Posts for June 2, 2025 (page 11)

I went outside to smell the heat. 
Walked a shady pathway to bathe 
in cicada siren, droning
harbinger of June.

Skin, blistered, and pinched in friction.
A thick veil of wild pollen rough
to my asthmatic lungs. 

Drinking the glory-beaming sun through
maladjusted eyes. 

The daylight like honeydew, air
tacky, and sweet like spilled cola.

Smiling families with children,
and bright-eyed, eager, dogs. 

Sunglasses, and cheap soccer balls,
lost to the underbrush, today
a memory to be made.  

It took a crowd to show me
I needed your attention.  
Suddenly sharing the reaches of your spotlight
I realized that I could not be on the periphery.  
Your composed approval: a nod
– performer code for high praise –
left me unwaveringly intent on more.
Sure, I’ll take the lead
but you’d better back me up.

I sang my way into trouble for years
even though I knew how to get myself out
the shiny dissonance draws me in every time.
Flirting with chaos, courting self-destruction
Isn’t it beautiful?

My mothers lack of self respect 
is the reason my father isn’t lonely 

My baby brother and his smile 
is the reason I still play guitar

Ten 
years ago–
a decade dissolved
in a blink, yet 
it feels like an eternity
without you here by my side.
No calls, no texts, no cigarette smoke;
no stories from when I was little, or
advice on how to raise my own small creations.
Tell me how to spend another ten years without you.

I can’t remember the last time that we hiked three days in a row

But it was finally Spring after a long dragged-out cold spell in May
And that seemed unusual
Although my Facebook memories tell me it had been this cold this long for the past few years
But the pandemic made time run differently and everything was out of sorts then

So a warm long weekend when impending rain held off until more opportune hours, beckoned us to come out each morning
And it feels like humans are just meant to walk outside, in reflection and silence

It was our same well-known path, that front trail is our private slice of Heaven Must be a Kentucky Kind of Place. Being creatures of habit, it was the same time of day, Hell even wearing the same clothes – and yet we had three completely different hikes

Friday was post-concert, pre-rain, the weekend is full of promise
The dirt was bone-dry and dusty, the greenery finally starting to open but waiting for the rain which was expected but not actually coming
There was a doe, watching us warily
And birders, binoculars scanning the trees, and checking the headstones in the homestead cemetery

Saturday started sluggish, hungover
There was just enough rain overnight to barely dampen the dirt – and explode the world in color
Wild strawberries, butterflies and bluebells – red, white and blue – daytime fireworks
There were turkeys in the farm field behind the back fence, four big toms
They answered when I called, put-put-put
It smelled green and floral, vibrant and alive, and made us feel the same way

Sunday after the thunderstorms was sunny, soggy and strangely surreal
All the blackberry canes had flowered overnight
But yesterday’s remaining flowers were flattened and wilted, a Salvador Dalí painting
Rain had washed out the previous day’s scent, replacing it with the sickening sweetness of rotting honeysuckle
There were strange birds, dark blue with chocolate brown, airplane-shaped wings, zooming overhead, chattering and mocking us
And a tiny ssssnake, curled in a ball by the side of the trail, just basking and sssstaring at us

The trail bloomed and wilted like the weekend itself

Heat scorching from the ground

Like the hands of hell

Are scratching at your shins

Ripping away tendon and muscle from bone

Hot like blood escaping your body

Such an exhaustive heat

That crushes on my chest

My lungs struggle for a clear breath

But it rattles heavily against my sternum

As if a balloon blocks the way

Of my breath exiting my throat

Lo in the distance a singular dandelion puff

Grows from the inferno below

A ghost pulling away from limbo

The pappus holding tightly to the seed

Its resiliency rooting down yet growing 

From all that it opposes against it

Am I to eventually blossom

The lion’s teeth spreading like sunshine

Along the mountaintops

In the wax and wane of spring to summer

If only for a moment before

My body reclines into the rest I am deserving? 

that damp ole funeral home

furnace heat cranked up too high

as tho to simulate the fiery pits

i’m yet to find myself residing in,

according to this pastor, whom speaks on His behalf

and yet here she stands, blessing this grave

leaving me to contemplate if she’ll beg for mercy on my soul,
when time comes

or leave me to fall in fires on my own

Grannie was a McIntosh like the red, tangy
tart ones I craved every fall.
Small in stature filled with spunk,
fiercely defiant. Her eyes would pierce
straight to your soul tolerating only truth. 

Frugal from the Depression saving
her used teabags in fridge for two
more dips in her flowery China cup.
A master at bridge and slot machines both
competitive to a fault. Her laughter
filled her visits with handmade flannel
nightgowns I cherished each Christmas.

 Visited her at 19 by myself in California
where she loaded her car with lady friends
as we toured Napa valley wineries.
Feeling lightheaded, I gasped,” Grannie
Are you sure you can drive?” Her friends
giggled saying, “We could never ask
Quilla that question!” Grannie glared
in the rearview mirror putting
her pedal to the metal.   

4 hours this time
potassium infusion
polyester furniture and hospital smell  

not the retirement you planned
instead of some splendid sunset
it’s scans
and syringes
and smiling like it’s fine  

4 hours last time
MRI roadtrip
tubes and tired and tomography  

you’ve been working too much
half-days adding up
so we hold hands
and hide and hope
and heaven help us all  

we lick the word from fearful lips
lymphomalymphoma  
lucky you