Raindrops make beautiful music,
From Mother Nature’s amazing chorus,
Striking each note with precision,
A special gift placed before us.
The different notes from raindrops,
Falling from the sky,
As the choir director leads the chorus,
They land and say goodbye.
Raindrops don’t last forever,
But bring life to living things,
Those magical drops from Heaven,
Much like a beautiful dream.
I’m a believer in little gratitudes
tiny joys I account on ordinary days
sure, sure, there’s a greatness when the bigs roll through
life’s ultimates
meeting one’s only love, Disneyland with high school friends, weddings I suppose
today though, I made my own pie crust
worked with some kids, developing silly rhymes
walked my usual, plus a path I can see my future self exploring more
dreamed a few dreams, considered reality
I grasped the realization all is well, today
enough
midweek satisfaction simply due to acceptance
again, all is well
They saw me shining in the sun
One fateful summer day,
They plucked me from my place
And put me on their perch,
They told me “sparkle and shine for the people”,
They spun me around in the light,
They put me on display
For the patrons to ogle at,
And when I asked for a break, they smacked me,
They slathered me in glitter,
Stuck gems to my face,
And told me to never stop shining
Because they were watching.
This slow sizzle of skin under an artificial heat
feels like love. My vice. In the palm of every winter
she warms the bones I’ve packed in ice, in summer
she soothes me into fevered half-dreams, begging
for relief from every sort of slight panic. I’d marry her.
I wrap her, the false sun, around me. I pull her close
like a lover, throw my leg over the curve of her side,
close my red eyes and simmer, wait until the pink
blossoms up my thigh like kiss marks, the blood
purples, scratch at the growing burn, give myself up
to the tide of sweet sleep in her embrace. This may be
a better way to hurt. It feels too good, the warmth
of every human connection that flickered dead kept
alive by wires. When I wake she’s perfumed the room,
she’s made the air balloon and rise, the billowing heat
licking the ceiling, the low carpet tingling near flame.
I am left rolling in sweat, the imprint of the woven floor
embossed the arch of my spine. I leave her plugged in,
burning up electric calories. I let her suck the energy
from the whole damn house. I tempt myself to stick
my fingers through her bars, or into the socket, or
press my palms against her blistering cheek, pattern
my skin with the texture of hers. Burn. She is the only
thing that makes me feel alive in this cold cruel world.
Few are left who knew my Oma who became a mother at seventeen, a grandmother
at thirty-six, who found the least offensive name for me to call her by. A country Missouri girl who ran away with first boyfriend to a big city. Detroit. A girl who sketched weeds, wildflowers, critters in narrow lines of her Bible, bleeding into verses not read. A girl
whose father lost his faith and way, her mother dying young-overworked, heartbroken
for four of five children scattered . . . to the grave, to mental institution, to big cities.
Even going far away, my Oma never escaped her mother’s letters and pleas to now
“Mrs. McIntosh,” her beloved daughter, no longer Pauline Smith. Oma tucked those
letters, unanswered–that would later haunt her–away in her photography studio, where she gave color to portraits. A luxury post-depression thing to have done. Did she enjoy
sitting in solitude, penciling color onto black and white? Were the colors of her daughters’ dresses really robin blue? Did she anticipate this art going out of vogue so soon–losing
a dream, a business? Soon after divorcing spouse to be a single mom at twenty-three?
That scraping by would land her in industry offices involved in more wars? But when did she know she wouldn’t be a typical mom or grandmother? She had a few regrets–and many hopes for me. Yet . . . Oh, why is it still expected of you and me to be contained?
Maybe it happens when we throw away our name.
sparrows fall
and so do we
but not unseen
deeply felt
cared about
grieved over
we no more
than sparrows
understand
the greatest testament
This year was different. I didn’t wear the same t-shirt
from the first day of school on the last. Instead, I had
participated in senior activities and the associated
outfits. It was different. I had done my silly tradition
since sometime in middle school, but old habits can
die quickly. Today was different. I wore the same
t-shirt I wore on the first day of the program I went
to last summer. That competitive one that all the smart
kids in Kentucky try to go to. Maybe it was because
it might boost my confidence or maybe it was simply
because it felt right to me. Last night, I was reading
a novel and one of the main characters died young.
Maybe it’s the poet in me, but today felt important.
I can’t go back, yet I’m still figuring out how to go
forward. Old t-shirts can only take me so far. It’s all
so clique, but today I felt like I was in the middle of
one of those major milestones of life. It was different.
mere shadow has always proven much more comfortable
fleeting is the need to learn of light i will not miss
no need to see the forms that sometimes block said light
let me be content in minimalistic bliss
new light has before drawn me into exploring my existence
time and again i have let loose curiosity from elected chain
wandered upward to worlds beyond my humble cave
where i get repeatedly lost in realities most profane
my eyes do not adjust to the harshness of the sun
i stumble where others walk in cool confidence
they accuse me of thinking too much and of self-sabotage
becoming more of a hindrance to my own accrescense
then i behold a form of perceived beauty
unaware that color has not returned to my eyes
i did not grow up in knowledge of the ways of this world
every attempt to make sense ends in sisyphean surprise
to learn is to burn and hold resolve through confusion
but the forms always melt in striking parallax
i wish i never trusted and wish i never ventured
hating the outside more for my collection of setbacks
in time i fall back into familiar cave knowing enough
to know that giving up is not so respectable
that to truly live means evolving from darkness but for now
mere shadow still proves to be much more comfortable
