Pain poems

Perhaps, like Plath
               and Sexton, along with
nameless Others,
Ars Moriendi,
the shared obsession
               was rebellion
               (against the self)

We do this our own way

Alone, like childhood
                and candied P's & Q's
they all thought they were
getting and making a way
                 from direction(s).

All I know
                 is that life-
the stuff that makes us up
(in the middle)
                 guts, chakra, vim, what not,
is not the same stuff
                 we put out, project,
hold title(s) to,
but the real stuff must be
                  Here somewhere...

When the pain ultimately wins,
perhaps the prize is popularity
                   in passing
as if believing in the benefits
of retirement (afterlife),
such as a tomb and sarcophagus
                    with a cat and some gold
we would reap the forever fields
                     we would have our Faith
and it would be good
enough
or worth more than Now.

Well, my well must be empty.
I hear echoes in chambers,
growls in caves,
screams behind closet doors,
and pitch so thick all is
                     hollow, except these
twisted guts, gnawing and gnashing
kicking and screaming
frozen and struck dumb-

and still
I breathe
through it.

And even when it becomes difficult-
if not
                     Impossible to stand up-
right-w/ spine straight
and those familiar serrated red daggers
twist while
blue dots with white halos pulsate
                      behind closed i-lids-
(shhh...)

I know
All will pass.




Painting by Gabriël Metsu [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

lying in the grass

It was just a dream, but I woke up wondering
if I will ever again meet the dapper demon...

who offers a choice to become blind forever
or deaf to only my own voice-

much like the migrating fish in the Lethe...

up or downstream doesn’t change the course.
I remembered saying that I’d rather never
see brand new green or the sad sky again-

I would just try to feel them touching me

from now on, without sight
I might believe in conductivity 
through contact,
life, this body... 

And assuredly, others will certainly appear
more clearly to me.

But the handsome hellion in the dream
misheard the choice, 

or chose otherwise on my behalf,

and my kaleidoscope eyes kept confusing 
up and down, 

feeling my feet in the bluegrass, 

facing the limelight. 

Painting by Albert Joseph Moore [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rapid eye movement

It was important to him that he remembered his dream 
so he could tell me-
He remembered his ‘idols’ there, men he looked up to 
from down in the trenches of the real world, 
They were all there,  welcoming, 
they treated him as one of the ‘boys’.

And one of the boys 
gave him a box, a puzzle box which he shook
And some pieces fell out, he felt terrible about it, 
He may have been apologizing to me.

He told me 
how frantically he scoured the floor
So he could solve the puzzle completely 
and please them greatly.

And he did but the pieces came out again and again and I was 
Certain the picture was starting to develop- 
he was dreaming of us.

His father and step-mother while visiting us once, told me about his 
childhood propensity to steal two jigsaw puzzle peices so 
at the end of the day, he could be the One
who finishes.

In the next scene, he was sitting in a room with a low table, 
on a shaggy rug, the puzzle in the box sat atop,
but  he was certain there were still pieces missing 

so he was hesitant to try to put it together
knowing it couldn't be completed.

I asked him if he wasn’t curious to know what the puzzle pictured,
He said it was just a silly dream,

And the missing pieces weren’t the thing about the dream,
it was the idols, he said.

I found it puzzling and pinched myself.  

Image credit By Mennonite Church USA Archives [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Civic Duties

-Sit in a courtroom and observe a trial for two hours (ask an official which one is most interesting

you’ll find that everyone knows the schedule) Dress nicely and smile.

-Sit in the ER and read, only listen, do not make eye contact, do not touch the arms of the chair. 

Dress poorly. Do not smile.

-Wait in any lobby for someone-as if they were coming for you.

-Eat alone.

-Go to a cinema alone and take in a film alone. 

-Travel alone. Pack lightly. Smile small when you feel stupid and sorry and don’t know what to say.

-Drive to the DMV. Don’t get out of your car, just put it in Park (if available), idle and make some notes, reasons, identities, and etceteras. 

(Patience is guaranteed to be in no place. Like an ounce of gold in a ton of dirt. Don’t give any away to strangers handling hot pans.)

Wait with Will. Watch with wariness. Write with wonder.

Make the present interesting.

Active Membership dues are paid in Participation points,

The verbiage puts us in our places-

Your lines are next to appear, to  laugh or to frown

We are all just nouns waiting to be called adjectively. 

Artwork by George Romney [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, c. 1734-1802, 

Yale Center for British Art. 

Passages

Time

takes the toll,

giving change for our large bills

and admits passage 

but offers no return policy.

Make Time to Meditate.

Who makes time? I have an order. 

Empty. Thoughts.

Does one miss arguing with oneself

until none win?

The walls are over-crowded with imagery.

It was me-I put the elephant in the room 

who is 

holding a candle on a cloud, 

his shadow is only flat. 

Tell me again-

What is mine is ours-

With these words-

Let no thing

remain behind but a poem

After thought 

and plane shadows on clock faces. 

Sitting and spinning

Never,

having sat in this precise spot before Now

I know

others have sat just so Never before. 

Painting by Pál Szinyei Merse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Evidently

Reporting without empathy makes architectural field guides for photo collectors

As album and lyricality that reflects memories in places via accidental captures,

Not limited to focus head on or red eye, not what was hiding under green-eyed

History, flash or glare,

Was the background, dropped, crooked, tiny, partial.

And parts where the edges sever our attention in sharp lines,

Bordering on continental jagged tears.

Only here-footsteps-show-Not ahead of our time,

Not dated, or inscribed

In any hand of another traveler.

Repeatedly, things recur, we call facts,

Likelihoods, charts, and possibilities as solid as paper rocks and

Finger scissors. 

Image taken 1938, 'Fedorov at the North Pole' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.