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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Coin operated
machinery in symphony
the spaces between
more than the emptiness there
a sense of belonging.
The air dissolves at night,
milky swirls of sorrowful clouds
lurching among street lamps
huddled close to the fitful flames
lapping at what warmth that drips down.
To stand before that raging tide and say, “no.”
the salt laden water rising to the throat,
confides in me such pride on which to bestow;
to sink beneath the waves and yet rise afloat.
For all the times that change found her overcome,
and would for others be enough to succumb;
for every kind word we have contemplated,
and all that we have yet to face.
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.
“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.”
All the vile things coalesce,
segmented and fitted together.
limbs – sprawled asunder,
clawing at a sky hidden
behind walls of wood and brick
the screaming bound by form
hssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
ing until the mouth parts hurt,
the way the palm does-
one hand clapping;
not enough for an applause,
but enough to reprimand.
The back is not for laying anymore
one can only relax on all limbs;
on hands, legs and whatever are these.
The supine is panic and helplessness;
something the mind condemns vehemently.
From somewhere in the recesses
muffled by doors, walls, genetics;
a voice calls out to me-
Am I well?
Am I aware of the time?
Am I clothed?
Stabbing at the ceiling in six different places
in a posture that feels like death I
hsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
back.
No tears will come.
Grow Gray With Me 