Pres(s)her

All Things fracture where

fragile pressure placed

care-fully

just so

we know

Better

held in a place

of mending.

Painting by Harry Willson Watrous, 'The broken vase' c. 1900 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

De-hydration

There was I,
sitting atop the toilet seat after dark,
clutching the stemless wineglass with ice,
melting and prickling my fingertips with cold
beads expelled in an attempt at temperature
regulation.

My heart stomps and fills my ear
with an exasperated scream
about how hard it is to move
all this blood
to and from.

I do not drink wine,
my drink is called Karma,
its supposed to aid
digestion, I digress,
waiting in the mid-night
beads roll down my temple
and I shatter atop the frozen tiles

Waiting

as my Karma becomes diluted.


Painting by Sebastian Stoskopff [Public domain].

Thor's day

Lightning likes it when we reach up to touch the sky.

And, grounded as we are

lucky in keeping our electricity contained 

and kept a safe distance from the epicenter or eye

It is miraculous we survive, sometimes, like a flash-

in the way that it is so unexpected, sudden

and unbelievable-until it occurs to you. 

Miraculum, as in the object of wonder.

It happened to me on a Thursday in February, 

just past the noon hour.

I was punched in the chest-

windswept out with words-choking on this

wonder-full revelation.

Desperately I tried to grasp my breath 

midair and stuff it back in where it stings 

and has been so hollow

and in wrestling with this 

it may have sounded like crying or rain.

But the dam lids overflowed 

and I struggled to compose a normal sound

while my son grabs a beverage from the fridge behind me, 

I exhale-steadily

as if blowing out a wish.

It was a video I was supposed to watch, assigned, as in destiny.

The woman spoke of her life, nothing like mine. 

Then she spoke of suicide and asked why, why, why-

she was not asking for forgiveness.

She traded her story with a Buddhist, 

the words he chose to frame her parable were:

"You chose Them", I coughed, she repeated, “you Chose them.”

The accusation blinding, hence the tears we blinked back.

It changes Here.

Where things are twisted 

around & 

you break the descending karmic chain
and begin Free fall.

This is when my heart plummeted like lead into my pelvis,

my rib cage closed, and I gasped one last deep breath

before being born once again

on a Thursday in February.

“This is the miracle that happens every tie to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.” 

-Rainer Maria Rilke

         “Everybody holds the possibility of a miracle.” 

-Elizabeth David 

 “I’ve never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.” 

-Michel de Maontaigne

Painting by Mårten Eskil Winge (1825-1896), 'Thor's Battle' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Disillusionment

I am here.

And now, I begin, again,

With space and commas, breath and white

And see clearly how obsessed

With spacetime and specifics

With Here and Now-

I have been…

Have virtually

Erased all presence

Of mind

Or need for then,

Than,

I have made sense with time,

Grown with space

A sense of place

Within the hour,

Finds me.

I knew words,

I said it all

And after all this

Was settled

It dissolved…





Painting By William R. Leigh (born Falling Waters, WV 1866 - died New York City 1955) – Artist (American) Born in Falling Waters, West Virginia. Dead in New York, New York. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.