outliving the rest of them is most likely never easy
one way or another they drop off over the years
some losses are far easier to take than others
it is outrageous to say so but it’s the truth
mother early father late brother lately
sisters older and frail but still here
one thing about keeping count
like this is you drift into the
error that as keeper of
this kind of list you
can forget
you and
others
who
are
not
of the
blood
add
to
it
too
I meant to write more this week,
but I couldn’t bring myself to
pick up the pen and
channel dripping ink
across blank pages.
Instead, I became weightless,
cocooned inside a hammock deep
in Wisconson woods, and let
God read me Their poetry through
a bullfrogs mouth.
soft-shelled extrovert with a heart of song
your deep sea dramatics don’t make me love you any less
we are the ocean’s favourite fools
walking fin in claw through tides high and low
Thunder and lightning.
Summer comes in screaming like
the banshee she is.
8:30: immediate images of hungry
refugees, mothers clasping starving babies.
An Air Force airman set himself afire:
I WILL NO LONGER BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE
Humans are biologically hardwired
to habituate to grossly immoral deeds,
one article says – war, oppression, extremism,
you name it. Not all, this airman cries.
Yet we are not habituated to the trials
of marriage, apparently. People are marrying less,
this called the closing of the American heart.
Not all. I now open the daily photos from “bebe”
Adam’s parents, not for my e-dessert reprieve,
but first thing. He with cherry cheeks and inquisitive
eyebrows, today wrapped in sunny towel with
duck beak on top, his fist full of fettuccine.
This same day, a deep sea robot reveals
that Chilean fishing restrictions have bolstered
biodiversity. A wiggling glassy blue disjointed worm
casts an aura of bright orange dust.
This must be the magic that Adam’s parents
believe in when they, too, push the headlines
aside, click their camera with delight, and post.
leaves dance with the wind
sometimes graceful otherwise wild
music stops they wait
Another day they didn’t listen,
but who can blame them
when they don’t know fact from fiction.
I come home irritated,
and refrain from bitchin’
because that ain’t the first thing my wife should see.
I’m glad the workday is done,
so now I can have fun at home
with the people I’ve been missing.
Park my car,
shift my heart,
and put the past in remission.
I’m grateful for my life
and the home that I live in,
the sunsets I see
And the friends that come visit.
I have found a peace with the things that get at me ,
for they never outweigh the things that make me happy.
I used to escape with a bottle or a pill,
but who needs a vacation when you own a forest and a hill.
Thunder crept up in the dark,
electric night air charged and ready
to crack the predawn sky
until it breaks, bursts, explodes
with the relief of a cold rain.
A summer downpour delivered
by the solstice and steam rising
from the hot rock of a gravel road.
I stand at the kitchen window
and watch a resurrection,
eerie in the ambient light of a storm
and a sunrise pushed aside.
Lightning bolts illuminate ghosts
hovering in the fog, barefoot and restless
pulled from some eternal sleep
in a hidden country graveyard
to go for one more meandering walk
while the veil is thin.
Mamaw got struck one time,
a human conductor for a celestial spark.
They put her little feet in water
and watched the washtub go green.
i love you
but all the strings are attached
and our quota isn’t met
just my heart beat blue
