion,

move like the snake in the garden,
coiled
around the image I desire but cannot take.

My heart dissolves like a bad fruit, waning 
into a sliver of itself.
                                Watch me eat myself alive.

sometimes i forget
how oxygen feels in lungs
how to take a breath
when to inhale fast
when to exhale slow

I am drowning inside my own mind
Hands shaking, teeth chattering 
Heart racing inside of my chest 
It’s hard to breathe, hard to think 

This is my constant reality 
Life with the wires crossed and
No idea how to uncross them 
Medication and patience; talking
To strangers about why, why, why

Some days are better -easier-
Some are an uphill battle
This is life with the beast 
Always fighting it; nobody wins

Only a handful of suits
Mostly on Milkweed (that’s his real name!)
And the rest of the staff, at Stanley’s.

Mourners wear denim and Carhartt,
Bib overalls with worn knees.
Folks have already been at work,
Or are dressed now, for later.
Days do sometimes come hard as this,
And farmers never really call in sick.

All lined up and patient to say:
He looks so good lying there,
So what got him in the end,
We graduated high school together,
Think you’ll sell that tractor, that barn, that ridge?
Will he miss what I borrowed –
Now that he’s gone?

Uncle Bill,
My beautiful brother,
Feuling the family,
With his secret stash –
The cooler stuffed with Diet Cokes,
Hidden away in his backseat
Behind tinted windows and a child lock.

Three generations of Dunn Women
Only one with red hair
Each supporting the one before them.
Each, a little less upset than the next.

Casket, rough oak
Hewn from barn wood, reclaimed
But no less expensive.
(Lord it costs a lot to die.)

The folks at the funeral home decided on two extra pallbearers.
After all gentlemen,
They tell us about our uncle,
This farmer was not light.

Fellowship Hall Sandwiches
(That’s ham & wilted lettuce)
Mustard and mayo packets
White plastic knives and aluminum cans
And sun shining through stained glass
On more mouths, many more mouths
Then we expected to feed.

And all of us,
Sweating and hungry and together.
All of us
Equally, Fully Divine.