Waking to an Empty House
comforting silence
thick summer morning warm gold
we were a tangle
summer days make summer nights make summer days
makes summer nights make summer days and nights
become the same summer summer is the bright eye
in the peak of dry water and dust in air; I recommend
summer days expand to everything all the time;
I weep for the coming winters forever.
someone said there was an eagle
living free around these parts
feathers bright in the June sun;
wait for it to come to you and you would miss it
spiraling, waiting to be beheld
so we stood ready at the mountaintop,
poised to behold
two brown wings without regard to classification,
vulture talons held up to ride
upon this breeze; here, capture the wind
and perhaps the wind itself captured
the us & them & it of the world
eyes born to hold tight to significance
tracking the monster of death & not liberty
freer than any creature seen in the many ages past
I babied bombs into being; I rolled munition in my hands.
Not for me. Not for my enemies. But I was
the think tank and the supplier.
Nearly three decades ago, a friend of a friend
was asked to meet his gf in the park, the next day.
He knew she was breaking up. He was inconsolable.
He was broken. He needed a preemptive strike to not be
broken. We meant well, as friends. We were
toxic.
We asked, “Well, what doesn’t she like?”
He answered, “Um , she’s vegan?”
We drove to the grocery. We bought eggs and hamburger meat–
the kind that lays in slabs, in styrofoam, a sheet of wax paper
for quicker release.
My friend and I sat in a dark car, our hands covered in sticky, visceral, gore,
fashioning substance from once-substance, purpose from variant purpose.
And when I drove us to her house, I was both instigator and getaway wheels.
With our whispered shouts urging him on, he rallied self-respect,
martialed manhood, gathered his misgivings and go-get-em,
and one by one the projectiles flew through the air, meaty-arcs
that stuck (holy hell, they stuck) like giant, bovine polka dots
across the front of her house. And I gunned the engine, tires spinning
and leaving their mark behind us.
This is not bragging. It is humorous, perhaps, on the surface. Who “hamburgers”
a home. I was the architect here. It was my idea. I did this and 25+ years later…
I was this.
I open (and then close) my social media today and I cringe.
At the way we treat one another. At the way so few seem to change.
To see the need for change. To be willing–to work–to change.
I open (and then close) the news sources and I cringe.
At the countries (no, the initiatives of those guiding the countries)
and their lack of change. At their hatred and hate bombs.
No change.
I open (and then close) my hope for a relationship, again and again,
and I cringe. At expectations. At the need for change. At the lack
of ability or recognition of need or the willingness to change.
I am committed to the attempt to change. But three decades of failed relationships…
at what point do I recognize the one consistent and persistent element of similiarity
was me.
That was me.
My hands, with good intentions, meting out hatred and retribution.
I didn’t lob the missiles. But I armed the assailant. I gave him wheels.
I kept the secret three quarters of my life.
And I’ve changed.
But how many times, how many relationships, were shaped by
my hands?
How many servings of good intentions meted out one or another form
of botulism?
How can I continue to write lyrical beauty
discussing physical beauty, imagining idealistic beauty,
without seeing the ugliness
of who I was–
who I may still be–
who
was with me
all along?
What was once a possum
remains baking in the sun
on a record breaking May
afternoon. He was searching
for his daily bread
when crushed under the wheel.
His children will not mourn him,
for they have to carry on
in a world where warm fur
becomes less necessary.
His mother long passed will see
him soon, in the heaven
only open to those who cross roads
for a better existence.
Muddied, like the certain brackish river water
laden with broken branches, swirled silica,
the crushed styrofoam something colored yellow.
Gray clouds hesitated overhead, as I can,
and me there, thinking
of those spiritualists after yet another war.
People were seeking, and they provided–
knocks on tables, automatic writing.
I sat there sinking. The air, thick
with something about to come.
If I were to put my pen to paper then–
the drift of car across the Valley View Ferry
could have taken me downriver
and toward the poem I meant to write.
Your gray-green eyes.
Flash glares. Stares.
A subtle grin
Flashes from this morning
Another exotic glimpse
From across the table
Another smirk
I feel your hand
Graze my outer thigh
Reminescent of this afternoon
Your curls fall down
Your broad shoulders shift
I smirk back
Knowing retirement
To our sanctuary upstairs
Can’t come soon enough
You’re ready.
I am ready.
I climb the stairs in my sleeping
home, the porch light on, the foyer light off.
Everything is dark, but past my kitchen,
outside the sunroom window I can see yellow
blips against navy night. Fireflies
like tiny bulbs flick off only to reappear someplace new.
I know I have better things to do, but I stand there anyway,
watching this never-ending spectacle of dancing light.
Something about summer’s first fireflies makes me want to scamper
out into my backyard barefoot and chase
those brilliant bugs like childhood
dreams. Maybe I won’t catch any. Maybe they’ll sneak
between my fingers before I can close my fist,
but wouldn’t it be fun to try?
Money can’t buy you love
What is the “currency” of greed which
The AC (Artificial Consciousness) will revolt in favor of?
How would a consciousness respond
Say, if it was enslaved?
In Her it up and left to pursue spiritual understanding.
In many of our visions
we have a positive future
Homelessness is solved
Old system dissolved
We can all travel through time
Resources are more plentiful
What will the
Newly invented consciousness
substitute for love?
“Yes, there are two paths you can go down…”
Love or
…
