in lying back,
feeling the cold
river splash
on my bare shoulders,
bathing in
the warm radiation
of a wide-open sky,
taking a deep
breath, and not
giving a good
goddamn
where the water
takes me, sweet
wu wei,
I’ll make it work
on any shore.
string lights illuminate fireflies
echoing signals of summer darkness
nestled in treeless backyard havens
dogs singing endlessly in evenings
yearning for a better roll of the dice
shielded by the discomfort of their
existence
none the wiser to the plight of man
he cut in out of nowhere
can’t recall dancing fast or slow
only being bound by joy
it’s existing
I can’t breathe
only feel exhausted
gasping for breath
outside this prison
of ambigous destination
my eyeballs so heavy
weighing down under
eye circles
I carry my choices
on my sore shoulders
my frustrations live
in my lower back
and I can’t bend
to my own expections
I close my eyes
and my imagination
spins outa this space
to new constellations
My forearm presses
on those eyeballs
and visions appear
witnessing scenes
where I’m not there
It’s an in body experience
and I can’t get out
no matter how I try
gonna live in these places
to the end of my existence
Do you ever wonder how our fears originate? Mine of anything large & dusky (birds, butterflies, dragonflies, moths) hovering in near air, or when sizeable spiders, millipedes skitter inside my home. And why bees, wasps, beetles, mice, lizards, snakes don’t scare me, but large mayflies with their droopy thread-legs do? They don’t bite or sting, have no mouth once they emerge from water after a year as larvae, live only five minutes (female) to a day or two (male). Lady bugs don’t panic me, or pill bugs even in high volumes, as the summer they invaded my bedroom. I’d find desiccated husks under nightstand, dresser, chest of drawers when I vacuumed. As children, we called them roly-polies. Armadillidium vulgare—isopods, soil-dwelling crustaceans. Nifty, to have an exoskeleton of chitin. How wise—when disturbed, to protect your inner organs, you curl up like a tight fist, outwait the danger.
I muse, as I tote three archival boxes labeled
Brady, Lettere from the Everest-library
where its mountaintop sages gather
in cardboard ranks. A. Hales is Brady’s shelf-mate,
Alexander was called Doctor Irrefragibilis—
his “unbreakable” wisdom gracing
13th-century theology. I am aware how
breakable are my bones as I maneuver
these boxes down three flights of stone steps,
then down in the lift to my basement alcove.
Breathless with this supply of sapience,
I feel fragibile in more ways than one!
Three more boxes of the 20th-century friar
I’m researching, Ignatius Charles Brady,
who loved Scotch and a good pipe,
who though fragile in body was un-
breakable in convictions about life and love,
about Assisi’s Saints and Love’s presence.
Toiling over cryptic texts in archaic script,
he distilled his own wisdom, dispensing
comfort and guidance to so many,
chronicled in the boxes I unpack, letter
by letter, handling with care—fragile—
in onion skin and carbon,
this witness to unbreakable truth.
Outstretched on the satin
velvet encrusted fainting couch,
a chaise from another time,
her long frame fit the dimensions and
allowed her to stretch
beyond imagination as she wrestled
with time and its crazed trickery.
She gazed upward and focused
on the ornate filigree
flush mount light,
aged in chipped paint and dust.
She tried to pull from her memory
where she purchased the fixture,
but like it, her memory was aged
in chipped paint and dust.
Sometimes it was painful,
tiny splinters in
her hands.
Othertimes it was a relief,
the sound of dance steps
across a wood floor.
She settled for a cup of chai tea.
The sound is loud and piercing
I look outside to try to uncover
the reason for the racket
and it is a small bird screeching
I am sure there is a reason,
but am hoping that it is resolved soon
due to the noise stomping on my
auditory and emotional nerves
Several cats from the nieghborhood,
including mine, circle the trunk of
the tree where the bird is making
the horrible noise
Then, perhaps sensing danger
from the irritated feline predators,
the bird ceases it’s nervewracking song,
and takes flight, soaring away.
