Posts for June 1, 2024 (page 14)

I want to die at my writing desk
as Harrison did, offering his
one-eye body to what Gods
would have it, but only after
writing ’til his soul was empty;
he would have written more
had he more time (which he
didn’t); he would have written
more letters to that Russian poet
who hung by his neck in a Leningrad
hotel, a poet who wrote with blood
since he had no ink (I think that’s why
Harrison loved him so) – all why I
want to die at my writing desk. 
    
                                      — also for Sergei Yesenin

These are indeed the lives we’ve been given,
all these thousands of bright shining mornings
& dark starless nights, all these damned beloved children
lost & found & found & lost,
all these tears.

We can say as loudly as we like, If only I’d been there
or If only I hadn’t or If only I weren’t so mean or thoughtless
or weak—but indeed there’s no changing the past
no matter what color glasses
we look at it through.

Indeed there’s not much use in looking back or forward
even though we do just that, morning & night,
even though there’s no confusion whatsoever
about where we’re headed, only how we’ll get there
& when.

Until then, the world is indeed harsh & cold
except for what we bring to it in our little rooms,
the brimming mugs of coffee we share & warm our hands with,
the cream & the sugar, the only barely burnt
crusts of bread.

Why am I here?
It is a question I hear and often ponder
In my 55 years of life

Why am I here?
I was created, that I know,
By my God 

Why am I here?
What is my goal?
That question often resonates

Why am I here?
Today I will be kind
To myself, my family, others

Why am I here?
Will I change the world?
I doubt it, but I might change someone’s

Why am I here?
I am here to be me
That is enough

two grown women
fighting at a baseball game
an actual, on the ground, hair everywhere, everyone staring
brawl
and I consider
what has become of us that we take to blows
on a beautiful not quite summer evening
America’s pastime and children present
it wasn’t even dark yet
perhaps this is the norm 
and I’m late to the realization
here’s hoping though
     peace in the midst of a mixed up world
     peace despite the volatile 
     peace amongst the in between
here’s hoping we don’t just laugh it all away

On a still silent lake
Sun sifting 
Into the slow 
End of day’s black rim–
Casting a spring 
Silvery bluish streaked 
Slate-like shadow
Upon the glassy surface–
A God whisper? 

Obituaries 
Younger, older, younger, young
Turn page to comics

half-sleeping, listening
to the Grateful Dead
I blast through speakers
I know it’s only months
before he leaves again
and wonder what he
will remember
and what he will forget
and wish there was a way
to freeze a moment
without stopping time

The cool crisp air
that follows
a morning rain
is like
a new beginning.
It breathes life
and energy
into the day,
as if the heavens
are looking down
with blessings
as angels descend
upon us
with raindrops
like mystic tears 
of joy.

I was born on the Yamamoto,
C-class Nudger in the Kuiper,
had my space legs at two–
still in a diaper.

Yamamoto nudged mid asteroids,
dense with mineral ore,
and patroled for pirates,
who were stealing more and more.

The mining ships staged closer in,
got more heat from the sun,
while we set rocks on new orbits
they had all the fun.

Deep in the Kuiper, you see,
entertainment’s in short supply–
Yamamoto‘s crew lost sight
of being human, by and by.

Our captain, last seen in 2219,
not needed to steer the ship,
they say stepped from an airlock saying,
“I’m going on a trip.”

I am grown now, The Dark
all I will ever see.
I think I’ll nudge us toward Ceres–
full thrust–and set Yamamoto free.

Annie Dillard says it’s best to write
in a windowless, cinder block room.
There you can crawl inside your mind,
let thoughts talk to each other. Could
she be right? Could hummingbirds
and phoebes, grazing sheep and sunshine
threatening to bake my toes be blocking
the way between what fidgets
in my brain and my pen, poised
hesitant over page’s emty lines?