A stone in the sand
dents me
at the edge of frailty –
I am of parts, jagged as
the coastline where
the tide pushed,
having gone far now
from the beginning
like my mother went
back, where waters were
warm, where the ocean
kept a song of us she
never stopped loving,
and she tried more than
many will need
having, on cruelty,
a softness she built up
and beneath it a knife
always ready;
sensing it there
held even in sleep,
the forced inattention to
giggle when she would laugh to
stay silent unless agreeing –
and I existed in fable
taking on too much water
and snapped as the rebar
too solid and needy broke,
and dropped in pieces
like every stone
left in places I felt free –
every bit of that old heart
except what gave purpose
left behind, grabbing
at leaves and sky, ravenous
feeling their immortality, their
constant warmth like
a mother’s love,
gone before it was gone.
Category: Current Writings
Forced Evolution
The bus is late again
and sleep's been short
a tooth on the tongue
sharpened,
but hi, the weather x,
you say, and yes
to chocolate from
a stranger -
too sweet fluttering
the heart with its
refined sugar,
same how caught
on a train track
it raced and emptied
of self, knowing
how sleep snatches
in the long night
and never wakes,
but arrives
repeatedly into being
like every day since
as if an eddy on a wave
could change course.
So you let the bus
leave, made cold
and troubled
like a cobra poised
above its own center
on thresholds of violence
and mercy, and find instead
the warmth of a sunny rock
to count the petals
on clovers
in the weedy grass
could a crown of stems
beyond the ordinary
be made -
a root of self
tethered to its own
shaping - would this
woken dream, depart.
Misfit
The man wants you easy,
knocking on the wall
for permission
but lightly, not in need
with that spark –
an anger of too fast words
better held without panic
of long eyes and
their fragile warning,
just like the moon, head
held bowed to the sun
is the owed, owned light
from a distance
hunted on every horizon;
those, back turned and running
are a reflection of another
until quiet,
looking upon the face
of one who demanded
what they will not:
a monster, a victim –
and upon the wall slam
the crumbling heart
knocking loudly on the long night
with dreams made vivid
too struck of love,
indelible by necessity:
the own, owned warmth of self
who once gathering flowers
within a cage grew rich
with seeds
now slipping, or falling,
between every crack
having found no door
to ask entrance
grown uncontainable.
skipping stones 