Posts for June 27, 2023 (page 7)

A long ride home from sunny
shores to the Bluegrass
Haze saturating dusk air
creating chronic stupor in Kentucky summer
A lightning bug splat on the windshield
its butt fading from yellow to nothing at all
Eyes closing here
opening there in bug heaven
My own eyes close here
open there in childhood paradise
seeing myself catch flashes
of light for a jar of safekeeping 
A new stupor of my own making
in the wake of fresh beach memories 

                                                            a found poem mashup

ever
since you
kissed  

my eye . . .
I find
my-  

self
alive . . .    
I’m  

float-
ing . . .  
light  

and
shadow
change  

the walls . . .
a dog
and  

bird
are
far away . . .      

haley’s
comet’s
come  

and gone . . .
I’m
floating . . .  

and
floating . . .
please stay

oh, and i’ve been eating bad, all the dying
streetlights, the gasoline spills, the late
sunsets, the green eyes in my memory. how they’ve made me
sick in the liver, sick in the lungs, hands scrabbling
for something to quench this guilt and humiliation.

This is so 1950s of me
but I’ve long known if
you came home every
night & walked right
into the kitchen, kissed
me on the neck tight
above the dress line,
where the pearls trace
the nape & the ear
begins its crescendo,
I’d put down my knife
& make you whatever
dinner you wanted.

triage under phalanx
Aelle under ail
Cerdic serves worms
burnt instead of buried
Mordred rejuvenates Aelle
and else nonpartisan
Daedalus can’t click heels thrice
no dice rewinding into Crete
anti summoning is obliteration
have to wonder if that’s what’s best

O how I love going

away. O how I love coming 

home. O how I love

my garden.

As good as gold:

“I want to live

I want to die”

I like the way you look down

And to right when you smile

to yourself

When I am dying

to know what is in your brain

I bought a papaya last night

I picked it out and knocked on its flesh

And heard a hollow sound

And it cost four dollars

And I carried it home in a sack on my back, carried it twelve blocks

I washed its skin and set it on a plain, clean towel.

When it dried I set it on a green cutting board and used my new kitchen knife for the first time to slice it lengthwise

For the first time I looked inside

And those black seeds and pink flesh

Were life: new and foreign and memorable.

My love wears his buttoned shirts like an actor, as though they make him brave

And were I steadfast as you I could glean a stage of my own

In winter you gave me your limelight

which is slatted morning light

Speech is rendered

And my speech will be

How you are brave and I am not

The storm drowns us all –
Dousing dreams, civil rights, peace
Witness our sinking  

Oh to live in a world free of memes and aphorisms
Oh to live in a world free of tropes and cliches

Yes, hurt people hurt people,
some anyway
but unhurt people hurt people
and hurt people get hurt

No, a sweet kiss doesn’t open every heart
Not everyone likes to be kissed
Or hugged
Or touched uninvited 

Being grateful is not a miracle
it doesn’t cure cancer
or fix bad relationships
or make nasty people nice

Oh to live in a world where people are free
to be who they are
in each moment without expectation
they be different

Raise her by the strings.

Head erect, close to yours,

and raise the mouth

at the edges. Skip the eyes –

no one will notice

if everyone’s smiling.

Raise your hand steady, point 

at the both of you with

that careful aim, pause 

for the click

put your arm around her

and wait for the recoil.

————–

(inspired, if that’s even the word, by a picture I saw of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie this morning)