11:34am—-almost
too late to be morning
you didn’t owe me anything
your words were hollow & sorrowful
i could almost hear you say them
i ate alone
before sighing
& responding, kindly
before i bitterly cried
at how my love failed
once again
you loved someone
more than you could ever love me
but in that unexpected message,
i learned i must stop trying,
so i made love to myself,
waiting
with enough / for enough
The wind thrashes
Like a thousand waves.
The grey skies grasp
Everything its mellow embrace.
And the rain begins to trickle
In small doses.
Then the real fun begins.
The rain begins to pour
As if it’s trying to wash us all
Out of existence.
The thunder booms
Like an ominous growl.
And finally,
The lightening strikes,
Lighting up the sky for just a mere second.
Reminding us not only of the beauty it can bring,
But also the horrors.
Endless flats, endless heaven,
we drudge towards the quicksand
as the sun steals our grace, the wind
crystallizes our lungs with layers of salt.
We walk like ancient pilgrims towards
Virgin Mary’s island vacation home,
watch ourselves become less real,
less ourselves, more of the earth.
The world is obliviated, the seabirds
trespass in my mind, the little crabs
untangle my hair. We hold hands
but I have never really been here.
I am that tiny gold angel waiting
on top of Mont St. Michel for the end,
when the world will crumble and sweep
into dark seas. The moon is thinner
than an eyelash, she sheers my wings
as the beach thins to darkness, and
something on the port burns away, as
I fall, many villages over, to Honfleur
where we drink in the street and breathe
the sweet silty air of the town’s mouth.
The carousel turns me into new dimensions,
and I am orbiting an idea I cannot touch yet,
but I feel it’s pull; perhaps I am already cured.
I want to pray, but to what I do not know.
They never thought we’d walk again,
So apparently
there is
something
in my brain
that gets activated
by Poetry
I cannot describe it
I just have a sense about it.
Maybe some kind of
linguistic Silly Putty
stretches and twists into
a Mobius strip inviting
travel into the
upside down world?
Is it possible time portals
have pulled me off
course now and then?
Psychic trances?
Dreamscape connections?
What if there’s a poetic virus
and there’s no cure?
I wonder about these things.
It’s a lot to consider
But maybe
the truth has to be
more simple and
not processed via
a complicated matrix
I can see that certain conditions
activate the poetry alert system,
But in the end, it really is only a simple matter of waking up.
I think I am comfortable
just calling that “something in my brain”
the waking of a hibernating bear.
That seems to really fit.
I see no counter argument
to this idea.
And to put it correctly,
you might say
within each of us
is a Hibernating Poet Bear.
I will call mine Renee. Sometimes she comes out of her cave,
flailing her arms and showing claws, her body lumbering along
as she accelerates into a full sprint.
When she hits a place hard, she digs deep, whether desert,
jungle, closet, car or the aisles of Home Depot. She is
simultaneously spewing words and phrases, colons and semi-colons
—letting them fall where they may—or even suspend mid air
for days until needed, playing hop-scotch on the time-space continuum.
The Poet Bear may show extreme care at times,
even a nurturing spirit. Emotions may determine
every choice or psychological wrestling stance.
If it pleases her, she might destroy everything,
with no explanation.
Hot or cold, the awakened Poet Bear is still an animal
from knolling master to blood letting killer,
You never know what you’re gonna get.
I’m not a scrubby hornbeam
poorly sapless, under full
sun beat
Maybe I’m more like this fern
I Am Both.
1 1/2 cup Jasmine rice
annoyance morphs into a slight tinge of anger
I learn to withhold it
accept how life goes
I could share all of it
or simply a piece that pertains to the day
mostly because we don’t have hours
and I didn’t plan on today being that sort of day
