Monthly Archives: February 2023

Metronome

If thunder could only speak through a trumpet,
                  that is the sound.

It is everywhere,
                        abruptly,
                                          then slowly not- a passing flood.
    A confidence of noise that terrifies the insides,
sends them scattering in all directions,
      but bound to you.
              the fruitless effort makes them-

                                               resentful.

Desperately,
                  I wish I could capture that sound;
                              pin it to this page
                              and share it with you,
                  if only to prove to myself its existence.

When it rises again,
                                    I am still broken.
  A school bus made of rubber
                out of control
                        too fast to stop
                forcing itself through too small a gap;
            the agony of that sound.

All life inside me fades as it does
          replaced by uneasy stillness.

               I can see no reason for it but-

                                           something is wrong.

The scurrying of my insides
incites the space I find myself in to salivation.

           It could be-
                  the way it feels,
                          the stillness;
                I am already within the monster’s mouth.

There are no signs for or against this
                            just the absurd quiet between;
                  a caesura in the fear.

The hills outside could be rolling off
                              into a horizon unseen,
or the listless valleys of an ancient tongue overgrown;
                        the eater of worlds.

I feel it deeper now, its third report.
                    Like I should know its purpose
      and it is violently disappointed.

The birth of a maladie underdeveloped.
    Only trachea and lungs and noise,
no head or mouth to shape the air;
    fumbling out this inelegant discord.

                                           That’s the sound.

                                  I imagine the world is silent,
    lest whatever ill fate it portents take it too.

Yesterday

The years soak like rain
  through the clothes
            chilling the skin
    torturing the bones.

In the now,
                    all the days before-
            the days to come;
are a murky stew of moments
                  that obscure the current one.

I scream my first lungfull
          and take my last,
                  prepare for another.

       The stew stirs,
                cools
                    congeals;
            fresh off the stove,
                      and half finished.

                                     I don’t know…

                                     I don’t know…

               I know only,

Today is tomorrow’s yesterday.

Tomorrow

waits for no one – it but exists
          and that is enough.

           I accept the challenge
though it grows everyday.





I raise the sails each morning
      towards that great whale
                  not to hunt it down in vengeance
but to explore its yawning wake
                until at last it turns on me
            and speaks solemnly, “no more”
      having grown too great a future
                      for my sails to endure.

Trinkets

Three coins strung together around my wrist;
the toll for love is always at hand,
as many paid as has been collected.

One coin gifted for the love that defines us;
the love that plays beyond the boundaries of time,
and inspires us to pursue it more.

Another owed for the love that has been taken;
always too soon, should one live to see it gone,
but owed the same, for the loss costs us no less.

A coin borrowed for the love that remains;
languishing there, just beyond our horizons,
yet no less worthy of what alms we offer.

Last, the bracelet itself, held for my daughter;
who may have forgotten that love is still here,
but still kept safe, for here love will always be.

The Fall

Gone

   

         gone



thin clouds

                the song of sunlight
            muted without the praise of a place to settle,

      kneading itself into the billowing cotton-

   like panic trapped in a parachute

hurtling towards the ground






                           wondering

                     where it all went wrong.

A Chair Unburdened

Over me
          overwhelming
but from its end-
impartial.

Alone, we are so many things
between beginning and ending
together, we are absolute horror.

From my end;
down here,
almost close enough-
the bridge between us
is devastatingly indecisive.

From its end;
hanging there,
it remains stoic-
                  impartial.

The weight is all on me,
until at last it is not,
gifted above;
for we are nothing unburdened.

             If I can no longer be
                        the warm support
                  that allows the muscles to cool,
                the bones to settle;
I’ll at least be the platform on
which to stand.
            High enough to hang their troubles
      and let them swing,
                as they did decades ago in a box of sand-
                      impartial.

Though kicked away;
                      discarded,
          I am satisfied to resign
                      having served well
in my time.

To My Younger Self:

Enjoy the silences;
the waiting,
slow words.

Not having anything to do;
the leashed phone,
the unknown.

Bruises, cuts and wounds;
the bitter cold,
the searching soul.

The night without street lights;
uncivilized sights,
sunlit rooms.

Enjoy the world
as it was meant to be;
sober, subtle and unexplored,
because in the end
it will turn on you;
bind you in rope,
flood your eyes, your ears,
and leave you with no place
                        to call home.

Sam Talks Back

Where I was trying to find control,
                  you lost it.

            I was growing;
awkward, ungainly,
          and to shape me
          you cut me down.

Where I would seek love,
            you gave me conditions
      and where I loved you,
              you absorbed the impact,
                      in the thicker parts of yourself-
                softening the blow.

Where you are, I cannot be me,
                I cannot be.