In a blink, I am thrown off balance
The chain on my anchor dissolves in five-minute-disappearing-messages: that damned timer that counts down to zero visibility
In the silence, my anxiety screams
Thoughts of doubt, pulling tightly on their captivity.
I was foolish to think I had vanquished those dragons,
They were merely sleeping.
the explosions, some war of neighbors perhaps
they prick the dusk, pleasantly
again perhaps
birds take to wing crossing paths
flit flight, roost to roost
knowing only that they’ll return
when the holy fourth’s over
like poets with pens
every June
The best of my work is behind me
Burning in a pile
of what was
The best to come still lies ahead
Misplaced,
or maybe never placed at all
The best of now
leaves from my finger tips
it lines the palms of my hands
and resides under my nails
like dirt that you just can’t wash off
We had our hair and make-up done.
Checked the hallway for the groom.
He was nowhere to be found, so
We went to the dressing room.
I helped her step into the dress
The zipper wanted to stick.
We almost had panic attacks
But we got that sucker licked.
She looked so very beautiful
I thought that I might cry.
I held myself together tight,
Somehow my face stayed dry.
It was such a lovely wedding
When my baby girl got married.
She’s not a baby anymore, but
My grown daughter is cherished.
A gift of flowers
When I have cut the yellow
ones, the white ones
& one bright blue flower,
I arrange them
& fill the vase
with spring water.
When next you drive,
you will discover them
in your passenger seat.
There is no card
to betray me.
There are only flowers,
the beautiful ones,
& a vase with water.
The cartoonist’s first month on the strip
was finally done.
They even felt pretty good
about how it’d all gone down.
But then a door (more of a
portal, really) opened up
inside of their apartment,
splattering cosmic rays all across
their new carpet.
The door brought with it a daily-comic-strip
-policeman from the Zth dimension,
a fellow who was
green skinned and bug eyed
with a gravelly voice and a ray-gun at his side.
“They weren’t all winners,”
was his only declaration
before he raised up his mighty weapon
and ZARPED! the cartoonist dead.
when my first marriage
was on the rocks
we drove to a beach
hoping that sand and water
would fix whatever was wrong
watched our young children
laugh in the shallows
ignorant of our adult problems
some believe that
all they need is a week
on the beach pretending
that the nine to five
don’t care about you bosses
standing waste deep in salt and water
while my children
now young men
rail against
the tatnic potential death waves
that came on rolling green blue
my body still felt tired
and that vast endlessness
did nothing to fix
whatever this is
Vultures convening on the body of Christ
