Monthly Archives: February 2023

Cardboard Boxes

It’s not trash, but it should be.
      I want it to be,
but someone out there;
                  a memory,
        would hold it against me,
that tangible though brief history
                      discarded.
as if it didn’t live up to
    some archaic pedigree
          that would otherwise sustain it
              unto antiquity.

Is it not enough that we lived our lives?
                                        Survived?
                      Survive still,
to store those moments in boxes
        or lay them amongst the refuse
    and save instead that space?

How do we value emptiness
          against all the time that we’ve forgotten?

6 PM

The day has settled
              to find rest where it is wont to be,
speak softly, those closing remarks,
              and resign to quiet darkness
with the dream of sunlight to carry it to morning.

The restless feign a closed eye
            the other, a slivered lookout
                  waiting for the light to die
            just enough to escape beneath the cool evening.

Some adventures can only be had
                    in the space between.

Coffee

Like boulders tumbled end over
                                          end
until hard sharp edges are rounded
                  soft
pebbles
        that flow over the hand
                as the water that birthed them.

Then ground into rich soil
                    vibrant, dark
            eager to grow into something beautiful
                        to taste a set of lips
                  and rest there
                            taste again
      and settle warmly inside.

Each morning
            I embrace that glow
        as it embraces me
  and feel the day blossom.

Natural History

I remember the road,
          the air raging against us
                            while time refused to move.
          My father wore driving gloves
                  absurd shorts
                        a proud mullet.

            When we stopped for gas he’d take note:

  • The odometer
  • The amount of gas
  • The reconciled mileage

             He’d check the oil each time.

Spitefully, the car gave up before he did,
                      and for three days in Virginia
            my sister and I waited for parts to arrive,
                          so he could fix it.
            and we-
                                        could get back on the road.

I remember he was always confident-
                  hopeful;
          only ever briefly apologetic,
                secreting his resentments away
                      to hasty whispers he alone could hear.

When we finally arrived in DC,
      we had two days left to visit the smithsonian…

I can’t remember why I enjoyed it so much.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Here we hide our memories;
those lost, those forgotten
and those memorialized.

Most moments
will outlive their time-
processed,
                    so completely,
we want nothing to do with them anymore
            but, the part of us that lives on-

     in the brighter corners of that vacant space

will not be discarded.

Here we store them…

We place them in a box.
            to cultivate dust and nostalgia,
                  for our future selves to discover,
                        swipe away;
                                  trivialize.

Other events are so magnificent
they break the realm of time itself
piercing the boundaries of reality;
                                      letting it bleed out
                                until its eyes dim
                        the skin pallid
              fading
and we are faced with no choice but
        to pack those away too. 

               here they rest patiently…

                   until there is enough room
                      for them to exist once again
                  or reality needs once again
              to be reminded how fragile it is.

Self Portrait

A brown blanket draped over desert dunes,
the wind swooping in to pull at the threads-
cast the out like fishing lines, that

     whisper of years beneath the skin,
breaching the surface timidly, here or there-
memories as winding paths into a future of

   time sweeping into deep pools of darkness,
surrounded by sand blasted cold stone-
the blue of an ancient ocean petrified, like

     a forest of artifacts from the day before,
some reposed in a past hardly spoken-
others greet the day screaming white noise at

   the sound of a church bell at noon.
Tuesday- from the hollows of an old barn,
Struggling to live up to a repurposed dream.

Watch

“Do you see, against the city setting,
roiling white clouds of terrible purpose;
from here, not but cotton dabbed in darkness?”

“It could scarce escape me as the day drains,
the glint of windows shook, reflected back;
like orphaned laughter so briefly sustained.
I can hear it at the ends of my hairs,
though the sound itself is too far away.”

“That sharp line dividing the horizon-”

“As if the sky had broken itself cleanly,
the seam rushing toward us high and above.”

“The path to here from there is far indeed,
the seed of hope that flowers before us
was meant to bring prosperity to light,
but found the air up here far too hostile.”

“Conflict is the only air we breathe.”

“Sure, but conflict alone wouldn’t kill it.
Where at first it writhed searching for recourse
it now thrives, a phoenix reborn.
Such horror, and yet beautiful ruin.”

“May its glory rise to outlive us all.
The impact should be around here, shortly.”

“Time enough to live with ourselves at last.”