Inebriate

in

It's a creeping painA slow patient pain The layers thicken Before they flake

Her hiding place dissolves The past becomes now Her hands become putty Weakness cradled by pain

She is numb Held hostage by unconsciousness His want replaces love Her love replaces anger

An inebriate coupling A black mark on a porcelain surface Giving in giving up As hope melts to softness

She sleeps in the bosom of regret But upon awakening Her hands are strong again Recovered by night's forgiving embrace.

Windows

in

I went outside and it smelled so good. I stood on a cinder block and danced to the music piped into my ears. I felt the morning sun heat up my face and my baby strapped warm against my core. Nine months inside of me, nine months next to me. I looked across rooftops, trees, water, past bridges past mountains, my gaze settling on the sky.

I danced and I knew happiness. I felt free.

Until I realized that anyone in my neighbor's laundry room could see me. They could be laughing at me. They could think I was crazy, or high, or both. A lot of people live in that house. They could be watching me the way I watch them folding laundry at night, not purposefully but because we are right in one another's line of vision. I sit at my computer, facing a window with a view. But at night the waters and mountains and trees fade to black, leaving only the illuminated window of their laundry room.

I stepped down from the cinderblock. The floating bridge in the distance disappeared behind houses.

I walked around the perimeter of my yard again. I want to memorize it now, in case I ever move. I know I will not live in this house forever. But I have grown attached to these walls where I've raised children and birthed a baby and loved a man and wrote words.

If the universe wants me to move, I will follow. If the earth wants me to feel my feet upon it, I will dance. If spirit wants me to play, I will dream.

Look for me out your window. I'm not afraid of being seen.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Infinite tunnel

in

Everyday I open to the love that pulses through my veins

A love that comes from unfathomable depths through infinite tunnels

I fear this love will turn me mad and still, I love on

An interesting shade of beauty shines with messy precision

I cannot conquer the messes nor match the precision

Either I open to this beauty and it trickles through me

Infusing everything I feel, say, touch, hear and do

Or the beauty paralyzes me

I can't move lest everything fall to pieces

Opening contracting closing

Closing is part of the opening.

 

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Great heights

in

Should I discard the compulsion to do?

Break out from the shell of expectation

Shed this comfort of protection, this belief I'm doing fine as long as I'm moving

Could it be about finding stillness instead?

Like the tree whose great heights come from standing still.

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Fallen Behind

in

TimeThe metronome of progress Even when we stop For a break Time marches onward We will have to run To catch up. Fall too far behind and We fear Spending our whole lives Hidden by shadows Chasing light Looking behind clouds To find more clouds Grudges shackled to our ankles Expectations binding our wrists Weights of want And no one within shouting distance.

Correction.

The fog is thick as dirt Like we are buried Beneath the crust But even underground We are not alone Surrounded by Fungi and worms Moles and insects Billions of micro organisms Pay attention with every sense Notice The movement The earth shifting around us We are the axis Life is on all sides In all cracks No matter how deep We've fallen.

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The work

in

Stop and start and stopfickle compulsions of the head making night-time final decisions based on a lucid dream. You think the work has feelings for you like a lover who leaves not love notes for remembrance but withered hopes and layered cuts. Flowers blossom faithfully in spring but never when we're looking change only perceptible after it's changed everything. It's a miasma of missing things even while doing everything it's never enough of anything stuffing holes with beautiful distraction. Pressure chips away at the beauty no one ever saw the potential we forgot to use the hours we'll never get back.

A Black and White World

in

No one wants to live withinA black and white world

Where white skies Turn water black

And vapor mutes color We want vibrancy

Blood dripping crimson Bruises shining purple

Butterflies flying In streaks of orange

Lemony drops of sunshine Against indigo depression

Jade valleys to contrast With red hot love

Harnessing the energy of One luminous star, it shines

Whether or not we notice Until the end of days

Fear not, my dears We will arrive together.

A Black & White World

Hypocrite

in

Errant words of wisdom mosey through my mindStrutting like rhinestones, sparkling but weak I kiss them hello with lips that will curse them Roused by sincere reverence that fades by tomorrow.

I am no hypocrite. I am someone with dreams Smooth and supple on the inside, pretty on the outside Lungs crimson with blood rather than charred with Smoke and fire and tumors stocked with poison.

The church says to confess and repent and be healed But God already knows every heart I've broken, so I tell them to go to hell, they say I'm going there soon I say we might be here already.

There's no escaping destiny when it's contained by Sagebrush and juniper trees, tumbleweeds and desert breezes Stale motel rooms where a companion costs extra Even the pizza man if he comes in and shuts the door.

God does not want me to heal, God wants me to Bruise and bleed so I can slip out of this body and Into another. Maybe my soul was not ripe enough for now Maybe this valley leads to a mountain with a view.

When I climb out from under my skin, the scars will stay Dissolving with the defiled flesh of a hypocrite A liar, a thief, a charlatan, a childless mother. Everything temporary like this body I never learned to love.

Bleached by the Moon

in

I am youngThough I look old More silver than brown Imprinted with non-linear Focus, non-stop worries Tattooed by UV rays And the stretching Of time, volumes of Blank books loaded With my affairs Collections of change I never saw coming Obligatory trauma Because easy costs Something I never Could find, now I am Quarantined like a Leper or a hermit Though it's not Contagions I seek To contain but risks I call blasphemy Selfish and ravenous For the youth I once Possessed in spades Bleached out by too Many super moons Emptied by too many Chances shriveled Like dead orchids No matter how much Water I drink in dreams Of a resurrection.

Tsunami Sirens

in

The last spray of lemongrassThe first note of deluge, sew Shut the eyes and bare witness To divine intervention, the air Smells heady as cracked leather Ominous like tsunami sirens Betraying the quietude of lingering Waves swallowing with infinite jaws Leaving behind empty sloughed Away skins and skeleton roads From up here on the crest I see Them run, dragging leaden feet As they consider making their Resting place the ocean, cold with Serenity yet welcoming, simple Enough to be swept away like Coming from a lover's touch.

Climax

in

Perhaps we have reached the endForsaken by everything trustworthy Starved by our own prerogative Festering into odious spunk Never mind the shelf life lasts Forever. Our toes point behind us Our fingers point somewhere in The distance, an arabesque into The future, two uneven halves Divided with nothing left for the Now. We mow our grass though It never stops growing, we pay For superfluous insurance just To be safe. We spurn safety For money, we declare war on Life by spraying verdure with Poison, we hedge the present With gold and still moments captured By the lens, immortalized by the Screen, because we matter and Those smiles will someday climax And though we prepare for it, we Will never be ready for it, so what I pray is the point in trying?

Run

in

Run. Run far away andPlease do come back, not like A boomerang, like you. I want you rosaceous red Steeped in clouds and sweat, Brown like earth so deep it is Impossible to dig up. Tall like The volcano in the distance Reminding us of our inadequacy. Murderous like the abominable Snowman, not a monster nor a Storybook creation but a man Who kills foxes with his bare Hands and wrestles snarling bears When they've eaten his dog's Heart, leaving the rest to rot. I want the tears of people You've never touched to flow Leaving a trail of crumbs Blue dots in white snow indicating The road you've traveled, like Plastic bottles hanging off of Tree branches. I will always find you You will always find me. Once you've Felt their pain in your kidneys In every compartment of your spine You can return to me. Leave the Remains buried atop the volcano Where there's a view, where his Spirit will want to visit, where we Will want to visit, too. For we are Never far from the paradise we built It lives inside our beating hearts Like a ship in a bottle, filed away under "Secrets" until our brains turn off and we Exist in the context of bright light rather than Love and fear, God's yellow face, the dots Piercing the night sky: stars or airplanes Or alien dimensions.

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Somebody Got Shot

in

I told them to go: Daddy,Take her to her favorite place The library. Pick up the Thai food And come home, be safe.

They come home and I kiss them We eat together, then we watch Fantasia while I stretch and Daddy works. A normal evening.

Except for the police racing about Daddy wondered why, I said: Guns The last time I saw them speeding Without sirens, somebody got shot.

The neighborhood blog flashed a notice: A shooting at the corner, near the library At 6:45. My reasons for living crossed paths With a gunman, and I sent them.

I get on my knees, blessing my Angels, my worst fears curling and Charred, touched by the fires of hell While I pray for their mothers.

Throw

in

Aim, throw, hit
Sharp
Pierces my chest
I shout but I sound like nothing
The walls are sound-proof, eye-proof
And escape-proof
Trapped forever within
Life's longing for itself.

Rolling across blades of grass
I pretend they are tippy tops of trees
And I am God's yellow face
The moon is my best friend
So I ask for the clouds to part
For the answers to crawl out of
Darkness, into somewhere bright
For interpretation.

My arms shield my eyes instead of
My chest which takes the blow
All bone and fragile tissue,
But not even sound-proof glass
Can stop me from seeing
Outside. Where nothing makes sense
Except for our stories and
The sun, but only when it shines.

Addiction

in

It tugs on your lapels like aNeedy child needing you and only You, traveling through brain mass Finding new spaces to fill, breaking Your life into two neat pieces. One for the addiction, another for Everything else, everything that matters. You hold the pieces together with your knees, Careful not to move your hips, gambling on The outcome, the hit, the blow, the shot. You reel, you breathe differently, you feel The new space where the cracks have widened And the vapor rushes in like epoxy or Super glue, which always does a better job sewing Your fingers together than the fractures.