Garage Haiku #14
firefly lights up
my garage — everyone else
late for band practice
Sometimes a duck
becomes a rabbit
if you tilt your head
a certain way.
Sometimes
the young beauty
is the old hag
when you cross your eyes.
Take the weed.
Consider its greens and violets.
It is a centerpiece
for Sunday dinner.
A terrorist
is a freedom fighter
depending on
your postal code.
Sometimes
an ink pen
is a match.
Set a fire. Cook a roast.
Light a cigarette. Burn the house.
Then judge the flames.
The multiverse
is a pivot
of your neck,
a crack in
your spectacles,
a word choice
in translation.
There is nothing like a magical potion
to start your whimisical day
Something warm and cozy to
keep the anzxiety away
First we will turn the kettle on and
make sure to fill it up
Grab all the ingredients and
dont forget the cup
A scoop pf silver nettle white
tea to help you feel calm
Lets go out to the garden and
pick some lemon balm
Dried heirloom rose petals
to remember to always love yourself
Lets not forget the the honey from
your bees sitting on the shelf
Now steep all your ingredients
while you patiently wait with glee
I call this my calm down potion but
most just think its a cup of tea
I found you last night, in my sheets
after clandestine midnight call and return
to relinquish another day to my sleep.
I turned on my side, arms encircling
the pillow I’ve used to train myself
from solitude to presence of a partner,
for when that day may come
and my fingers closed around something
more tangible than the night. A hoop
the size of a silver dollar, paying
memory forward, immediately rewinding
a week to clarity: Dancing with you
at eleven a.m. along the tiny peninsula
reaching out into the same lake
had seen our first date nineteen months
in the past. That day had been too chill
for your Jamaican skin, so we’d remained
in the car. It had, however, been perfect
for driving you into my arms
and first kiss.
Last week had been chill, enough, so that
I gave you my sweatshirt to cover
your naked shoulders, the same sweatshirt
that’s lay beside me for a week, in your absence,
exhaling your musk and cinnamon and berries
like shepherds to my slumber.
A week he’s held this secret: How he carried more
than just your scent. I brush the smooth glass
of my phone to wake its face, to beg its grace
and light to illuminate what I already see in my mind:
The thick scarlet earring I thought I’d forgotten
we discovered had disappeared while we danced.
I run the lips of my hands along the loop, tasting
the recollection of this crimson against your caramel,
and I remember how recently I languished, laughably,
over the fact I’d never find strands of your woven
tresses lingering, behind, after we’d been together.
I remember the pale, orange-pink choker
that fell between the seats, how I hung it
like a signpost from the rearview mirror
until I could see you again. I remember
the black, silk bow with which
your niece had adorned you,
and how it held your place
in the cupholder, til I saw you
again. I run my fingers around the edges
of the semblance of the shape of the life
I see at your side, the lean and lilt
of one red hoop and how it waited for me
in its hiding place, until it was the right time
to take me back. And I realize
you never truly leave me, I never truly leave
you. I am always carrying something of you
in the wound of my departure,
in the holes stretched open like a sigh–
the universe spilling breadcrumbs
to guide us
back.
Take my anger, Lord
My complainings
My darkness
Let the pool
of my disappointment
be a dry bed
The world is evil,
says the barista
They killed Prince
because he knew too much
The old rocker on the patio
smokes against the signs
telling him not to
I’m too old to give a shit
winks and licks and
taps his ash
I am swaying
in the parking lot
Thinking of my friends
looking across
the kitchen table
this morning
trying to remember when
they ever loved each other
The dishwasher
hums its little liturgy
Take my sadness
The inertia of rushing. The boulders
of the shoulders frozen upwards, as if
to protect the soft of the neck.
The heartbeat suspects slowdowns
bring death. The awkward encounter
with overdue emails – shipwrecks
in a sea of guilt. Apologizing for being late.
The mind galloping towards a distant field.
All the birds have ignored
Fred
is a content warning
with pipe cleaner legs
and a snappy little beret
frightened by
dissatisfied with
shifty shadows cast
by what
purports
proclaims
proposes
to be solid
hosts an open house and locks the doors
clinging to a coward’s mind
that understands enough to make it
hurt but not enough to make it stop
hopes for heaven
only if it comes with valet parking
