Wear sunglasses
to waterproof your expression
horizon chaser, sunset catcher.
Plentiful misery
shades scattered tested bones—
toad coyote cactus mouse beagle
while excited eyes & dancing voices
will bake you with the heats
of once daily Jardiance,
and your way Cologuard.
My irregular heartbeat
doesn’t need Eliquis,
or even Paxlovid.
Just Pax
illuminated by
red and yellow sky.
Used to knock out
a thousand words a day
no matter what was going on.
Now my insides
twist and shrivel up
when asked about my progress.
Touching notebooks today
is like an unavoidable shock
of failure, helplessness, inadequacy.
Even a simple poem
becomes a mountainous hurdle
I’m steadily losing faith that I can leap.
It’s dangerous, a friend tells me,
when things that are your passion
start to feel more like hard work, labor.
For any writing to be this hard
something fundamental inside me
must be shifted, my balance completely awry.
I’ve never been strong, just resilient
but resiliency eventually starts running dry.
The bigger man collapses; the high road bridge is out.
Risks are not worth taking,
effort is not worth expending;
the deception of not trying for my own safety.
Too many negative experiences,
too many moments of powerlessness.
Nothing is there to feed back into spirit
and that’s why, at day’s end
no coping mechanism can fully replace
the immeasurable value of a solid human connection.
We become our own implosions,
not because we choose to but because
it’s the logical end to too much self-reliance.
I need to dig deep to find this flaw
but I must also remain conscious of answers
that lay somewhere just outside myself and my world.
To unlearn failure.
To unlearn giving up.
To unlearn meaninglessness.
Apparently 37 is the year.
I truly thought I would hit 40
And freak out
Do all that sports-car-plastic-surgery-whirlwind trip to France- malarkey
…ok, no plastic surgery.
That’s just a step too far.
But 40!
That was the year I made time
A slot for existential crisis
Next to motherhood and a new car.
But as always I guess
I’m impatient
Or the universe is
Because here we are at 37
A newly single mother
With dramatic bangs
About to dye her hair red
About to buy that dress
About to spend far too much money
On an experience just for her
Which she will surely twist in guilt for
But will love every second of
And it’s not death I’m chasing
He’ll come to me, the sly dog,
But life rather.
There’s a lot of that shit out there
And at 37 I want some.
Maybe a tattoo, too…
What do you think?
What they seem to miss,
when I’m put back together,
is I’m still not whole.
On your bed, on a new continent,
I slowly glimmer out of existence,
a blip of shadow scuffed quietly
down downy comforters.
You play guitar above my head,
rogue notes peppering my cheeks
like iridescent snowflakes in summer:
rare but dazzling, ephemeral.
blast site settles
body of King Arthur wakes
unbeknownst to those nearby
essence of Lady Guinevere retained instead
her hands steady
eyes fixate on former Lancelot
crying out in vain to a lover
also transmogrified from the dead
his pulse hastens
hands to hilt to quell the former king
berserking by invulnerability of hate
also horrified from sordid swords of bed
arms outreached she
sprang to embrace her forever love
arms outreached he
sprang to end the life of his eternal foe
Guinevere to redo
the love Lancelot lost
Lancelot to undo
the chaos Mordred caused
Penelope unravels the shroud
of her great grandfather (me)
and allows no visitors
during this supposed composition,
you see It was all set
but for that memorial day
when returning from Dr. Hue’s
in sandals on wet cobble stone
this 84 y.o. body executed
a flat-face fall that led to ER
but no broken bones
just a bloody nose and bruised faced,
it kinda knocked the wind
from the lungs of an auto-bio
but even the gruesome selfies
(way worse than that broken legged
purple heart from 1962)
sent to Penelope at U.T. Austin
did not defer her from sailing
to her ailing bisexual g.g.father
to write his ship, so to speak
even in a life as old as this
it’s hard to believe what havoc
2 years can wreck, in 20-21
best buddy, Jack Teal, & yours
truly were having an unruly time
on our naval vessels
waiting out covid on that inland
sea of Lake Herrington, Oh My,
but then by last year J.T. was gone
as in died after a horrid nursing
“home” visit and ZZ was kicked off
his boat and decamped
to his sister’s abode at Alligator
Lake Condos in Temple Terrace
horendous florida
last summer a wet rag on the heart
capped off with a flight north
when Ian rampaged the gulf
lucky for us little damage
then a fall-winter of wanton
hate being spewed in the sunshine
state, no one could suspect
this old coot but still
it’s a nervous venture
to be out
and about
Richard the Third called for his horse once more,
but was run through by dramatic sword play.
He slumped to center stage in a death pose,
spotlight spilling over stage-bloodied head.
Absolute silence as we awaited
what came next. Then, up on one elbow…
“Isn’t he dead yet?” My father offered
his best sotto voce to one long “sh-h-h-h-h-h”
from the rest of the Shakespeare subscribers.
The actor broke the 4th Wall to giggle
into death gasp while I sunk deeper
into shadow of long ago ringside
like my father did when I cried out that
Big Time Wrestling head stomps were, in fact, real.
With muscles fueled
By music (predominantly the heart),
I built up enough strength
To be able to stand up without
My head drooping down.
I suffered through heartache and grief
To finally be strong enough
To sit here unashamed,
Belting out my own melodies
As if they were being regurgitated from my chest.
The ones who truly loved me stay,
Hand in hand, pressed against the barricade.
While the ones who never did left
(And frankly, weren’t invited to begin with).
It took 23 years before the re-entry rules
Stopped being a pain in the ass.
I pick at the calluses on my fingertips
And the bruise on my forearm
Wondering which one i’ll write about next.
Some day I’ll write a happy little tune.
Something where the words aren’t so sad for once.
And I know that day is coming.
For the first time in 23 years,
I don’t feel alone, or hurt or bothered.
I feel peace. I feel santity.
I feel like me.
The heart wants what it wants,
And my god, it’s got it.
