Procastination
I PROcrastinate
way
too
much.
I need to
be
more
PROactive.
It’s been PROven
time
and time
again,
I’m too much
of a PROfessional
at this.
I PROcrastinate
way
too
much.
I need to
be
more
PROactive.
It’s been PROven
time
and time
again,
I’m too much
of a PROfessional
at this.
Dear God,
My friend, Jay, died unexpectedly. I’m sad. Hurt. Angry. In disbelief. Numb. Jay didn’t deserve to die. Yes, I know death is a part of life. Grandmother always said, “We weren’t put on this Earth to stay forever.” But this wasn’t even close to forever. I would have never guessed that he’d die now. It doesn’t feel right. Not questioning You. Not mad at You. Just trying to figure this out.
Jay was a great guy. Full of life. Personality. Loved to laugh. Would help anybody. Never expecting anything in return. Didn’t share what he did for others. He was the type of person this world needs.
I don’t understand why so many good people die. And we’re left with the evil nasty ones. I asked my brother why do You take the good ones but allow the ungodly to live. Eric said You’re giving them an opportunity to get things right. Repent. But how many chances do they get? I may have even mentioned a few names of people whom You can take now.
I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I realize the rain falls on the just AND the unjust. But I’m asking if we (the just) can have a reprieve from the rain.
I hope You don’t think I’m questioning You. Just trying to sort things out. Are we good?
Please forgive me of my sins. Love You.
Love,
Lisa A. Brown
This poem is a salve for when you avoid responding to that text because you have had too much of yourself to make any sense to anyone else.
This poem is a deep breath for the days when you must go out into the world.
This poem is a sigh for those hours when you know your best friend is awake, but you don’t want to bother them.
This poem is a wave for the beach shaped like a couch that you have found yourself marooned upon.
This poem is a sneeze to clear the stale air that you have allowed to gather inside your heart.
This poem is an arrow for the direction you want to go when you lack the affirmation to know for sure.
This poem is a pedicure for the weary feet you have not allowed to rest.
This poem is a thunderstorm when you least expect it during an afternoon that has already been lost to you.
This poem is a song to find other like figures.
This poem is a reflection at your absolute lowest moment of being.
This poem is a trap for the ghosts we thought we had banished in our past.
This poem is a conversation that you have been trying to have for months, but after having it with only yourself for that long, you have found so many holes in your logic that only dust now holds it together.
This poem is an alarm to stir yourself back to insanity.
This poem is a home for everything you have thrown out.
This poem is a world bountiful enough for everyone.
This poem is a lunch meeting that is never long enough no matter how many times it happens.
This poem is a chance.
This poem is a lie.
This poem is a truth.
This poem is whatever you need it to be.
Sometimes, like today, I do not
want to be a poet. I do not want
to understand how it feels to hold
my short-bursted weeping, as if
we were passing glances between
purpose and clock. Sometimes, like
today, I do not have the patience to
coo and aah over the newborness of
tender thoughts, or release the strength
required to sort through the bee-sting
philosophy of depression’s burned-out
ash embers.
Oh, how I love you, I love you, I love you.
It isn’t for anything, really…this lamenting…
What will this dirty-cloth life do next …
how does it sleep at night? Over and over,
I’ll tell you I love you as if you, alone,
culled the harmony of my inspiration from
a fresh-cut field of geranium memories.
Over and over, the cardinals choose to bathe
in the old plastic bucket by the garage.
I am only telling you this, so you may
wear my curiosity, too.
Yet, somehow, there is a chance that I may be
a poet, that I understand, when the
porch swing has stilled its crookedness, and the
worried haints have settled onto the broad shoulders of
a night’s long emptiness, that soon I will cry
because there are plenty enough words to
get me home.
closing my eyes in the black
I count the bright dust spread
across the inside of my eyelids
that recollection of night sky
manifested by what? cappalaries
or retinal lightning storms, a
charybdis arising from grey matter
challenging my thoughts, me desires
my memory of olden times that
I’d sooner forget
Sleeping the day away,
Sleeping reality away,
Getting lost in strange dreams.
My head hurts
like my heart hurts
like my life hurts.
Gray clouds inside and out.
national park employees
