Posts for June 4, 2023 (page 10)

after the Paschal candle
is lit from the sacred fire
we light each other

It would have been nice
For you to have recognized
That even my atlas shoulders needed a safe place to rest the world
Instead, you were glad to let me carry it.
The weight built muscles burning to unburden, and still you stacked your insecurities and loneliness until cracks mined my diamond anger, hard and cold at the core.
Unearthed, it takes more strength to lay down the rocks than to carry them.
The burden of You is now all yours.

This is all I want now
      a contemplative moment
a book deep as a cave
       a still body that can simply rest

This is all I want now
    a quiet mind, unfettered
the end to all my ceaseless quests
    for love,
      for peace,
        for passion

Now and now and even now

let me be still

               and quiet

                                 and present

Now and now and now

                                              let me just be here

let me live in the paradox of this now moment
       that never is and never was

I comb her soft gray hair.

She whacked my hair off, spit on her fingers,
Rubbed down my cow lick.
Three younger siblings called her away.
I went off to first grade.

“I did not have time to make you pretty,”
she once said.

I comb her soft gray hair.
“That feels good, “
she utters from her Alzheimner’s bed.

She made me feel pretty.

I comb her soft gray hair. I comb her soft gray hair.

Last night I prayed for the first time in years

Earnestly prayed

I got down on my knees at the end of my bed and everything

But I didn’t pray for what I used to

I didn’t beg for forgiveness 

I didn’t thank God for his goodness 

Or even ask for him to change me

I asked him to change you

To soften your hearts

To give you both a revelation

To open your eyes 

But he didn’t listen to me

I imagine him turning his head from me

Sneering, face contorted in disgust

Crushing my pleas with his heel

Or then again… maybe you are just assholes 

It makes a damn

Monster—

The most untamed beast

Of a brain you’ve

Ever seen

It’s hands that no longer

Plant flowers

And the impulse-bought

TV thats way too big

For your living room

It’s finding something

That makes you smile once

And latching onto it

In the most sickening, morbid

Kind of way

It’s drinking something you hate

Until you love it,

And smoking so much

Your left arm looks like

It doesn’t fit on your body

It’s dark and wet

It seeps onto the ground

Just enough to make your shoes stick

And once you shake them loose—

It tracks everywhere.

Problem solver,

Meaning translator,

Encourager,

Gray shades in a world of rainbows –

​My portrait.

Strong and scared,

Optimistically feminist,

Destroyer of weapons,

Aspiring artist,

Writer in training,

Beekeeper,

Meal maker,

Space worshiper,

Momma of Poodles,

Momma of many,

Egalitarian,

Nana and wife,

Reader of Steven King,

And watcher of PBS,

Another problem solved,

Another meaning translated,

Encourager–

You can do it – even more encouragement

Lover –

So many to love – so many needing love

Angry and blessed

Blessed?

Yes, Blessed –

And judgement solely from my God. 

Mind-numbing boredom
Ten mile an hour tense silence
Beats crunching metal

Unleashed from the east
A howling beast
Circles ’round the earth
Legions spent
Generations sent
Back into the dirt
In sweaty rooms
And rotting tombs
Beware the riff and throat
On blackened wings
This devil sings
Killing, note by note

I put the poem into a Google doc because I wrote it in Word last night and can’t copy and paste it with out ruining the formatting. Sorry about that!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r57_tddFgcCtb803B-uowefiOinUC3_OWutQ0HnR2Go/edit?usp=sharing