Posts for June 8, 2024 (page 2)

Gone the way
Of the once-great blue boy,
            The fast mammal
            Who Google indicates
            Is in fact not a rodent,
Is a pair of leprechauns

Each promised morning meals and good cheer,
And laughs for as long as their dye may last

Alas, that hour glass
            Full of marshmallow sugar
Has gone dry
As has my patience for garments
Of a certain ilk

(This poem is the spiritual successor to a one I wrote several years ago titled Sonic the Hedgehog T-Shirt, Version 3. For context, it goes like this:

            “Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt, Version 3

            Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt,
            Bleach-stained
            By laundromat betrayal.

            You are a home-shirt
            Now.”

Thank you for your time)

coming up short with
words, with energy, with lines
–all these cures, lacking.

give me the big screen.

drip butter into my veins.

vibrate me with sound.

Tumultuous winds arrived
Tremendous strength and power
Twisted debris and rubble
Tumbling cars down the block
Trailers tremble violently 
Terrified of the outcome
Tired, battered, but alive

I choose to still believe in love,
Because of how I love
Even when it is not reciprocated
When it’s me sobbing on the cold tile,
And driving too fast for a hug
Or taking a photo so as not to lose you
I choose to still believe in love,
Because of how I love
The way I smile at strangers,
And never forget a birthday
Or learn your favorite song
I choose to still believe in love,
Because of how I love 
This can’t all be for nothing
Love is in everything,
And everything is love

The secret is
once you see the rocks
speeding closer and feel the sea
spray cooling more and more of your
skin, the wind making
balloons of your cheeks and rushing
through your vocal chords so
violently that it gets
hard to scream

then you can pull down your 
eye shades, block out the
light and just focus on
the siren’s song. 

On a bent, white plastic chair, a state lodge
balcony, I see the lake, one gray corner
if I stretch too far over the rusty rail.

Decide to take a bird walk, early mist lifts
above bracken water, flush a kildeer
that feigns a broken wing to lure me

from her buff-colored eggs         balanced
on rough rocks behind field grasses
where the water licks spiny driftwood.

A tired one-car road ends at the edge,
waves from a lone john boat lap lonely
as I cross the beach, neglected, choked

with chickweed dominating concrete
that gave up the struggle. Four
bald trees line the center of the parking

lot island, six, no seven, turkey buzzards,
dark guardians of the shore entry, pleased
that the pandemic emptied human life,

here, as in whole towns, farms and cities.
No squeals of children chasing “it”
No sticky popsicle wrappers, no

drained beer cans crushed in the sand
or half hot dogs baking in the sinking sun.
Coal-colored wings snap, snap, death claps.

i’m reminded of your existence:
glimmers of light,
coming at dusk, lingering at dawn

flying fire—-
creatures of lightning—-
i love your being!

you bring me back to youth
when i loved you so much
that i’d smother you in mason jars

trying to keep you,
i wanted to feel your love,
but loved ones must be free

to leave

the quarter we shared impromptu
passing cart to cart to cart
around outside Aldi today,
it felt precious – and natural
strangers connecting,
smiles, waves, nods, kindness,
after shopping, and passing
the cart (and its quarter)
yet again, made me wonder
who started it?
whose first donation
ignited this chain of events
until it led to me?
unpacking the groceries
at home, I decided
doesn’t matter, because
for brief shining moments
we all did
our bond a community
for a quarter
would that we could,
that we should
each day

This is the first time I can ever recall,
That being present was better,
Than daydreaming of what could be.