For when one hand holds on elsewhere —
Around your steady perch of choice
Leave a length to the left
Cigarette lit, cup its ash in your palm
Over, under, and back: prehensile thumb
Now under (cigarette still lit), over, open loop
Enter, emerge
Rotate through and pull
Time Suck
Fighters
Born to Be
Bled Into Forever
Because the truth of the matter is:
we all want honesty without philosophy,
luxury without misery,
credibility without reality.
So let me ask again:
do you want the innocence of oblivious bliss —
to numb yourself of your anxiety and agony,
telling you to surround yourself in desolate isolation
and let the days slip by without pain or adversity
so you can pretend that this is life,
the comforts and consolations
that spead out like fleeting
constellations of
burnt-out stars
long dead —
or do you want the cold, cruel, chilling truth?
How catastrophic, this all-or-nothing thinking.
Such tribalism, our black-and-white coordination.
Must we pick truth over comfort or comfort over truth
like the tarot’s startling death or falling tower?
Or may we walk toward honesty and hang at its edge
with dignity, with integrity, with fallen grace
for forty days with little rest or reprieve?
May our hearts soften and open with graceful gentleness
as you see your suffering in a cold new light.
Of Fleeting Things:
If you would have asked me last year if I was tough,
I would have laughed
I don’t think of myself as strong, corageous, or tenacious
I feel weak, whiny, and easy to give up
However, I have survived the unthinkable
My son died and I survived
In the days after his death, I wanted to
curl up and die myself
But I discovered that putting one foot in front
of the other and just taking life an hour at a time,
until I could think farther ahead and then take it
a day at a time, until I could think even farther
Looking back, and seeing what I have survived,
I realize that I am indeed made of tough stuff!
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872. (Musée Marmottan, Paris)
Bereft of all words
Brush’d underneath impression
Break of day abides.
The moon and I have always known
I was not meant for the sun.
Pale as her, I burn.
Craters on her skin, and so mine.
She relies on others’ light to shine
and I need them too.
The sun does not resent.
Rays reaching out, he embraces
you and me, all encompassing warmth.
His tender kisses upon our skin,
evidence of his love. Willingly, he gives
the greatest gift, the ability to phase
into who we want to be.
You waltz in dusk and dawn,
watching over all. I see you,
parents of the Earth. Someday,
I’ll return the gifts
you gave to me.
See you there,
at the end
of the universe.
In a dream,
I crossed the line into the divine,
and I found that my mind
could not define
in word nor rhyme
the grace, the place,
the space sublime
in that dream.
I only recall that
the face that I saw
filled me with awe
in that dream.
Though I sensed I must leave,
the image perceived
leads me to believe
that some day, in some way
that dream will replay,
and in it I’ll stay.
