Posts for June 22, 2023 (page 5)

you have

smothered me
stifled me
stiff-armed me

when there is space for me
you are able to
                    think
                        meditate
                            create
                                be

with no agenda OR outcome OR product

when you let me in
there is room

to

sit with your thoughts
let them linger
pay attention to them
see where they go

…maybe nowhere

so until then

i remain here
waiting for you to decelerate
and
remember what it’s like to have me around

        breathing slows
            shoulders lower
                thoughts unjumble             

you return to yourself again

disgruntled
frustrated
holding a grudge
not against
as if slighted
just holding
foolish I know
knew it from the moment I held it in my hand yet there it was
rolling around my palm all the day long
as I painted my sons garage
alone
had to run for more supplies
alone
battled the grocery store for provisions
alone
to other son’s home vacuummed floors washed walls
alone
no one said I must
nor even expects it
well maybe one does….
I just do it
hold myself to the level
that never quite settles into balance
nor finds its equelibrium
I’ve said I like
alone
I really do too
but some tasks
some life
needs an
along.

It’s never knowing how she feels about you.
That’s a lie you know exactly how she feels
you just don’t want to believe it.
Love is madness
so let’s stay in the friendzone.

I could never count on you to be the person I needed you to be

The person I thought you were

I loved you like sunshine

All-encompassing, warm, consistent

Your love for me was never what it seemed

Like shadows

Shifty, dangerous, hidden

I’m not anti- social
I’m a Cistercian monk
So I’m a-social
But you say: “Don’t you like sex?”

Ah well; that
It is an order with a vow of chastity
But maybe just for a fling
I’d step out of it if you’d stand still for it

Then the woman with the furrowed brow says:
“You’re my only cause for anxiety”
But I don’t do guilt either
The monestary starved it out of me

“What makes you go be a hermit?”
To speak with full faith and varacity
It’s so I can go quiet and be alone with joy
Says: :You are an annoyance.”

So I come back for a bit of social
A fling, a bottle of wine, some audacity
But the timing is wrong
I’m alone in the yard, 10 AM

Now I hear from somewhere far away
“You’re fooling yourself with mendacity.”
Now. I’m a fool but a flexible fool
Amenable, bendable, charitable
Won’t bite you won’t fite you
Just love you, stand by you, help you
Play with you, stay with you
Pull you into my cliff dweller cave
As far as you will let me
And hope you’ll be my Cisterian monkee

In companion to Picasso’s Head of a Woman (Fernande)

Light stomping, clomping down each high point of the bronze face heel first
sharp rips of features a tatter of a nose undulating bulbs along the scalp the eyes are hallowed punctures a god with an ice axe crafting as best he can
or is it exactly as he intends?

Robins are a nasty bird.
When I look at one up close—all scraggly
and fluster hoppy—I often find
myself saying, “Robin, you’re gross.”
I say it in a cute little voice, like a prank
or an admission of fetish.
But I’m dead fucking serious.

Anyway, I doubt they hear me.
Usually this is through a window or
inside a car. And besides, obviously,
they don’t speak English.

There were mated cardinals in the garden
of my last home. I like saying
“mated cardinals” because it sounds
like I know what I’m talking about.
But, I mean one was Crayola red
and one was demurely beiged out—like
a cardinal on sepia filter—and they
flitted around together, especially
on Friday and Saturday nights.

Here, at my new home, I just saw a raven
perch literally in the ONE dead tree
across the back alley. Classic. I grabbed
a pen.

Now, the evening light is beginning
and I’m watching the swallows swoop—
the faintest skim coat of mountains
on the distant horizon.

                                          Yes, that’s right. I’m
just sitting here watching the swallows as I
swallow. It doesn’t go any further.
Not everything has to.

I 

know

I can’t

stop the change

avalanching toward

my poor worn sense of correctness.

Message For The Phlebotomist

Two ruby shoes–          
each cobbled  
from            
a single
red sequence.