breathing

 the cloister of breathing

the only thing

I take refuge in now

dried leaves on sidewalk

dirt between cracks, a cigarette butt

I know its much more impossible for you

where there is no recourse

from the ugly words, the threats, the fists

between a rock

and a rock

and a leap of faith

that feels more like

a leap from a fifth-floor apartment

but take Her hand

that breathing might be

an oasis in the burning forest

believe me, soon

there will be ashes around you

grotesque, yes, but quiet

now-cathedral

future-glimmer

past, fuel and fertilizer

the quiet one

 

they say it takes

more muscles to frown

than to smile

how many does it take

to leave your face

alone?

salient features of a roaring breakdown

 the salient features

of a roaring breakdown --

loss of footing (a metaphor)

floating somewhere between

the ceiling and floor (a sensation)

the terror of not knowing

where my next thought

will come from, if it will come

at all, I am unsettled

in the unsettling, cling

to a nurse, to a mental health tech

to a fellow patient, find myself

drawing with crayon, do not understand 

where the table came from

the chair feels like the blessed savior

I scratch out a picture

of Hocking Hills park from a pamphlet

am gratified to wake

the next day and find

a masterpiece, of sorts

by the breakfast trays

and scattered citizens

of the psychiatric institute

yaneverknow

 

yaneverknow

 

so the end has come

and I, like everyone else

expected a miles-wide hammer to fall

or a dust whirlwind to fill our parched throats

 

instead, She enters with music of castanets

a constellation of smoldering jazz quartets

the perfume of red, garlic tomato sauce

and warm, olive oil with herbs

wafting on the winds 

of an unsurmised shift

 

the blinking of our hearts' eyes

wonder at the new world that appears

at the dawn following the final night

the morning after the sun broke down

to make way for a radiant, all-sustaining love

shining from below ground

INWARD

"I'm not interested 

in who suffered the most. 

I'm interested in people 

getting over it." 

  

      from "Jerusalem", Naomi Shihab Nye 

 these homespun ideas 

not new, just fashionable once again 

that justice is actually in human hands 

 "peace not war" 

pushed to the side 

for the engulfing rage 

we all feel 

for somebody now 

 better to turn that anger inward 

not to self-harm 

but to self-warn 

 the enemy is never out there 

it's in our heads 

the more real for being there 

grotesque vulture with timepiece in claw 

cackling, playing us for fools 

never at a loss, never misses a beat 

 when you hate 

it's too late, too deep 

no more time 

to keep