on June
This summer is thick and heavy
Blanket of still humid air on the top bunk
Okra’s slime from the okra’s lip
A bead of old molasses caught
between the spiral rim and the dented lid
These stains never go away
That house doesn’t seem to have
aged a day, stuck somewhere in the limbo
before I was born.
We’d explore the basement, placed
squarely in between your professions
of teacher and taxidermist,
not quite sure whether we would
learn something new
or unearth the unburied.
The world down there coated in dust
and disarray. The piano with dead keys.
The discarded knick-knacks and remnants
of a forgotten time. I fell in love with a
rotary-dial telephone we exhumed.
Remember the quiet mechanical whir
as it returned home after each number.
Sometimes I wonder if the wires
could get crossed, if I could call
those still breathing
in the year that house is still trapped.
“Morgan has this crazy idea.
He thinks that, with one kiss,
you’ll remember everything.”
– Chuck
We can’t forget
this world ain’t
a fairy tale. Or,
not really.
I’d like to
think
one
magickal
kiss
could draw
you, back
wrap myself
like iridescence
around
your heart,
incandesce
the filament
of every memory
we shared.
But you ain’t
asleep, and
I’m rarely
that charming.
i never told you the truth
that i recongized your lies
and loved you so much
i kept your secret
i pretended not to see
the hate that sometimes
made your eyes red and hot
like the burner on the stove
i imagined you were my equal
and worthy of the respect
i freely offered
even after you offered
only pain and disappointment
i love you still
after all these years
there is no room for anger
in the space you occupy
in my soul
for i hold within that frame
a moment captured in
sharp focus:
you held my hand
we walked the beach
the red sun retiring
to the song of ocean birds
the salty breeze carried
your breath and mine
to the far place that is
still our home
You’re sitting on the back porch drinking iced tea,
Watching birds fly back and forth,
Watching squirrels run back and forth.
Today is your day off,
You don’t have anything planned,
You don’t feel like doing any work around the house.
Nobody has called,
There’s nothing on TV you want to watch,
You have a radio with you on the porch tuned to an oldies station.
Nothing eventful is happening,
You’re starting to get bored,
Isn’t this a good time to have a slice of delicious Beebopareebop rhubarb pie?
Such utile architecture, a place to murder and to burn the evidence of murder. There are ghosts watching from the sooted walls, reaching out to loved ones and strangers in their shared final moments. They cry that the marks’ filthy lessons aren’t universal, that the horror of this tangible reality is denied to excuse hatreds borne since Eden. These walls will not be cleaned, the pipes below the ceiling not removed, but if they were the haunting would continue: The pale spirit of a child gazes from the flowers that bound the small monument in the room’s center, puzzled by the fault that brought it here.
(after Jo Bell)
If you fall off the wagon, don’t stress. Just get back on.
If your early efforts are not masterpieces, don’t worry.
If your latest efforts are also not masterpieces, don’t worry.
It’s not just you. Be a little kind to yourself, but also
be a little hard on yourself – only a little. Life gets in the way,
but life is also your source material, so you can’t have too much.
Read every single poem in this book. Any poem you don’t find
in this book you will find online. Read every single poem
you can find, anywhere that you can find poetry.
Nobody writes good poetry without reading good poetry.
Those who don’t take this seriously are doomed because
they are not aware of the context in which they write.
Use this book to teach your own class. Better yet,
become your own class: be the student; be the teacher;
be the famous poet laureate brought in as guest lecturer.
True success is in the private conversation between poet
and page. The process of writing, not the process of winning
awards, is where the real treasure may be found.
https://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/52writeapoemaweekstartnowkeepgoing.html
I was diagnosed with the invisible
Multiple Sclerosis, MS, 10 years ago.
It strikes sufferers differently
although sharing the common bond–
demyelination of the nervous system.
Those closest to me often forget
that although I do my darndest
to fight like a Navy Seal in a covert
operation through the oxymoronic
dichotomy of numbness and pain,
cognitive disruption and difficulties,
unrelenting gravitational pull of fatigue,
and lingering issues of past relapses,
give me a break.
I still have MS.
My lack of visible symptoms
and my little complaining does
NOT
give others who are dissimilar
permission to negate
understanding and compassion toward me.
I matter.
Lack of empathy hurts.
This is the closest thing I can imagine
to what it’s like
to be black–
the antithetical seen
who suffer differently than whites
although sharing the common bond–
humanity, for crying out loud,
created in God’s own image.
Black lives matter.
May we all remember
to listen without assumption,
to empathize without hesitation,
to feel someone else’s hurt,
to see,
really see,
the erring juxtaposition of
privilege on one side,
pain on the other,
to realize we are on an island
together.
