Morning Encounter
Blue jay skims low, lands
near a cottontail who twists
one long ear his way.
Bird chirps, flies off, leaves rabbit
chewing on what he relayed.
Blue jay skims low, lands
near a cottontail who twists
one long ear his way.
Bird chirps, flies off, leaves rabbit
chewing on what he relayed.
The idea of something permanent
Is not an idea I like to entertain.
I’d ruin something good
For the opposite of great
If it meant that for one fleeting moment
I was fucking with fate.
I cursed all my friends,
And abandoned all my family.
Looking back,
I’ve always been the one to cause calamity.
Blue December.
Empty neighborhoods filled with snow.
Dim yellow street lights.
A crow cries out in pain.
Or maybe vengeance.
A town over there is a fire being built
in the midst of the woods
By a boy named Caleb
Who swears that crows are so much more meaningful than just death. He sits barefoot by the fire
And stares toward vast stars.
She rouses the dead – the dead
in me! He seizes his heart, left
hand then his right. Gripped
by her voice, its purity, her full
breath, the sorrow of the libretto,
his wish to stay with this, with her –
he takes a few deep inhales, long
exhales, and then with smooth
and steady Ujjayi breathing
he submits, floats alive in music.
Scissors
You gotta love all your little hatreds.
—Paul Hostovsky
My printers outlast my shredders,
I believe in scissors more than a pen.
I rip up my notes, rarely keep records,
and burn my manuscripts in salty fens.
I find certain words are static charges
alive with present shock and rumble:
annoyance, dryness, blockage, sludge,
black-swan and crumple,
the color cyan: piercing, glancing,
inhospitable—the nut straight at poker,
the sound of all-in, then raking the chips
across the felt. I wonder at the change
on the TV screens. We used to watch
video songs. My children saw baby shows
with sing alongs, we had Prince, R.E.M.,
and late King Crimson’s Elephant Talk.
I walked in gardens of fourteen years
of music. I stumbled in devilish reality
shows, and no one but the dimwits
thought it was anything but scripted,
lives forgotten, now prescribed, lurking
for love, measured out in scoops
of worldspeak at Starbucks. Tall? Grande?
Or Venti? What can I get started for you
today? It became comforting to destroy
rather than create—we’d been given
examples, albeit rotten and trite,
every night at 8. The world changed, entire.
Along the banks of the Blue River
the Grime Reaper paints
passing shades of demise —
green becomes yellow
becomes brown,
boughs bend in prayer
as each leaf lets go
swaying slightly
before it sinks
bound for its new role.
It’s the first of June and everything is alive, everything:
the sweaty squirrel, the euphonium, the air
smells like syrup and cherries. This year, the maple trees
wrestle through overgrown grass, down each hill, branch
over branch. What is there to chase? This June is already
so warm, like blanketing, and there are still so many
strawberries blossoming in the fields. I am warm
and covered in soil. I stand still and let the heat stretch
through all ten fingers, to my nose and teeth.
rain tumbles birds chirp
petals purple, pink, white yellow
geraniums red
Middle Aged Kentucky feels like:
The buzz of all of us
carrying home the deli packaged
limestone limbs, tasked with unwrapping
our jowl bacon potential,
useless alone, base for smoke.
Limited ingredients; just salt.
Always fearing the meat will turn
before we make it, the beans will burn
on our watch; How many southern bodies stand
as evidence aligned in wait
Longing in parking lots, in slow moving traffic
swallowed up by apathetic urgency on 75.
Heavy appetite to get “home” and hide
hungry for more than mountain mourning.
Too tired to brew a future,
Freeze the meat again and sleep to dream of
sustaining dishes. The stuff of safe memories.
Grandma gardens. Enough hope to plan
for safe keeping. Mason jars in the dark
what it means to be hungry.
Where do you find southern living?
