Saturday, August 29, 2020

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

Saturday, August 22, 2020

the quiet one

 

they say it takes

more muscles to frown

than to smile

how many does it take

to leave your face

alone?

Thursday, August 20, 2020

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

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

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