Sending poetry to the world
Written back in 2020 while I was on pandemic furlough … seems like a perfect post for today!
Dark kitchen corner,
a forgotten
bulb bursts
open. Single green
arm reaches out
and instantly air
like a rush of
electricity zips
down verdant
limb, a first breath
of vast unknown.
Rustle imperceptible
of former self, there is
no going back, only
brave burgeoning start.
Dreaming of Tuesday’s
parties, glorious rippling
colors, all manner of
food and gaiety, strangers with
strange stories, big ridiculous hats,
cacophony of singing,
and drunkenness, lots of it
spinning, hours disappearing
under the weight of the night
and slow dancing whispers,
all versions of us
unwilling to believe in a
dawning Wednesday.
Wake up! Wake Up! There is so much
To do! Watch the trees, flush with green,
How they open their sun catchers
And breathe just like us. There are ripples to create and
Secret worms to unearth.
Come, test this messy black dirt
With your bare feet and count the many
Grains of light on your tongue.
Wake up now, small one, and find your life in the dawn.
Time and its relativity are clear now.
The animals and I keep a same schedule, and like them,
I believe I still matter. Hours are meaningful
Although they carry no cash.
Instead of colleagues, I converse with a cold front.
Clouds dash by at a pace I
Don’t know. Underneath, fears lap like
a flooding creek. I let them go;
tossing pieces of grass with gravity.
Time is stretched by gratitude.
I no longer rush. Let’s throw a ball
for the dog. I choose my adventures and
look up when I like.
There is space to expand and contract. To be.
We are now our own universe.
Tomorrow, a concept, just out of reach.
i’m with the fishing people.
the big clouds didn’t scare us tonight
instead they blushed graciously at our compliments,
such a nice day!
below the harbor water is black and
waxed fine like a waiting ballroom floor
i have no watch, no phone, no one knows i’m here
one man catches a small one,
throws it back
to skid along the surface
soft Latin music brings on a deepening,
blues and reds,
i watch him catch the same fish again
it dances this time, dies,
one star brightens to accept it, ripples settle out across the sky.
written 10.8.13
Drop leaves Faucet
carefully –
slyly looking both ways
like a prisoner in a daring escape,
takes a breath
closes eyes,
Launches!
free falling bliss
to desperate reconsideration
wind pulls delicate skin
and all is quiet
Drop shatters into
a million shining sparks on a stainless steel
tundra,
Transforms into something infinitely soft.
Take one last look, Drop, at a cold grey world and
drain toward something
altogether new
written 4.23.13
I dream so well, so deep,
sometimes I can’t tell the dreaming
from the living. The rooms are both blue.
Have you ever thought you awoke, only to
find you were still dreaming? The clocks
on the wall melt like Dali.
When you say I Love You, the words seem
slow. If I reach out to touch you, will you
still be there, will you still be?
In the east we paint
rebelliously, our backbones
Unfurled. Trains, unaware
Hum low tones “I’m here,
I’m here.”
Like a king confined
by a future of shackles, i sit in my
big chair and listen, and grieve.
i am burying my brother.
i am burying my child. it matters not,
as i think only of me.
light fades, tightens its grip.
time is my best friend
who accepts such lonely things.
a burning sky dies over me,
sighs over me, extinguishes
like a lit match
blown softly unconscious.
fingers flaming pass out
into wispy smoke, clouds that once burned
hot slowly rust,
i watch them turn pyroclastic dark,
they turn against me –
an encroaching cloak of emptiness. i watch this death
a hungry voyeur. i listen though
nothing, nothing remains
save a sliver of a moon croaking awake, and black silhouettes
of trees and city rowhome skeletons whispering,
you always leave, you always do
but the gold is worth it for one brief hour,
that one small time our eyes got big
and drank colors possible only in dreams.
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