Posts for June 29, 2025

I once stayed up all night 

Some writers remark
that English’s limping subjunctive
fails to capture the full range
of magic, emotion, and possibilities
for what might exist 
even within our own minds.
Yet these language experts forget
the crucial principle our tongues extend
as we grind down difficulties 
in one domain
new features sprout like fungus
in some other field. 
This mutative property not only allows
but also nearly guarantees
an equality across languages
our own societies are too young
to recognize on their own.
Even though languages may lack,
from time to time,
a word for a specific concept,
this absence in no way reflects
a dearth of description,
and now that grammar
that sounded so painful in school
receives a chance to remind us
how features become fundaments to thought.
So, writers, please remember:
this power comes inherent
in every language we use,
so we should allow others to judge us instead
on how creatively we use the linguistic tools we have.
If I were more sadistic in the work I do with others,
I might require more subjunctive
in order to see a world more speckled by doubt and openness. 
But English has more than enough other ways
to welcome an influx of uncertainty 
in our everyday speech,
so I will clutch my subjunctive
close to my chest
and only use it sparingly
as if someone else were to try to steal it.

I went to bed and cried that night, after writing
about my friend, “Joe, the Hungarian;” our meeting
and parting, and reflected on what it meant to lose
track of a friend, though it was only blip on the screen
then; why the tears now? Why did it effect me so?  

I thought about the losses wrenched away; at
what age did I begin to count them? The things
I would have wanted to keep, if I had been given
a choice; but what of these memories that I wish
were gone, yet I wear them and they chafe like a burr.  

One set adored, the other abhorred. Just what
is it about good memories that make them melt
into the woodwork of the mind and go unseen
for many years then suddenly resurface years later,
and then weep with the gladness of remembering?  

And, why is it that I keep bad memories so close,
and let good ones fade away? Could it be the good ones
are finished just like they are; they don’t need fixing
and are released, but the mean, haunting ones are kept
close,hoping to give each a new ending.  

I think it had probably been 20 years since the last time
I’d thought of the letters from my Hungarian friend.
Yet daily, it seemed, some kind of bitter loss came to mind.
I’d tried ceremonies to release and let go, though some
were spur-of-the-moment.  

So then why do I still have so many bitter nuggets
rattling around in my memory bucket that I try to
pretend are not there? Why can’t I just dump them
out or maybe reframe or replace them with a softer,
lovelier memories for me to carry around instead?

Is it because great memories are near perfect,
making them easy to not think about, but
bad memories get swept under the rug in hopes
that someday, we’ll give them a new outcome.

A saddle back heart
Reigns loose, head back
Laughter only wind can hear.

This time is different 
she is sure
she is not the same anymore

there is something that draws her in
will he be a friend or lover
time will tell
it doesn’t have to be one or the other 
maybe both that’s ok
you need to take a chance 
that is the only way you will see.

it requires a leap of faith
starting over in a different place
life holds no guarantees

let’s take a chance 

It’s nearly three in the morning,
and I’m crawling around in my head –
my chiggered thoughts keep itching.
AlI I can do is scratch out these words.

She walked to the end of the pier to

My better 
Angels, 
    
     I have restocked the travel kit 
with extracts and suspensions:

calamine, for
  Like sumac, ivy, and oak, 
  sometimes in a grove,
  up a wall, to the canopy
  I’ve crawled just to feed the birds
  yet left you burning in my wake.
drawing salve, for
  The aftermath of the blow I struck
  splintering my own makeshift raft
  to pieces, to bits
  using the first sharp heavy stone
  I found after my waves
  crashed us into that shore.
eugenol, for 
  Your broken tooth.
  When we met, I never should have
  punched you in the mouth. You
  never mocked me, 
  nor tugged at the braces
  on my ankles, my vestigial toes,
  nor placed them there to begin with.
witch hazel on a branch, for
  Whatever purpose you see fit.
coarse dirt, for
  Scrubbing away the dumb graffiti
  now that I’ve covered most of my walls,
  your soft shell, your goosedown wings.
  I was too fucking lazy
  to open a damn dictionary,
  or to run the gotforsaken
  spell check feature that’s
  built into the system, for
  Fucks’ sake. I lost any 
  sense of relative bearing that way,
  as always, letting up,
  getting sloppy when I should be
  triple-proofing the charts.
lanolin in a square tin, one
fine-tined silver comb, pure
hot lye soap, strike
anywhere matches, placed
on a dish besides several curls of
fragrant birch bark.

  Ephemeral waterways boil today,
  but walk with me still,
let’s go as far as we can, 
see when we reach water
and I can wash my hands or,
if we walk far enough then,
  maybe, for us,
You can
at least at last
call in the tide.

Fill up on precious sounds.
Trickling ponds
rushing streams
bird song sonatas
rustling leaves in strong breeze
crows making speeches
dogs barking their feelings
creeks rushing to streams.

When your day life gets rough
your nature sound memories
will help restore calm.

Neatly dressed
Hair in place
Boys in ties
Girls with soft white gloves

We form a circle
Under the ballroom chandelier

Boy, girl, boy, girl
Taking turns, exchanging partners
Waiting for that moment

My hand in yours
Yours in mine

Your smile, your smell
Touching through gloves
The fire in our hearts