Posts for June 3, 2025 (page 18)

Early
Dark
Living room
Quiet
Dog twitching in her sleep
Sun is an orange crack in the sky
White leggings
Black jacket
Laces
Helmet
Gloves
Taut tires
Open and close the gate,
I’m gone with
Cold wind &
Needles of rain on my face
I can see my breath
On the hill in
Mental clarity &
Deep deep inhalation,
A wheezing  sound in my ears popping
As I swallow, cough &
Turn inward
With sputum rattling in my lungs.
Traffic, rain & sun
Hidden streets
The white noise of morning
The gray honking geese and
A baker’s dozen yellow fuzzy chicks following
A rain spattered pond into the mist.
The devil is getting married this morning
While my brain is saturated with oxygen.
Always the best thoughts.
Trail is quiet
No one here, too cold & wet
Just me and the wildflowers
Thousands, tens of thousands, countless
Saffron, lace, lilac, goldenrod, honeysuckle
The sweet morning time breath of the sleepy rising misty sun.
Four loops, four miles and no one to see but me
Beauty abounds at 25 miles an hour on both sides,
Blur in my periphery
It’s everywhere if you know what to look for.
Turning away and to is all I have left
All I’ve ever had
The burn in my calves and curious sun
Brings me home
To house
Wife
Dog
Friends
Love
Work
The glorious new day.

The men of my country carry pistols
into groceries — not because they’re afraid, 
no, not from fear. Really, it’s not.

They like the weight of their weapons
pressed against their thighs, hard penile,
the erotica of making bad guys beg.

Just to be clear, it’s not from fear
someone might take something from them,
claim their precious Jeep or iPhone 10,

or that the world is beyond their control
it keeps spinning and will not stop,
dizzying change the only constant.

Why, they’d have to admit their God’s protection
is not sufficient, the piss-producing realization 
nothing after death but the cold, cold coffin. 

Theres an old superstition amongst crafters that work with yarn and thread,
to leave a mistake in your work lest your soul get stuck in pursuit of perfection.

But no matter how many I made,
there’s still a part of me,
hanging from the braids
I wove into your hair.

Standing in the prayer circle
Hands linked
Heads bowed
I feel the familiarity of old
And the shame of hypocrisy 
As I’m not a church goer anymore

Amens all around
Then head out to the trail
And there 
Under a canopy
Of birch and poplar
The shame melted away 

This
This is my church 
Jack in the pulpit
Preaches love and beauty
Behind him
The waterfall baptistry 

The choir of cardinals
And robins and sparrows 
Sing to the congregation 
Of trillium and trout lily
Lady slipper and iris
Teaberry and great laurel 

I sit on a pew 
Of a fallen oak
In communion with nature 
Here
Here is where I feel
I’m in God’s house

The price I paid to feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life
was the timing.

Matilda got to run away from her neglectful family with Ms. Honey
to be appreciated for who she was in all of her uniqueness
and bright-minded wit.
Curled up in a soft quilt with a storybook and, for the first time,
a sense of hope that things were going to work out.

You know you have a great teacher
When they have the ability to break your heart.
Because you know that after all of the time you’ve spent
in their classroom,
having the time of your life,
that you would have to apply it all to your own life when the time came
without the guidance you’d grown so fond of.

Mr. Honey watched me trudge into his classroom in a pitiful heap,
But he never questioned it.
He watched me cry a river, but quietly built a dam at the water’s edge.

He gathered a small group of us to a theater in the city,
where I watched dancers glide across a carefully arranged stage
like angels,
looking at me from across the room with a wave and a chuckle
at the way my eyes bulged out of my pleasantly overwhelmed head.

I, in return for the safe place to hide during arguably
one of the worst years of my life,
gave him a long, wordy letter that in no way reflected my writing skills,
but a fleeting hope that my emotions could be felt through a printed, unstapled stack of paper.

I presented him throughout our year together pieces of art I made.
Stupid doodles, paintings, and whatever else—
Something to remember me by.
I like giving people stuff, I guess.

Mr. Honey gave me a hug at graduation,
muttering a low and sympathetic “I’ll see you,”
As I struggled not to soak the velvety fabric of his academic regalia under my fingers
with fat, wet tears.
I really didn’t want to let go.

I knew I couldn’t just run away from what was ahead of me,
But I knew at least what direction I was running towards.

I went to celebrate at a restaurant later that night
and sobbed into a napkin until my head pounded white.
I didn’t miss my classmates, didn’t grieve the prime of my teens.
I just knew AP Lit was over.

Thar he blows—! an angel denies his sea-foam-flimsy mirage.
Hurries to make crushed albatross of torn blubber and
his slain and useless fins,

and thar he blows—! afraid they’ll take his tail,
hoping-maybe 
they’ll kneel and kiss his horn devotedly—
a stolen moment, 
without asking for permission

If the icy-twerp is from heaven and this stupid,
why does he only swim on Earth?  Tell—!
Do tell me.

Forget the Arctic, he spans the seas!
Insensible-idiotic
he is known.

The stupid angel—!

Truly—! One of the earth,
and yes, no doubt of the seas.

Poet: Rafael Alberti
Interpreter: Manny Grimaldi

Once my name was Fearless.
Explorer of Woods. Solo Walker.
Hunter of Snakes and Toads. 

Once my name was Flying Girl.
Climber of Trees and Mountains.
Jumper From Swings. 

Summertime, my name was Ottter.
Swimmer. Diver.
Thriver in Cold Waters. 

Winter, my name was Blanket-wrapt.
Builder of Book Forts.
Dream spinner. 

My best name was Student.
Collector of Knowledge.
Lover of Libraries.

My worst name was Employee.
Worker on Weekends.
Prisoner of Productivity. 

Then came the years when 
when my name was Orphan,
my question, who am I now? 

Who am I now? My next name
will be Spinner of Stories.
Sharer of Knowledge. 

I want, once again, to be Fearless.