Nourishment
Today I was parched
dessicated
my will dry
as a desert well
One sip of your joy
seeps to my roots
fills my spring
brings me back to bloom
Today I was parched
dessicated
my will dry
as a desert well
One sip of your joy
seeps to my roots
fills my spring
brings me back to bloom
Words,
they plague me
Sometimes
they land as bricks
or quiver like rippling flags
then scatter
moving in space
like leaves in the air
randomly landing on
the tip of my pen
where they may be unlocked
when applying some pressure
to identify them
Sometimes they are name tags
attached to fragrances
turning my head
asking my consciousness
to surmise
a scent
an object
a dislocation
a shift
a shove
a slant
that makes
one notice
what has set off a time bomb
in your head
until a word
grandly presents itselt
or rolls out of
a gum ball machine
a colorful promise
of something
to chew on
I didn’t read the book
Until I was 25 years old
But by that age
I only thought that he was
A petulant and whiny asshole
Even if he somewhat matured
By the end
By the time
I am able to come out
of the closet
and live as myself,
it may be too late.
I didn’t get to
have a girlhood.
Now I may not
get to have a life.
Politicians are trying
to outlaw my existence.
They praise the freedom
of this country
as they plot genocide
for anyone not like them.
God bless the USA.
It has been a long journey
and I have worked hard
to become myself,
to love and accept myself.
And it’s so frustrating
that my final destination
may be nowhere.
I’m waiting for never,
a day that is not coming
or maybe one that already passed
where I can be myself safely
without fear,
with joy.
The future I hoped for
dies a little more each day.
he looks worn, distant,
so close to the fire’s heat
but not yet burning
this is how creation works,
magic made to seem easy
when so very difficult,
the door closed and locked
seconds or hours,
finally it yields to him,
the treasure so bright
as he lays it out neatly,
each note perfectly in place
(after the 1891 portrait of Erik Satie in his Montmartre studio, by Santiago Rusinol)
de-
regulate me, whispered the river tributary
to its dumb and rushing banks–
and they obliged in kind, all the more willing
to hold water where water goes.
The wooded bottom diverged its course
long ago–its pain, the occasional flooding
water that tossed its sediments, made dams,
tracked an occasional moored-up Ford
deep into the orange wood, its abandoned corpse
filled with all kind of junk we’d find there:
the glass bottles of Ol Grandad sun bleached
beer cans tattered seats, foam exposed–
springcoil heart ripped open.
“no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.”
–Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
Mosquitos leach my naked chest.
A single frog calls for a mate.
Scent of citronella fills the patio
as a weak ward.
It’s quiet now. Outside.
And in that quiet, I try to be present.
Try to remember
the events of the day, what transpired
outside of my mind:
Early on, I’d written. And I’d read.
The heat had been oppressive at 9 am
but both the warmth, and the chill, were yours.
I crawled along the ground at the edges
of my mother’s yard, sprinkling the ground
with cayenne pepper—like a salt ring, perhaps—
around the perimeter of the fence (not for spirits,
though, against the family of skunks that sprayed
our dogs a week ago). It’s overgrown,
outside that fence, and thorns ripped
at my arms, a blister formed, trees pressing
almost too close against my frame; I had to shimmy
face to face with privacy. I had to climb a tower
of barbed wire, precariously balanced against posts,
pushing (breaking) smaller limbs, a bag
of plastic bottles over my shoulder
like some diabolical Santa. I shook
them, one by one, spreading their acrimony
along the base, the burnt sienna painting
a boundary, the slight breeze, apparently,
carrying it to my body, since, halfway done,
my face began to burn with a hollow, dull
pain. But throughout, I barely registered
any of it; I was swimming your words in my head.
…and the yard seemed to be spinning.
I had to hurry, because I had a wedding in Lexington
to rescue, on the morrow–their DJ having canceled
four days in advance; the officiant had done but one
ceremony; the coordinator was on her first, simply
an intern for the groom’s business and young, so very young;
the family barely listened, faces buried in their phones
(including the bride); the groom was growing agitated
at how slow the rehearsal was going. My mind
was a thousand light years away, but the city
continued spinning, so I stepped forward and let my voice
come from my belly—and they listened and they
thanked me, again and again, for making “lemonade
of the week’s lemons.” I didn’t tell them
how right they were.
…how, now, the country was set spinning.
I debriefed the debate with my sons over the phone–
had avoided the angry susurrus of CNN issuing forth
from my mother’s bedroom, at home: One candidate
supposedly infirm, the other a child and a lying felon.
I pretended I hadn’t seen the correspondents shift stances,
so dramatically, with their opinions/coverage of the Left—
while a box had been floating in the lower right corner
of the screen: Coming Next: Kamala Harris (for the record,
I would welcome her, but the theater was overwrought
and the plot was too obvious and the manipulation
would have overwhelmed me)
…if the sun wasn’t still spinning.
I made calls while I was driving, while filling an empty tank, replacing
milk. I kicked the tires. I changed my clothes into something less restricting.
I signed two more events in the coming weeks. Agreed to spin a pool party
on the Fourth (the Country Club first time calling). Agreed to DJ another
local business owner’s renewal of her vows. I applied to 10 identical jobs
with the state (tax specialist positions, of all things, prevaricating
my native language was actually numbers). My mom and I watched a show
about an alien pretending to be normal as we ate honeyed salmon
and a baked potato.
…and all the while, the universe was spinning.
So here I am now, with a glass of wine. It’s 2 a.m. and I’m sweating
in nothing but athletic shorts. Listening to the silence (a blessed silence).
Trying to make this sound less…depressing. Knowing the cosmic fabric
does not set its spin cycle to my dirty laundry. But overflowing
with the sensation, that…everything keeps going. Everything
keeps spinning—How?—does it all keep spinning, when I am here,
and you are there–frozen between one breath and the next, and my mind
and my heart in synchronization with the serenade of Saturn’s rings,
forty-eight hours like phantom numbers floating erratically in the air,
like some Netflix show only I can see
…while the hands on the clock continue spinning?
In the dark—I’m wishing it were winter, the scent of pine and petrichor
joining steam rising off my chest—up and out and into a quietus
of crisp air after a hot bath in the night—it’s a secret occupation of my spirit
to do—when it’s the right season, when its the right moment, the right time
for such to occur. But that seems my curse: the right thing, at the wrong time,
until the right time makes the right thing tremulous
and wrong. I believe in perfect
timing; I believe, in fact, it is all right now.
That every Me exists in the same moment, that they stand around me, now,
laying on hands. That every story is always happening—all at once. And this is
how we know (some of us know) when we meet Them. This is how we know
(some of us know) where the story goes. Before a single word has been written.
Before a single kiss has been taken. So we watch our feet as they move forward,
Damn the torpedoes, and full steam ahead,
because we know there is a greater lesson
our souls had already decided
in the space before we were born.
So we are choosing what we were always choosing.
And loving every sweep of the story, every ounce of the beauty, though
we know we might be losing.
But damn, if it isn’t confusing.
And fuck, if it isn’t
bruising, and hells
that it isn’t
yet.
Cows graze in the pasture.
Beautiful green grass in the foreground
Mountains in the background
Against a blue sky with puffy white clouds.
I unload the big heavy view camera
And begin the process
Of setting up the tripod,
Mounting the camera,
Attaching the lens.
As I do my work,
The cows begin to move.
I haven’t noticed
Until I dip my head
Under the drape
To focus the lens.
Before me is not
The serene landscape
I came to shoot
But a group of cows
Now only fifteen feet away
All looking right at me.
One moves up close enough
To fill my viewfinder
Demanding a portrait,
Not a landscape.
Never knew that speed was necessary
When photographing cows
But they are clearly
More curious
Than cats.
I taught my sacred cows to sing
a capella because they lack opposable thumbs
which makes it hard to play guitar
or drums.
After a short tour of the southeast states
they formed a clique
of Nazi chic
and walked amongst the herd on their hind legs,
rode Harley Road Kings in black leather jackets
they implied
they made from hides
of cows who chewed their cud in a socialist way.
Such is the trouble the gods will bring
if you teach your sacred cows to sing.
