Lucidity picks at the chains wrapped round a soul
Anchored to the ground of fears bought whole
In the marketplace while traipsing through dreams
Resplendent with beauty and flights of fanciful imaginings
That harsh noisy words and bruising blows etched,
Tattooed lucid fears.
When you found the things you could,
A mist of breath showed in the rain,
Twin clouded rain shimmered colors
Of gray stone before you on a path you would go.
If only, if only, you should know the bones of us,
Move knotted stiff with the griefs you’ve piled upon your soul,
We’d glow of phosphorus and neon in velvet darkness.
Walking the dark, shadowed canyon of dreams
Wilted by disappointments and deflated sunshine
Waking to dimmest daylight at noon
Where you cannot bear to look
Upon your own reflection,
A sight of horror in your own eyes now
In that cracked crystal ball where you stand,
In your own self-consecrated field
Of plastic flowers bowing their majestic heads to you,
Your straw haired head is bowed,
Smiling at the ground.
Don’t know what to do
when I dream of you.
Waking, I want to drench
my brain in pure bleach,
soaking it through,
until all the colors of you
out of my soul leach
and no longer do I miss you.
Walk to the end of dark uncurling days
at the edge of the earth,
witness it split open
flowering,
beautiful.
I’d give it to you
could it be contained
boxed, bottled,
held within my hands,
weak as they are,
that cannot hold
such flowering strength.
Wind and rain
Of this horrid spring
Whips us to perfection
Of brokenness being
Beaten souls
That we are
In this time of need
And want of touch.
Our loneness sheltered
Bodies, our silence shattered souls,
Contoured colors of minds
Restrained our madness
In this once upon a time.
If only to wake in the warmth
Of human skin upon skin
Once again in some perfumed swirl
Contained in believing a speck of faith
Preserved as a fly in amber.
That fly who found rest
In warm liquid ooze
But was never to escape.
Yes, grateful to escape to
This fitful rest though, yes,
It is, indeed, blessed.
My mind scatters,
Struggles to find a train of thought
To ride in peace from one station
To the next, make a trip to the elegance
Of a dining car, white glove service
And all else– in contrast—
To this vast emptiness—
With which to wrestle like Jacob,
But my soul has long been crippled.
All the trains left the station,
Ran circles around my heart,
Chugging on into the tunnels
To find there isn’t much
In expectation on the other side
Of those darkened tunnels.
No light, no light,
Just a cold grey
Of a horrid spring.
Originally written in July of 2015. Revised 2020.
My friend, the squirrel, sits at my feet.
I wonder perhaps should I be sitting at his.
He is tame
Unlike me.
I have peanuts for him.
He knows.
He is willing to wait
And teach me
All the lessons he knows
Of a heart
That is wild
Yet tame.
I marvel at all
That is contained
Within his tiny heart.
The joys of peanuts and sunflower seeds,
Being unafraid in the face of strangers,
And making friends so easily,
Of finding a home among things lush and green,
Knowing no fear to leap
Into things unknown.
Will he instruct me
In the ways to live once again
And move on?
Tell me to remove these rings
Linked to a grief buried beneath grey granite?
Can he share with me the lesson
Of what to do with all things circular,
New and old grief– link upon link of chain?
Teach me the ways of letting go?
The ways of living without fears
To staunch the bleeding of wounds
Both new and so very old?
Is this the meaning
Of being wild and tamed?
In this day and age
We ought to be able to be wired
Wired for anything, everything–
For hope—
–dreams
–love
–desire
Wired for it all and more
Wired for an add on room
In the heart when we’ve run out–
For expansion of sound inside
When we’ve come to love the buzz of silence.
For blood that doesn’t run dry,
Doesn’t clot to clog the works up.
Wired so we always have just one more try
Inside souls always filled
With the romantic dreams of youth.
Wired so there are stairs always to climb.
Wired so no wounds ever cut so deep
Blood runs out, runs dry.
Wired so we can learn
Yet pain be erased.
Wired, just wired,
Plugged in with a soul of shiny copper wire.
Image from Shutterstock
Pieces of her broke in the waves,
Searching for wildness
In this place she always went to be alone.
She walked along this shore a thousand times
In the dawn and the dusk
As if they were quantities unknown,
And thus, in them, she could discover some truth,
Some faith, some charity, some hope for herself.
Who knew? It had worked before.
She’d walk toward the town with something—
Some small bit piece replenished.
Besides–
She’d always heard salt was healing,
So she figured she’d rub it in her wounds.
But bloody red and raw
She walks still wounded, broken,
Along the wildness,
Yet not touching it.
Freedom elusive.
She can not find what she lost.
Her wounds chains,
Binding her still
To things she knew illusions.
She waits for the friction of salt
To rub away the chains.
She walks toward the seals in the surf
And on toward the whales in the deep,
Searching for truth or faith or charity
In the wildness of the sea.
I gave you all my roses,
The many colors I had.
Cut them all from the bushes.
I knew there would be no more,
And I cut them for you.
The last few dozen blooms
I cut them down for you.
The bushes are dead now.
They will bud no more.
I double, triple checked.
The limbs snap crisply in dryness,
Easily between my weakened hands.
No supple green within.
A single snap finishes each limb.
And so finishes each bush.
I am done, a gardener
With nothing left to tend.
I
Words scattered across the page.
Words littering the soul.
All these words
Piled upon the table,
A hoarder’s table of words.
Words left unsaid,
Unwritten,
A bouquet of words
Wilting in the heart and mind.
Words twisted in contortionist meaning
Of manipulations,
Weaponized for destruction,
Yet leaving victims living.
II
Words of things that can’t be said.
Words of things that should have been.
Words of things we could not speak out of fears too deep.
Words of things we could not begin to understand
Of ourselves, of each other.
Words of things we wanted so to believe
Of others, of the world.
Words of hope
Of love
Of charity
Of peace.
Words of what we have lost.
Words of what we may never again find.
III
Words, words, words
Slipping through the fingers
Like water in a desert,
Dripping away, evaporating
Before they can be used.
Words, words, words
Twisting round the wrists,
Writhing up the arms,
Biting the face and neck,
Killing before they can be used.
Words, words, words
Left unread by faded ink,
Left unwritten by a tired mind,
Left unsaid by a fear filled mouth.
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