i want to be with quiet
despite the clock ticking its decision for otherwise
i can try lean into its cupped chest upon waking
offer tea and scones in hopes of its linger
where do we pay for our attention
i rather like what may come from a space with nothing but air or light or heartbeat
or not from but of
i manage to sink into its silted surface this shift and swim of earth beneath soles
i pay it my two cents
i can afford its fee for a day
of this ancient library,
closeted in incunabula:
the Doctors of Theology—
handy guys to have around.
Some are Notabilis, like Pierre de l’Ile (heard of him?),
or Memoriosissimus;
some are just Famosus, like Bertrand de la Tour,
just a friar unlike the Famosissimus Benedictine, Petrus Alberti.
Some you’ll find in Abstractionum,
others are Clarus or even Clarus ac subtilis.
Ours was simply Doctor Subtilis—
as anyone who’s studied Friar John Duns Scotus will attest.
Once you get to know them you’ll discover they’re
Dulcifluus, Ecstaticus, Excellentissimus,
Acutissimus, Mellifluus and Mirabilis,
Ingeniosissimus and Authenticus
and occasionally Fertilis.
Avoid being in Contradictionum
but more than Ordinatissimus stay Fundamentalis—
you find it’s Ornatissimus et sufficiens,
But stick with Invincibilis, Irrefragibilis, and
Angelicus like Thomas Aquinas
and you can’t go wrong.
If you can, be Profundissimus
but always Resolutus and Succinctus.
And when you need a close shave,
come back to William of Ockham,
Singularis et invincibilis!
Birds watch skyfall slowly.
You are around wrapper on caramel,
and shapes dip, pitch, and reverse.
Wrapped on we flow rounds until
sleep and clouds shower their meteors
into greeting rays of sun when alarm goes off,
but I say no to the headboard in three successive
pops! and you laugh, happy to oblige—
the price of exhaustion approaches drowning
in chocolate, salt, and cherries.
I see smoke rising from the oaks,
the rise of heat has not fired us
from the night’s spent shards into new pots
which I fill with grain for the bird between us.
She sings madly. Truly, her deep train whistle
signals derailment, eyes rolling in her head,
hands clutching the ground to stop her plummeting.
The sun beat the shit out of me.
I can still taste the salt on my tongue
mixed with dirt and licked
carelessly from the upper lip.
I can taste grit and hand me down paint
and the sticky pollen of black pine.
I can taste the sun.
Hot and hostile and dry even though
I’m dripping wet.
The sunshine slapping my face from space,
reaching way down to remind me
of how it feels to burn red and deep
till you’re begging for a vinegar soaked
brown paper bag
plastered across your back
as tight as kitschy wallpaper
in a single wide kitchen.
Mamaw used to remind me
to slather on the sunscreen.
Great Papaw used to go down to the garden
hoe in hand in the night.
And here I am, no time for common sense,
sweating and sweating and sweating
myself silly, tack hammer in hand.
Eyes clamped shut
at 47 minutes,
the metallic taste of
anticoagulants
Behind closed eyes, I visualize
Great nephew Mikah (6),fighting leukemia,
Friend Pat (70),fighting West Nile virus,
And Mom,who donated blood her whole life,
In honor of and hope for them
I set aside my needle phobia
And donate platelets.
He let his head
Day dream too long.
Sun baked.
Drank what he lost,
lost what he dranK.
Wore jeans.
(Dumb ass)
Nothing not to smile about.
Toured the city.
Errands ran him.
He: leisurely observer of growth.
Trying
Just trying.
A shift in the wind
For the sails of my mind.
I smiled more.
-PRESENT-
*
Darkness covers
No inference.
To lie down
Smiling
In the face of opposition,
Spin by spin,
Dark to light…
-PRESENT-
*
I will free myself,
Time and time again,
To pluck the notes of my life.
Living: the harmony of the mind and soul.
-Present-
*
Maybe it was a good day
For day dreams
After all.
Lead and make safe the way
Clear the cobwebs and branches,
Stones aside on the rugged path.
Our Atlas, holding the world straight.
So we can continue the climb
And rest atop dusty Mother mountains
I’m a supporter of ending this
breakfast early. The moon hasn’t left, yet
it’s 8 a.m. Always feels odd to me
when the moon watches the first coffee.
It’s the overstayed welcome, I guess.
The noise of not belonging.
My own misreading of astronomy
and the idiocy of expected outcomes.
I’m only haunted by the ogling creeper
of the novice horizon because I prefer
my moons gowned in black and sequin.
So all of my nightmares are about being awake.
What is it that beats behind the beating
of a heart? The moon with its tumultuous pull
of wherever water? One cardinal lifts off,
worm-beaked to break a greater humidity elsewhere.
Another, barrel-chested, St. Louis strawberry
of the air, stamps around angrily.
I wonder if the sun doubts itself and postures,
waiting on the loitering moon.
The sky is a collection of lost keys. No one has an answer.
On a Saturday morning in South City, 5th floor balcony,
enduring a rare sonata of quiet. I can’t hear the 14 bus,
but I watch as it swallows the offspring of Arsenal Ave.
This isn’t the day
she will leave me, yet
it feels like a rerun
I’m seeing for the first time.
Under this odd moonsun in the morning,
emotive of streetlights on cheap jewelry at midnight,
I watch candy wrappers run loose on the wind then
gang up again.
