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Springtime Stream of Consciousness

I don't need to share don't bother

Asking how my day was we'll never get into the little details the important stuff

And I'll just sigh and say oh.

it was good

But I don't need to share

It's all for me and it's all a gift

It's free and loose and open and easy

It comes and goes comes and goes

Sometimes it sticks around for awhile

Sometimes it gets pried out of me

But usually I hold it for myself I hold it in my heart

As little secret treasures

Just for me

The little thoughts the precious little thoughts

The little songs in my head

The ideas that could become poems

But won't I promise I won't

waste effort I won't reach I won't clench

The squeeze makes for bitter tea

I come and go open fisted empty handed

The sights and sounds and smells

How every tree is more beautiful than the last and it's not a competition and I promise I won't forget the last

Lord the blossoms!

I sit with two closed notebooks beside my legs

I won't open them today

Everything is just for me and I will let it come and go

The little bee that hovers in front of me that lands softly on my arm that comes and goes and I wonder how many others, people and flowers, it has come and gone to and from today

And as it comes back I reach out my hand to make it easier

The jogger I passed

Dancing on the sidewalk

While I ride my bike

And I wonder if he thought the tears on my face were from the wind

Or from the song

The song that reminds me of another song that reminds me of another song

And isn't that how it goes one thing leads to another

And isn't that poetry things are like other things

The girls laughing at me as I waddle

After my ten dollar bill blowing in the wind

I promise I'm not worried I don't need it

Take it if you want it I won't run after it

And isn't it funny how running only makes the wind blow stronger the money tumble faster

The book-reading stranger I've shared a bench with enough times to no longer be strangers

What book is it today?

The ex-lover at the register who takes my money as if we've never met

And how I admire that Thank you for that

The little old lady who is anything but old

And my book-reading stranger-friend who offers to hold her dog while she gets her coffee

The little white shaggy dog who looks like its little white shaggy owner and who loves everyone

And how you know it

How wonderful it is to have someone always and forever excited to see you every time all the time

The neighbor who comes with her baby boy and stops in my little cement living room to share coffee to let her boy play

And the old friends who come with their little girl who has freshly learned to walk and now has endless possibilities and fearlessly walks to me clutches my jeans in her little fists

And how today seems to be family day, I've never seen so many babies I've never seen so much happiness I've never seen so much love

How wonderful it is to be cared for to have everything you need

And yet another old friend coming with a landing smile like he finally found what he was looking for and how sometimes I would consider these as interruptions

But how much better to receive them as gifts as life itself what else are we even doing to be aimless is not to be without purpose to be interrupted is not to be unproductive

Even still another old friend aren't we all just old friends who I see walk by and I let him go but also secretly call him forth in my heart and lo he returns and sits gives five minutes for me

And the ease of giving back

Time and conversation care and kindness easy smiles compliments and laughter

Another friend comes

And I'm starting to wonder what divine secretary I have working for me today

To place these precious little appointments back to back to back to back and one at a time so no voice is lost

I am a tree by a river and people come and go like I'm a surprise roadside attraction and I now know that this poem will never end the little thoughts will come and go the people and they are all for me and I am all for them and for them all and Lord! The blossoms Lord! The people Lord! The gifts!

Isn't it interesting how much you get when you let go of effort

Trust and wait

The pleasant surprises the gifts when you stop planning every minute

How much comes to you when you stop moving

How easy it is

When you stop thinking

Oh to stop the busy mind!

How easy it can be to find what you aren't looking for

etc and so on

forever and ever

amen

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The Post-Walk Haiku I Owe You For October 23, 2022 (delayed)

Through a land of gold

We trespass delicately

Your eyes, too, are gold

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Psalm Of Softness

My Comforter, my Prince of Peace, thank you, for the softness of the morning

For the slowness of the October morning, thank you,

my lovely Lamb,

The sun is gentle, the sky is still

Thank you, my Rock my Rescue,

For the stillness

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I think I Love Novembers Most

I think I love Novembers most

There's a brief stretch of time before the trees are stripped bare completely and the dead and dying leaves, no longer bright and luminescent, no longer alive in their death, are solemn and rustic like unpolished bronze and everything is tinted with the same matte filter

November comes with the world's fury

And brings with it permission to wrack and rage, and yet, to be quiet, to let go, to step away, to stay inside

To be restless and to take rest

We learn to live for the light, the surprise awe-inducing light that polishes the otherwise dull landscape, and we learn to accept darkness

If life starts anew in October, it again ends in November

And every calm moment is a gift

It reminds us of raw earth, the wet, the dirt, the mess, where we come from and where we end up

And that beauty is not always bright and shiny

I think I love Novembers most

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Daisy Memories

The memories are out again

--I mean the daisies--

And I pause on my walk

To think on them

--I mean to look--

And take a few photos

I'd send to you

If this was then and you

And I were us

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Gökotta

In the morning of the morning

When the world is formless and tricks are played

When static things shift and have no shape

I left the house shaking

And like a sleuth creeping

I skated on wet clay

Through dark tunnels of indistinct gray

Down to the river

Everything a gradient of grayscale

And depth-less in the pre-dawn dark

I huddled in the cold until I was a stone

Eyes closed, tucked in and tuckered out

I longed for bed

Suddenly birdsong like reverse rain

Rose in all directions

As if every droplet of dew and spent rain

Sparkled out sound

Bright flashes of a goldfinch

Followed by the bark of a heron

Warned me the storm was close

And with every hundredth trill of the whippoorwill

I opened my eyes to a different gray sky

And The Great House getting lighter

The dark cord of river still being tugged along before me

It wasn't long before sound became sight

Who knew it was all green!

The singers all along active, their flight

As sharp as their song, and so near

And the shallow river bright!

The shallow river clear

I retreated over dried mud and through the old tunnels, new with light

The gray gone, the walls green, the flowers bright!

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Without Fail

Every year

Without fail

And to the wild surprise of every passerby

There is a day exactly like this

And it's like winning the lottery

The months of struggle instantly unreachable

And as foreign as melted snow

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I Is The Most Lonesome Word

I know not what I do

And I do what I do not want to do

I think therefore I am

I think

I have awakened love before it was ready

Before I was ready

I have shaken it like a wasp nest

I have shaken it like my mother's snow globe that smashed against the counter

I have done it all wrong

I was thirsty

But I opened the can only after shaking it

I cannot write a single sentence without "I"

And I is the most lonesome word

I think therefore I am to be alone

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October Twenty First In Poetry

A great purr in the sky

Echoes across the parking lot

Where a woman walks holding an umbrella of kale

Beyond her trees hold their magnificent burst

Like photography stills of fireworks

A passerby tells me she also likes to sit and read

But continues on before I can reply

So I smile and watch as she methodically makes her way to her next target:

A wedding party taking photographs on the veranda

Then the refreshment of friends who do stop by

The sweet pleasure of warm greetings and brief conversation

And the great purr returns

As the Akan proverb of the forest and the trees comes to mind

And I wonder how dense these quiet little lives look from above

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Heart Like A Seed

The work is done

Lingering good-byes spoken

It is time

Once again

To return home

Where uncertainty and possibility balance

like caught rain on fallen leaves

But first I will lift up my head

to the great applause of the sparrows

that billow like a bedsheet in the sky

The sky that has opened like a curtain

over the wild field

Contained

Not controlled

But cut off

from the humdrum of human hands

by a thin wire fence made nearly invisible

by the wild grapes gathering against it

They reach over like foaming ale

The dangling dark balls hanging beneath

large leaves that taste sour like the fruit

- I know because I have tasted them -

The thin wiry branches leaning down

as if to take in the smell

of the freshly-baptized asphalt

that lies like a lake of oil before me

Over which I hear again the great applause

like the chatter in a theatre

after the curtain closes

and the show has come to an end

We must listen to the sounds of the season

We must understand the time

And this is a time

for earth-stained knees

for lowering your heart

into the ground like a seed

And like a farmer of the field:

It is a time to rest

To wait

To see

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Gerard Manley Hopkins' Terrible Sonnets: You Last Visited This Page On 12/26/21

How dark the night gets, how dark the mind

The bear that tears at my heart

How dark his prickly pelt, how deep his teeth, fiendishly felt, deep in the depths of my shallow blood-beating heart

The pumping, pounding, pow-wow of my wound, wound round my throbbing throat

Moves me to fish-flail fight, to foul slaught frantic fowl-flight, fraught, distraught, I ought to act

Act! anything to distract the pelting thoughts--bite back! I am reeling in react, reeling in feeling and racked

Racked, wrecked, attacked I am

Pelted--pelted and pelted and pelted--

And this furless pelt, furiously worn is no comfort, no fort from the unfettered fury of the storm that bears and wears down,

I am put down to the sleepless shelterless dark where shuttered eyes summon no rest nor park, only sorrow more sure, resoundingly wider-wrought,

In this cage-cave where I am caught, I a rage-slave bought by jealousy and by jagged-tipped lash taught

A pain-primed patience I never sought

This now my hour of agony

I am Isaac up on the altar

I am Jesus in the godless garden

I am Abel unable to get up again

My brain like a 21st century machine

Every thought a precious profit

Turning turning turning

And so now I turn to YOU

Oh God,

Jealous of your people are you jealous for me?

What you sow you shall reap

And so,

How do YOU sleep?

Be still and know

I am sick of sowing

Reap, reap and be damned!

I just want to sleep

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An Exercise In Archival Ink

Today I found a bit of magic on the sidewalk I picked it up I carried it down the street, the magic in my hands The people in town did not know what I had found That I had found magic And I held it in my hands It weighed nothing To keep it in my hands it was like balancing a drop of rain on a Ginkgo leaf

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Vape Memories

I'm moving. 

You don't need to know this. This is for me. 

I'm moving. 

I saved the bed for last. I dragged the mattress with all the bedding still attached down those steep narrow stairs and strapped it down in my trailer. When I got it to my new place, I somehow dragged it up a different set of narrow stairs with the bedding still hanging on. I shoved it into a corner of my new room and tried it out. I immediately rolled into the wall. I'm sorry for all those nights you had to spend on that mattress. I'm sorry for complaining so much about how you didn't let me get enough sleep when sleep should never have been possible on that piece of shit mattress.

I went back to take care of those old wooden pallets I had found for a bedframe to hold that old mattress. Those old pallets I used because I'm creative and different, because I don't need to go buy a traditional bed, because I wanted a rustic look, because I'm an idiot. I slowly brought down each pallet, bumping into walls, getting slivers. Indents in the carpet remained that will probably never fully disappear. And I've never seen so much hair and dust and lint gathered in one spot. Honestly, it was disgusting. I was surprised to find very little else left on the carpet, an old band aid from the pharmacy when I got my Flu Shot, a candy wrapper, and a vape of yours. The vape you lost which slipped between the mattress and the wall and somehow made it through the stack of three pallets all the way to the floor. The vape I had tried to reach, lifting the mattress and stretching my arms into the gaps of the pallets. The vape you had said to forget. I picked it up and wiped off the dust. I slipped it into my pocket and drove those old pallets to my new place. I'm not going to use them again. I think I'll burn them. That old wood, covered in dust and lint and hair, should burn easily enough. I set them in the backyard and pulled out your vape. I thought about you and the vape that was always near by, how I wouldn't be surprised if you had a vape in your hand for more time in the day than not, like it was an iconic accessory of a cartoon character or maybe a superhero. I thought of you holding it in your hand as you scrolled on your phone or tried pulling me into those serious talks of ours, even while fucking, you like a queen with your arms and legs open as you exhaled steam with disregard, me feeding you grapes, fanning your stoic face, massaging your olive skin. I thought of you and tried that old vape, taking it like a cigar, never mastering how to do it. I coughed and smoke sputtered out of my mouth, the taste of mango still strong. I think I'll keep it. I think I'll treat it like a fine liquor, taking it out at special moments, perhaps with a candle burning in my holy little room, or while on a night walk under yellow lights, a pilgrimage through this new part of town, or maybe while sitting cross-legged before a burning pallet, the smell of treated wood and burnt hair mingling with the smell of grass and cherry blossoms. I'll close my eyes and press my lips to your vape and let the vapor slowly into my mouth until it tickles my throat and I'll think of you. And one day, the vape will run out, I'll inhale deeper, searching for the mango blanket to fill around my tongue and teeth, and I will find nothing but empty air. I will say a blessing, lift the lid to the trash container, and drop it in with a soft thud not unlike the beat of a heart.

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Twenty Years

Twenty years ago

When you were not yet twenty yourself

You took off at a million miles an hour in Dad's little green Ford Escort station wagon

Taking the straight and narrow path on a night when the road was a crescent curve

And launched yourself into brilliant oblivion

Just two miles from home

Leaving behind Ford fragments for me to find weeks later

And a naked tree for us to dress with a wooden cross

Until a new housing development finally brought it down

The point is

You've been dead longer than you've been alive

And this is a holiday for me

A day to dwell on all the ways I've known your absence more than your presence

How I am twenty years beyond my sweet sixteen innocence

And you are ageless

And the same stars that you wildly went soaring after

In your fresh out of school cosmic confusion

Twenty years ago

Are the same stars that sing me sweet metallic songs

From the ageless sky

On certain April nights

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Not Everything Has To Be Pretty

It's cold and dark

The wind is a thousand teeth on chains

Lashing us for the sin of being awake

Or punishing me for drinking too much

The night before

But it was St. Patrick's Day

I tell myself

And I'm not the only one

My coffee is bitter and hurts my throat

Leaving a sour taste in my mouth

It's like the vinegar offered to Christ

Not everything is a gift

The cold stabs at me through the window

Snow marches by with disregard

The individual specks are like sparks in a fire, leaping in and out of the smoke

The white church across the street

Is an abandoned illusion

It disappears in the fog of blowing snow

The last time I wrote a poem was for her

And now I can think of nothing but her

And it's like the winter that won't end

That keeps coming back to bite

Not everything has to be pretty

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Naked

Our best fights Were in the bathtub My head crooked around the faucet The water line exposing her Like a military bust, stern and stony In the dark her green-blue eyes were like a dog's It only took a few hours to conquer my errors For her to beckon me to her And I would fold myself over her slippery skin And let my body fall on hers Mother taking her baby As the water tsunami'd against the tub walls And back over us like a baptism There was once a time I did not fold But watched her stony face tremble Her dog's eyes filling with water Her sadness filling the air like hot steam Our nakedness finally meeting As she confessed to me The desires of her heart

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H(ai)(e)r

We were entwined and tangled Like the hair we fingered off our soapy scalps And stuck to the shower wall Knotted, we were a rat king A multi-minded mess Pushing and pulling the other along Abstract, we were beautiful Mystifying the mind Never making sense I lost more hair that month The color, faded like the leaves that had finally let go Of the great tree

And I still stick it to the shower wall Something I never used to do And I think of her Better than watching it slither down the drain