often and gently
like a whisper
like a prayer spoken with no voice just held there gently within the cage of ribs
hope is like this hope just this a wish we barely let an idea held close in the throat
I will always welcome them I am made this way I can do life no differently
never without one yet growing slimmer leaner where the years have grafted away sections
in need of this surface I let it go at will believe as I must I am part of making all things new
All the ambitions I have had, I have reached or given up.
I look at you now and hear all my own words expiring.
An unwritten poem, I don’t know how, shadows you.
All the breaths I have had I have used to write lines
that almost poured flutesong all over the sky, that made me
want to leap, lurch, dance, and all my hungers, I let them grow
in my gut like pearls in mollusks, like skipping stones that want
to skim all the parts of you my hands don’t dare to touch,
and I admit my desire has approached the space between us
even as I hide from bill collectors, from rivers I would drown in,
because seeing you again has pulled me apart. Though we’ve had
leaks like defective boats, a song I could never play
had meanings I didn’t mean but I can be mean like
someone cutting in line to climb up a diving board,
only to hesitate at the top and climb back down despite a chorus
of mocking, but oh, I’ve had other places to go, other words
I meant to say, words that would cool these fires if they could,
words that would assure I would never leap out of myself
and into you, but I think my desire for sensations is ready to roam,
given the green light, across the alleyways and tributaries on your skin.
With thanks to my fellow Rebel Cartographers–words and lines from our most recent anthology.
Basking in the beat
Different lanes
Ink in our veins
Paper fleets fly
Souls divine
Mascara crust
Trust
Lullabies
Anchor deep
Each time
Scruffy turf
Honey hug
Of cool damp earth
Human virtue
Grit to go forward
Clutching jarred tadpoles
Hours fly
Love evergreen
No time to be meek
Careening
Meetin’ greetin’
Eye to eye
Make a plan
Flower wings
Motes of dust
Breath of life
Mt Fuji’s iced stance
Glorious.
anne hathaway and jennifer garner
watch me / clean and windswept /
in the perfume department
of the mall / while my mother finds
my father / a shirt for the funeral
strife boomerang faint familiar yearn
back into me / just want a casual
conversation / just want easy / in
the recording i can hear you
breathing / before you start to sing
deep green forest swallow
my brother / searching for red throated
birds / my body heavy / confused /
my knuckles swell in allergy
once you made me scream in joy
and filmed it / as you mourned
We spent the most time looking
at the palette of ranunculus, an array
of galvanized buckets lined up
next to the reddest tomatoes.
It took me awhile to learn
how to pronounce ranunculus,
the Latin rooted word
stitched with Persian myth.
Once learned, it fell from my lips,
layers of petals,
cylindrical bowls, round and round
a carousel of color.
Its the last day of Spring how shall I celebrate?
I think I will begin by being thankful for all the early flowers.
Those pops of color are so refreshing after those long winter months’
We must not forget getting the garden planted. We started planning it in January.
Greenhouses are open and filled to the rafters with flowers and veggie plants.
Warm days and cool evenings are so refreshing.
The energy you feel from being outside after that winter hibernation.
Waiting and watching the perenial herbs come back to life and those tulip bulbs emerging.
Thank you Spring for a wonderful season full of color and possiblilties.
Tonight I will toast you and make a strawberry poptart cobbler using those berries you helped turn ripe and so sweet.
We trade gifts in Pokémon Go,
these strangers
and I.
And each gift comes
with a postcard,
a snapshot of some semi-random place.
A park,
a statue,
a theater,
a historical marker.
I spin the PokeStop
from the church
at the end of my street
several times a day.
I worry that my online friends
think I actually worship there.
Even my local friends
are mostly people I’ve never met.
We pass the same photos around
over and over.
Today is my turn to receive
the Samuel L. Jackson mural.
My girlfriend and I always
save the painted rose
on the sidewalk
for each other.
What’s fun is seeing
images from other states.
Kitschy Americana stuff.
Goofy statues outside restaurants.
Signs with animated ice cream cones.
Occasionally something real like
the Grand Canyon
or Arlington Cemetery.
Better yet are the postcards
from other countries.
My friend in Mexico who sends me gargoyles.
Shrines and shops in Japan.
Monuments to historical figures
we have probably never heard of here.
One guy sends me the loneliest looking
basketball goal
from somewhere in Slovakia.
I wonder if he plays there.
Or if he just passes it each day.
It’s always fun
when someone visits
an amusement park.
I just got a postcard
from the Indiana Jones attraction
in Shanghai Disneyland.
It’s a strange kind of tourism,
seeing these little bits of the world
each day,
many of them with descriptions
in languages I can’t read.
I wonder who they are sometimes,
the people behind the cartoon avatars.
Instead of churches or restaurants,
I’d like to send them pictures of my dog
or my girlfriend’s art work.
Instead of a sticker with a silly caption,
a message of hope
or a poem.
Connected but alone,
we send each other gifts each day
which only hint at our real lives.
Last night, Nancy prompted me to record
When life is broken
(To paraphrase John Lennon)
Love is super glue
