Posts for June 6, 2023 (page 9)

They say

Write something bright, Write something hopeful

No. Already every day

I give way

To sharing the last light I have within

To all those whose light is dim

So. When I find myself on this blank page

I’ll confess that what may

make you uncomfortable

So that I may exist another day

So that when the pen finds this page

It produces authentic words

Though, often it’s a purge

Maybe they’ll find light in my darkness

Maybe not, but this is where my heart is

Who I am has often dwelled in shadows

Not where I chose to be

But I have fiercely battled

Can I be tired of the fight?

Can I please rest my wariness in the light?

Apparently that’s not up to me

Because “what will be will be”

I don’t want to believe I’m doomed

Amongst the free

But this is where I appear to be

So.

Here I sit

Here I exist

I beg for the light just as you

Sorry to disappoint again

But I’m through

My pages will not cover

They’ll not present as I’ve had to hover

They’ll instead hold the truth

The truth that exposes abuse

The truth that doesn’t water down

The truth where I drown

The truths that hold darkness

The truths that expose the heartless

And Despite my darkness that inflicts discomfort,

I can sit with knowing I am real

Even though I hate it

I find peace in these pages

I’m in a homey coffee shop in a strange town
next door to a famous indie bookstore,
that’s supposed to be open but isn’t  
and I’m shopping for images, as Ginsberg would have it,
searching for inspiration, as it were,  

when this toddler toddles up to my table
and says Hi over and over, like fifty times,
or maybe he’s saying high because honestly
he’s behaving like a meth head who just got
out of a mental hospital, but it’s okay because he’s little,  

so I smile at his mom and sit still in an effort to convey
that I’m a friendly stranger, patient, kid-loving,
but not a creepy stranger, candy in pockets, kid-loving
in a whole other, disturbing way, but I’m thinking
maybe she should pull him away, teach him wariness,  

and I’m thinking he’s interrupting my creative process,
as it were, but then I remember another coffeeshop  
where I saw a minister of my acquaintance
at a table with some college students,
when a meth head just out of a mental hospital

approached their table, and the pastor, who always
seemed creepy to me, who, as it turns out,  
was actually committing adultery with an intern,
one of the folks at that very table, said to the meth head/mental patient
We’re praying here, even though their eyes were all open,

and you’ve got me, I invented the meth head/mental patient,
it was me approaching their table, just to say hi but also  
because I was going through some shit, I forget what, exactly,
one way or another going through life like a bug
that had just been stepped on and was trying to avoid

getting stepped on again and smushed entirely,
and I remember thinking I could be the answer to their prayer  
if the prayer was Dear Lord, bring us someone in need
of being ministered to, as I did feel the need for some
ministration, and thinking of that coffeeshop

while sitting in this coffeeshop, I realize that this kid
is my poem, a two foot tall poem, hitting its head  
on my table, then crawling back to his mom,
who now scowls at me like I’m some god
who could have kept her son safe.

Too wild and wooly for counting
sheep wander the vast countryside
leaving the shepherd to sound off the planets
The last one
a lost sheep

Sheep, planets, yada, yada, yada
pinballs in a colorful, loud machine
mastered not by acute diligence but
rather attention deficit

Sassy, the coral bark Japanese maple
The Robin peeps them on their throne, the centerpiece of the yard (for now, the perfect size for the kitten if she were human size)
Between stacked fat worm deliveries
Noting his blushing bark
With a hitched hip of graceful curve
Rose tinged sunset raining all around the grass
Like new pennies, heads up
Magazine-quality peach shards
Paint the sidewalk
Where the kabuki kitten waits, so still and so intense, like a particularly demonic caricature, an inspiration to caricature.
The one honor of the evening, the
Most Dope Accoutrements patch awarded, every 100 years
But help yourself to a water can and await some other superlative.
In the buzzy euphoria of the grass I feel under the influence of energy fields, magnets, waves of florescent algae
Sun gazing sustenance from paisley leaf
A psychedelic tie-dye crystal explosion
Of angular fanning rainbow spears
In a lavender soup
Such is the way the sun is setting right now
Noticed by so few
Like a dream is instantly forgotten

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SXPXXDXLXX
UXOXEXIXXX
GXORXXXXXI
AXALEXXXXX
RCXLXXXEXX
SUGARPLUMX

Gurney agrees  

to read my manuscript,
award credits I need  

to return to the classroom
but only if I drive deep  

into the mountains,
make my way further  

south than I’ve ever
traveled before to find  

a line of rockers
on a porch where he spins   

tales of Palo Alto
in the 60s, listening  

to this band he once knew
I know as the Grateful Dead  

because he likes
a good porch story  

after communal dinner
at Hindman, where poets  

retreat. I’m still
wondering how  

I made it back home.

Listen, learn and write.
Prepare not to have a fight;
Stay separate now.

i thought of you this morning 
as I turned on a lamp
reading glasses clenched between my teeth  

        you were in that old, coffee-colored recliner
        white socks and sandals
        reading James Patterson with the pages up close to your face
        glasses held in your mouth    

tonight you were again on my mind
as I washed dishes from supper  

        i saw you standing at the sink
        mom behind you tying on your apron
                    fussing at you about cleaning in your dress shirt
        you used to tell me that washing dishes each night
        gave you a sense of accomplishment something completed at the end of the day  

 i too relish in the simple pleasure of a clear sink
 clean countertops
 the soft hum of a full dishwasher  

how much more as I age will I remember you
and
see you       

in me?

My wedding cake skin divides into nearly equal slices,