Posts for June 2, 2024 (page 7)

truth is desire; desire is truth(they are
one & the same) to be in your arms is
as powerful as becoming a star:
eyes, lips, chest, hips, thighs, toes, sunshine, & kiss!
i can only be honest in your sight,
my dear, for your touch is a wave drowning
me, the riptide of your love is alight,
& i can go no further—-the lightening
provokes me to tell you all i know to
be true: nothing i do is without love
nor truth—-everything i do through
& for you will be everlasting of
the deepest truth, & i will do no more
unless it is eternal & you for

I know.
Morgan Wallen’s Last Night
Nico Moon and All We Need.
Turn it up to 10.
Roll the windows down and sing your Soul.
You play my list and tune me in.
My feet on the dash
Baby, you light my heart with the highway miles.
Ride out the lines and mend the breaks, I come to you with my open arms.
We put some faith in what’s meant to be.
You’re my summer love, forever my cool drink, my sugar high.
I will wait for you.

A polished piece of Floyd County coal
Hangs on a silver chain around my neck
Holding home beside my heart

In my mind, runs a litany –
The names of her counties
    Her rivers
        Her towns
            Her mountains and lakes
                Her flaws and her furies

Like cool glass marbles, the sound of her rolls of my tongue –
Blurring consonants and swallowing vowels
A glimmer of hills and a flicker of ancient tongues in my voice

Love rests deep in my bones, at the core of my being
Pulling at my marrow and my mind when I’m away

I wake in the night
Hungry for home

I pine when we are separated,
Unable to breathe properly,
My feet aching to be planted in her dark soil

She is part of me

I am of her

I will love her while I live
And rest easy in her arms when I die

It’s sprinkling yet you’re still swimming ten million
miles per hour. You’re pretending to swim like you
are in a triathlon because you’ve watched all the greats
cross the finish line. Your hair isn’t in a swim cap, but
in bubble braids because you once met a girl who did
them for you when you were volunteering. You recall
those morning drives to set up picnic blankets and
run a camp for little kids. You used to be the kid asking
to go as fast as possible because your mom paid for
camp before you knew the reality of money costs. 
You’re wearing your glasses in the pool, praying they
won’t fall off, because you can’t afford daily contacts
anymore. You’re in your raspberry red bikini because
you remember wanting to be grown up like your cousin.
But you’d rather be rushing to zip up your suit and 
swimming those two miles and reaching the finish line.

The pungent scent
of withered carnations
remind me of a casket
spray, a sickening
recollection
of death.

I was deep in my hands
full of things I couldn’t bring
doing a twenty-minute walk of shame
while rain soaked through my clothes
you came up in a crooked black tie
yellow untucked shirt and black pants
claimed I looked like a man that Jesus
could help 
handed me one of your pamphlets
an easy how-to save your soul
with watered-down Bible lines
to make one feel special and cured
from the mental and emotional torment
living in the dark from God’s light

tired from navigating ten hours
of driving kids home from a trip
we broke ourselves on to make sure
that the kids would have memories
more than us just looking worn and tired
I tried my best to keep you at bay
but you kept talking and following
insisting that I needed the help of Jesus
worried over my immortal soul
grabbing at my shirt, bags, and pockets
a better man would have tried to tell you
about personal space and give your warning
a better man would have thought that you
might be fearing for your own soul
but I can’t be the hero every day

when I grabbed all of your pamphlets
flung them into the Lexington street
smelling of hot piss and gas
said that I hoped Jesus could help
find your
goddamn pamphlets
I didn’t feel sorry

hopefully, you learned
that you can’t beat someone down
with weak religious wording
held up with your thin spine 
that maybe none of us
need a single thing
that you or Jesus 
got to offer

hangover’s crazy. 

but i still want to follow

through with these poems. 

To manage my longing to be close to your kind, I constructed a rule:
help the stray that comes when called.
Contextually, it saves me from being fooled by your fickle folk crying for help
but refusing to come close.
The subtext bears the weight: when the right one arrives, make room for them to stay.
You ran to me without reservation, you and your colonies of fleas and mites.
On the way to the vet, your tooth fell out into my lap.
Over weeks I watched your matte coat turn to gloss; your energy rose
as we evicted parasites and nourished you.
You impressed me as you parkoured off walls and learned to sit.
You draped yourself over my shoulder as I tried to play the fiddle but mostly made it screech.

Now you sit on the stool in the kitchen and watch
as I pull bread from the cabinet, open cans, and cut vegetables.
You patiently wait for your turn to sniff each ingredient. You crane your head
and mew if I’ve forgotten to give you olfactory samples.
You vocalize like never before; your demand is to be outside.
I relate to your feeling trapped in this domestic box and grapple with the ethical dilemma that is my power over you.
You trusted enough to come when I called. I want to trust that you’ll return if I let you out and that harm won’t find you out there.
Today you are three and you are the ring-tailed boy that reminds me to play, to experience all of my senses, and to seek freedom.

Five petal scent plumeria
light alba bright rubra
stretching up within a web
of glass & steel & stone, sun
shared with the solar panels,
caged for our climate.
Obtusa exuding stale air-
hanging Singapore corpse flowers.

begins in blue glow. tulip trees–and red oaks,
pines, poplars, willows come forth first.
rising red-orange glows over bluegrasses–
and switchgrasses and fruity-fresh, purple
pitcher sage. all sway in gentle breezes
after yet another rain. threads of colors mesh
into blue-grey clouds tinged in white. sun
now stronger casts its glow-magic on all below.
i open window’s door, settle onto porch swing,
to gentle sway of wind and earth and water
and fiery feelings as i gaze upon quarter-horse
sister, destined not to race but be companion.
sugary scents of hay cut yesterday wafts
round and birds flit by–cardinals, yes,
and bluebirds, sparrows, now yellow warblers
with their sweet, sweet, sweet songs. bees ignite
on goldenrod–and bee balm, sunflowers,
zinnia rainbows. i step out, barefoot, yes,
and dig my toes into this borrowed earth.
grateful to understand.