Category: relationships

Words in the Electronic Ages

  
 What we know of words upon a page
 Read, learned over again until sated
 In the richness found.
  
 Then turn to the electronic blue haze
 Where even words resonate, echoing fade.
  
 For the sweetest lies, a believer craves.
 Then scrolling over plastic flowers dancing,  
 The words of a lover’s refrain found
 Written once too often 
 In wooing others
 On the same blank cards
 With pictures of bears.
  
 The words like 
 Cheap plated jewelry’s shine 
 Turn black in the bitterness
 On the day some thought 
 Something pure, pristine was born.
  
 Then, finally, is it known the words
 Of the poetic, the romantic
 Are but rhetoric and lies
 Written and said  
 More than once
 But promised
 For one.
 
 The gravity, the gravity
 A black hole.

SMOKE THE CRAVING

I debate:

Should I buy

That pack of cigarettes?

God knows I want too.

The store clerk

Stares at me

As if I’ve lost my mind.

I nearly answer—

Yes, I have and other things too.

Please, God.

I just want to feel the smoke

Rush through my lungs.

Skimming, skipping, speeding

The way pictures crash the dam of my heart.

I am flooded.

I’d rather be flooded with waves of nicotine.

Yes, it’d be a blessing to drown in nicotine.

Reveling in the stench of smoke

Would help dull this taste of bitterness,

Would dull this craving for a sweetness

I can no longer have.

And why not?

What’s it all matter now?

A slow roll kind of Catholic suicide.

How long could it take?

I mean, really, at this stage?

“Ma’am, can I help you with somethin’ else?”

Says the clerk behind the counter.

I am still standing there,

The crazy lady,

Trying to wring the water out

Of the water bottle I just bought.

“No, thank you,” as I walk away.

So, no slow roll Catholic suicide.

At least, starting not today.

But this patch of bitter taste,

This patch of craving for a sweetness,

Are sewn with double stitched seams

On the underside

Of my skin.

Fairy Tale

Once upon a time,

It starts.

To begin it not

Acceptance since—

It is as it has always been.

Love and loss,

Desire and lust,

Sex and sin,

Pain and pleasure

Twisted and braided into rope

To bind our souls

Struggling against the rope

To escape such exquisite pain,

Yet seeking                                          

To find within such passionate pleasure,

A relief to modern existence.

All too willing

To believe anything told–

From fairytales to lies,

Finding comfort

In a fool’s belief

Of such romantic notions

To ignore photos displayed

Of wine and treats arranged in twos,

A photo of the same card given,

Wishes of happiness in the margins.

It is here that words told

And appearances do not mesh.

Make a choice of what is true

And believe in faith of carnival games.

So one can curl against

Such soft warm skin

As if it contained a potion

To wash away the stain

Of sin and bring the happy ending.

Winter Destruction

The cruelest time is winter.

Green, nesting in the folds of flower petals,

That once basked in summer sun

Withers,

Crackling in dryness.

Then comes the stomping,

Crunching of ice.

Innocence destroyed.

Two Trees

In the woods,

two trees stand,

equally rooted

firmly in the ground.

Yet, as if deciding

it a curse of solitude

to try and touch a Sky

who never reached back,

one turned

to touch the other,

leaning its trunk

against its forest mate’s.

And so, I found them,

standing as lovers,

one resting upon the other,

limbs entwined in embrace.

I turned,

wishing not to disturb

what I’d found there,

and walked down the trail.

Modern and Clean

Let’s play house

Without the home.

 

It’s all arranged so prettily

No mess, no fuss,

No dusty hairball under the couch

None of the huff and puff

To blow a life down

 

Just learn to float on the surface

No need to swim in the deep

 

Keep it all to memes

Or 30-second bleeps

Nothing more needed

With all things clean

History

history image

Spun out from the centrifuge
Twisted in helix meaning
Strands entwined, twisted back
Stretching toward history within heritage
Search through the montage of time
Sift through pounds of truth and lies
For a few ounces of purity
Measured out within the mess
The now was the past
Where to walk
We travel back
On twisted helix roads
To the selves we were
So very long ago
And learn
The future braided
In the past
With the now
And made us whole

Trash at the Curb

Trash by the curb
Cardboard boxes nested
One within the other
Standing upright, resting
Against the edge of the smallest,
An old collage Walmart picture frame,
Matting included,
Old photos still within the frame,
A wedding, a first baby then a second,
Graduations and first cars,
Pictures telling a story of a family,
Colors faded by the sun
Having spent years by a window

After Eruption

Rend the earth again
Tear, rip through miles of rock and soil
Till the swollen, rounded,
core lies exposed
Bubbling, glowing,
Sputtering out
Reaching tendrils of itself.
Note the flow,
Time the pulses of heat,
Beating with undulating life seen and unseen.
Then watch the viscous liquid cool,
Solidifying against the pain
Of each cold breath you expel
Stilling the beat of life.

The transformation to cold, hard stone
Within the earth’s crust
As thus,
A mother’s heart,
Torn open once too often,
Stops.

Cleaning

To clean a heart and soul,
the way we clean a house:
scrub away
the grime and grease,
bleach away
the mold and mildew,
polish away
the dusty dullness,
vacuum away
dirt and dust
and leaves and grass
tracked in on muddy
dog paws,
who then shake wet fur
all over the floor,
yes, even vacuum away
all the hair shed upon the floor
by dogs and you,
then mop away
dried dirt,
straightening and organizing
as you go.

Then rest,
enjoying the gleam and shine
before opening the door
to visitors once more.
Yes, if only a soul
Could be cleaned
So very easily.