summer city steeped in promise

the smell of Old Bay blue crabs
fizzles down the spine
of an electric storm cloud
and humidity
seeps up around the ankles
of a city steeped in promise:

he reluctantly pulls back a broken screen door
and lets it shut with a bang.

inside another door a pool table is a
vivid green
field of dreams
spiked by whiskey breath
as each man leans close to take a shot.

 

written 6.29.11

untitled (winds and Whitman)

outside
winds rattle in their Song

glory to themselves
basking in their chill, their roar,
their natural state
of movement —

We- the page- the vessel
the form that gives
the winds their form
as they move

rattle, dance,
their self-assured
Songs of them-selves.

oh wind,
you fearsome friend,
always with the
troubling advice:
“move, keep moving”

 

written 4.12.11

but the potential is there

This man i passed in his street level window
in his old-man blue and white striped underpants
plays guitar to sheet music propped up by useless
paper stacks. In my world flowers overstay their welcome
and die, casually, a little bit every day
and i swim among the petals, like beautiful regrets,
among the art and the lies …
but the potential is there
like the smell of garlic wafting from an overcrowded
kitchen pot … this man finds a chord, i hear it from
a mile away and cry.

 

written 2.25.13

lunch with my great aunt Alice

The Milton Inn has this blue room
draped heavy in the past –
silver forks and knives
and glassware I used to polish
in early mornings when I learned
to drink my coffee black.

My great aunt Alice and I
used to take our lunches there
sipping diet coke and lemon our
three course meal a time
to talk of lives alike. Her handwriting in
pencil saying, “lovely, lovely.”

[author’s note: my great aunt Alice was an incredible woman and I really miss our lunches. They were a time to talk about writing and grammar and all the things we were geeky for. I still have her edits on my college work. I still can hear her telling me to go west on a trip that she could never take.]

written 11.20.10

Drop leaves Faucet

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

Everything is Waiting For You by David Whyte

Last Sunday, I was able to participate in a wonderful event called Dancing on the Fragile Edge of the World: A Scholarship Concert of Music and Poetry with Michael S. Glaser (my former college professor), Brian Ganz, and Deanna Nikaido. I’d like to share one of the featured readings from this event here in an effort to share the love, light, and positive energy that the event gave to me.

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

— David Whyte
from Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press

Fiercely, we hold on

We are never more rooted
in this big universe than
when our eyes sting and
our heads hang heavy for loss.

When we, a procession of sun
glasses, watch, shifting feet,
as life disappears back into
those thick familiar arms.

Our backs, clothed in black,
savor warmth, unaware that
we are at once joyful and empty,
and crying for ourselves

mirrored in the lowering. How
we know deeply: absence
of something weighs more than
substance, and we fiercely hold on.

First time asleep

the first time i slept with him,
that sleep unafraid, mouth open,
not worried about drool or how my
cheeks fold and stack unattractive, i
felt like i had stepped out of
my skin, unzipped, truly naked
for the first time, thinking you’ve
never seen me before until now, you’ve
never realized how i would
lie awake waiting until your breath
cascaded slower, until your own
mouth fell aside, your soft snore my
signal: all clear to close your eyes.