An open letter to 2015

Hey, 2015.

I’ve got something to say to you, you dirty son of a bitch.

You barreled into me like a juggernaut. It took you less than a week to break me. You wanted my head on a platter, and there were days I nearly handed it over. I hurt people, and people hurt me, and those don’t cancel out; they multiply, and they keep hurting. You put me on trial – my motives, my actions, my beliefs – again and again, and I learned things that paralyzed me with shame and disappointment. I lost. I’m still losing.

So I came into this reflection wanting nothing more than to say, Fuck you, 2015.

But.

My hurt drove me to create things.

My self-examination motivated me to change.

In my loss, I sought community, and the friends I’ve found have kept me on my feet more often than they know.

So here’s what I have to say to you, 2015.

You wanted me to hide, and I did. But I hated it, so I threw my doors wide open.

You wanted me to give up on myself, and I did. But then I built myself up into a new thing with new worth.

You wanted me to bury my head in my hands, and I did. But then I lifted my wet, contorted face and locked eyes with every human who had the heart to look at me. And I loved the hell out of them.

You wanted me to cower, and I did. But then I roared.

So fuck you, 2015.

And thanks.

There’s an emptiness love leaves behind, 

and there’s an emptiness that is love.

One grasps.

One releases.

You choose which one.

You choose.

Brazen

The parched field has given up on thriving.

Drained and brittle grass resigns its height

to flatten, stiff with waiting.

On the outskirts,

one crimson bloom twists and dips

to the rhythm of the seasons changing.

The grasses think her brazen.

They shrink a little lower

in her shadow.

Still, she dances,

raising her grateful face

to meet the blazing kisses of the sun.

Vocabulary Builder

foolʹish•ness.

n. 1.  to give without expectation of return.  2.  to seek fulfillment in emptiness.  3.  to approach danger unguarded or without caution.  4.  to endlessly forgive.  5.  to pursue the impossible.      

foolʹish•ness.

n. The greatest virtue.

Meditation

Do not ask the woods for answers.
Do not expect.
Only walk
until your tread falls slow and soft among the leaves.
Only sit
and let the salve of rooted things draw your sickness out.
(A little more humanity won't hurt them;
never fear.)
Only listen.
Hear your breath in the breeze that rises from the valley;
hear it singing with the trees.
Do not ask the woods for answers.
Only accept what it gives.
Let it give you nothing.
Let it leave you empty.

unbecoming.

the snail doesn't wonder
if its retreat is brave or cowardly.
it only wants to survive.

Of Nothing, All

The blood of summer paints the leaves

That fall to mat the ground,

Glist’ning, pepper-sweet with rot.

Beneath, new darkness churns.

The Earth was born of Chaos,

Says the myth.

Out of blackness, blackness rose.

The black of formless Chaos:

Lightless, colorless, alone --

Black that Is not.

The black of teeming Earth

The crumbling, rich reward

Of all things joined:

Time lain damp upon your palm.

How comforting, how vast,

To bend down in the rain

And take the wet, black universe in hand.

s.k.i.n.

        skin   gives

when      p r e s s e d.

      when it wants.

            skin gives a surfeit.  

   what's  beneath,  within,

      

         disclosed   without

[reserve

disguise

defense].

                       

    skin    speaks

in   patterns:

     the    shape   of   an           

I           Am

unseen     but     to     the     hand     that     yearns     to     trace     it.

  

skin whispers

    be      where      I       am

11/6/2015

We die.

A crimson leaf revolves in river’s grip,

severed from the limb

that taught it life.

Curious misconception,

that death comes only once.

I photograph the leaf.

It is reborn.

Video: To My Daughters When They're Old Enough to Read Vulgarities

I've been waiting to find a place to read this piece since I wrote it in the spring, and last night I finally got to do it. Thanks to Alpha Psi Omega and Cocky Guerrilla Theatre for giving me the opportunity, and thanks to the crowd for listening and loving. The full text of the poem is here.

The God of Fish and Men

In a quiet town there lived a certain fisherman. He was a pious man, and faithful, and he lived alone in a small house, his wife having died some years before.

Each morning as he cast his nets the man would say his prayers, prayers as humble as his heart: seeking but rarely asking, expecting nothing. He prayed though he had never heard the voice of God reply. 

One bright morning the man readied his boat, loaded his nets, and shoved off into the lake. When he reached the deep cove where he often fished, he sat contemplating his sense of oneness with the air and the water and the fish. Then as he gathered the net to cast it over the side, the man began silently to pray: Great God, your will is mighty—

“Indeed.”

The voice so shocked the man that he dropped the net, and as he stumbled to retrieve it, he saw, there on the surface, the image of a fish rendered in sunlight. The image rippled over the last gulps of the lake around the net, then stabilized, blinking at him with its improbable eyelids. Its tail waved slowly back and forth; its oddly heavy lips opened and shut in the same slow rhythm.

“What are you?” asked the man.  

The image said nothing.

“You are a trick of the light. An illusion.”

The man waved his hand above the glittering fish to break the plane of light, but as his shadow fell on it the reflection reared from the surface of the water, striking up at him in a sudden flare of blue and yellow flames. He fell backward into the boat, his hand burning.

“All this talk, yet you do not recognize your Great God,” came the voice again from the water. It was a voice like the popping of a line of gunpowder, or the crust of old snow cracking.

“Great God – ” the man stammered, but the fish flicked its tail dismissively.

“It is forgiven, of course. Your kind are often blind to things of this sort.” It turned in profile and began to swim two-dimensional circles across the ripples of the wind. When it approached the boat, the light multiplied behind it in smooth geometric patterns until it resembled a great hunting shark; then by the time it reached the reeds it had shrunk to a guppy that meandered with an apparent absence of purpose, undulled by the shade. A stupid and unfortunate turtle extended its neck to snatch the loitering God from the surface and was immediately struck dead.

As God made its way back to the boat, the man mustered up the courage again to speak. “Great God, what do you wish of me?”

God came to a halt in the spot where it had first appeared. It resumed its attitude of silent consideration for a few moments, during which the man forgot to breathe. Then its heavy lips opened, and it said:

“Leave me alone.”

The man did not reply.

“Man? Do you understand?”

The man shook his head slowly. “Does this have to do with the fish somehow?” he managed to mutter.

God chuckled. “Of course not. I choose what form I wish, for my own reasons. Would you prefer I spoke to you as a lion, or a snake, or a man, perhaps? Or would you rather a still, small voice?” The man shrieked at these last words, spoken, it seemed, from inside both his ears at once.

“I ask again,” came the voice, returned now to its place upon the water. “Do you understand what I require?”

The man was so relieved to have God outside his mind again that he barely heard the question; he reflexively exhaled a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

God sighed. “Clearly you do not.”

The air in front of the man began to undulate like a sheet caught in a wind, and there appeared the fish again, still bright as sun on the water, but with edges that smoldered and burned the air around them until it flaked and blew like ash. “Leave me alone. It is a simple command, man. Do you understand it?”

The man turned his eyes from God’s image hovering before him in the boat. “Great God, I do not understand. Have I sinned against you? I have tried in all things to be humble, to be just and kind to my neighbors—”

“This is humility, man? To demand of God an explanation?”

The man bowed his head to the floor. “No, Great God. Forgive me.”

“Why must you always wonder at your own goodness, you men? Always requiring validation, always uncertain of the state of your hearts. Do you not know your own hearts? Can you not look within them just as well as I?

“I am weary of your need. I have set you in motion, I have given you your lives and a world to challenge you or delight you, I have given you one another, I have freed you to be as you wish, and still you require … Why do you require me to rate your goodness? Why must I always answer your call to judge?”

The man understood little of God’s exasperated oratory. Was it rhetorical? he wondered. Am I meant to answer these impossible questions?

God sighed again. “Cease your prayers, man. Live your life and let me be.” Then God turned and swam slowly away through the air until the man could no longer recognize its form against the morning sunlight.

He returned home hours later, empty handed, and did not close his eyes that night.

The next morning, however, he rose at his accustomed time to load his net and launch his boat. He rowed out to his cove and sat quietly as he always did, but his heart raced beneath his shirt. He waited. A dove cooed in the copse. The frogs sang their last morning songs. After a long while, the familiar sense of peace found him. His movements came of their own accord, in a smooth, comforting dance: gathering the net, turning at the waist, opening his arms to the water, and in his mind, Great God, your will is mighty –

The boat lurched, knocking him off his feet. A fisherman all his life, the man had never fallen from a vessel, yet now his boat bucked him like a horse, rocking dramatically each time he tried to stand. All at once it steadied, its bow nearly dipping below the surface, stern poised high in the air. The man held his breath, his knuckles white upon the prow. Then with a single violent sweep, the boat catapulted him forward into the water.

He flailed to the surface again, grasping blindly for the rowlock, and heaved himself, coughing, back over the side. 

“Now then.”

The voice of God paralyzed the man with a cold certainty of death.

“Don’t be so morbid,” it continued. “What do you take me for?”

“You are a just God,” the man mumbled, his face pressed to the boards. “You commanded me to cease my prayers, and I disobeyed your command. I am prepared to accept whatever punishment –”

He was interrupted by a squawk and a sting on the back of his head. He reached his hands up to protect himself from God, a small white egret with two hunks of his hair twined around its claws. The air snapped across its feathers as it buffeted him with its wings; then its slender orange feet appeared before his eyes, shuffling to find the right perch atop his one remaining net.

“I know habit when I hear it. I am not going to kill you over your addiction.”

The man watched God-as-bird preen under its wings. He wondered why this action was necessary, and what would happen to the flesh-and-blood creature when the Holy Spirit decided to disinhabit it.

“I am sorry, Great God,” the man said, blinking drops of murky water out of his eyes.

“Yes, yes, I know,” God replied. It continued to nip its feathers while tunelessly whistling through its long beak. The man watched, shivering. God seemed disinclined to do anything godlike, its own birdness having apparently captivated it.

After a lengthy silence during which God shook out its tail, picked at the cords of the net, and ate a bug, the man said, “If you don’t wish to punish me further, then why have you come, Great God? Forgive me, but what must I do?”

God turned its head to fix the man with one glassy yellow eye. It opened its beak, then clapped it shut again. The man waited. The calls of birds – birds that were not God – trilled across the water, disconcertingly normal. God stretched its wings with a hop. The man felt the minutes stretching out in front of him, and still God did not speak. What must I do? he wondered. Ought I to move? Should I say something? Is that what God expects?

Finally, he cleared his throat (God turned its eye to him in its briskly mechanical fashion) and said, 

“Great God, help me to understand. You ask me to leave you alone. Do you ask this of all men or only of me?”

“What difference would that make?” God’s beak clicked a rhythmic counterpoint to its response. “Do you feel more or less worthy if I ask it of you alone?”

The man pondered this. “I don’t know,” he responded. “Perhaps I don’t wish to think myself uniquely guilty.” Then he added, “I think it would give me strength to know that all men must meet the same requirements.”

“How should I expect the same of all men, when all men are not quite the same? I ask of each that thing which will achieve my ends of him. You are not alone, but neither are you the universe of men.” God violently scratched the back of its head with one clawed toe.

“It’s interesting to me, you men and your questions,” God continued. “You ask so many, but they’re rarely the ones whose answers you need.” It lifted itself onto the edge of the boat and trailed its bright beak in the water. Soon it froze, its plumage laid flat against its body. The man watched it closely. He had often watched birds with fascination, impressed by their speed, grace, and control. How odd that God as a bird was only equally lovely, and not more so.

Suddenly God’s neck extended with a coordinated jerk. It threw its head back to reveal a fish flapping brightly and desperately in its beak, which it gulped down with a halting, guttural noise resembling laughter.

“I am the god of fish and men, and here, I eat this creature though I require no sustenance,” God announced. “I allow men to live by destroying fish. Why do you not ask me of that?” And without waiting for an answer, it rose into the air and flew off across the water.

When the man returned home, he lay on his cot unmoving, stilling his mind to guard against accidental supplication. But he soon became unable to control his wandering thoughts.

He replayed each of his encounters with God, looking for patterns and clues; he scoured God’s words, collecting every stray shaving of possibility and molding them into one graspable, if haphazard, hope.

At the first light of dawn, the man sat up, grabbed paper, and began to write. He scribbled wildly until he’d filled several pages with questions. Then he slid into his boots and coat and hurried out of the house. He broke into a tripping run to the water, where his momentum thrust his boat, rocking wildly, into the lake. Propelled by expectation, he rowed hard and fast.

When he reached the cove he pulled in his oar and set it carefully next to him, suddenly shy of making any noise. He breathed four long, deep breaths while he waited for the boat to settle in the water. He didn’t close his eyes; he didn’t throw his net; he whispered: “Great God, hear my prayer.”  

If the man blinked, he was unaware of it. He did not turn his eyes from the bow. Yet God was there, sitting across from him, a wizened human form – man? woman? -- resting its hands on a sounding pole, its skin dark and leathery with sun, an unreadable expression lurking in its eyes. The man had the sense that God had always sat in that spot, and that it wasn’t time and space that had changed but the perception of his own mind.

“Some might call it unwise to seek out greater beings that have demanded your forbearance.”

The frozen crackle of that voice instantly chilled the man’s confidence. His thoughts flitted to the crumpled pages in his coat pocket and the questions they contained: stupid questions, certainly, wastes of God’s unlimited time, unwelcome, childish questions.

God sat across from him and sniffed.

“I have shown great patience with you, man. I admire your courage, but you cannot hold me hostage. Prayers or none, I will not return to you this way. Ask now, or not at all.” 

The man’s chest tightened. His eyes filled with tears. “How can you be this?” he asked. “Why?”

God cocked its head to the left. A few strands of silver hair dangled loosely about its ear. “I am no different than I have ever been. Do you seek to blame me for it now, because I do not fulfill your expectations? Did you think I would greet you with approval? Did you expect of your Great and Almighty God some gratitude for your obedience? Which of us disappoints you more deeply, man?” God’s tone was not unkind, but its words shook the man with shame of his own vanity.  

“Your ways are higher. You are a mystery, even now. Tell me you have some plan,” the man pleaded. “I don’t need to know what it is; I know I cannot understand it. But please, if you have any mercy at all, tell me there is some deeper reason behind this.”

God’s eyes, which moments ago contained galaxies, now showed only a convex reflection of the man’s grief-stricken face. “Why must you believe I have a secret motive in order to accept my request of you?” it asked. “Where is your faith, man? Must your God meet your conditions for goodness to earn your loyalty?”

“Faith?” The man spit the word with a vehemence even he found surprising. “Am I any less foolish than a child hunting fairies?” Perhaps it was a mercy that His forms till now were beasts, he thought, if He cannot even mimic human compassion. He looked up to see if this thought injured or angered God, but the face showed evidence of neither.

God reached out its hand and touched the man’s knee.

“Leave me alone, man,” it said. “I have told you my wish, and I will not tell it again.”

The man cried, “You say that, yet again you are here! Is that not some sign? If you truly wish to be free of me, why do you return? If you don’t want my prayers, why do you still listen for them? You betray yourself, Great God! Is there hope or is there none?” 

But all that was left of God was the dissipating weight of its hand on his knee.

The man blinked at the vacancy, his eyes refocusing on the far shore.

The crickets chirped, the dove cooed, the water lapped against the cradle of the boat. None bore the marks of God’s voice – not the horrible voice he now knew.  

The man cried out, “Great God! I pray you come!”

Nothing.

He braced his oar across the boat and pushed against it to rise partway, tightening his belly and unleashing a rage like a flare into the sky: “How dare you? How dare you, unjust God? Come! I accuse you! Come and answer me!”

The tendrils of his howls faded into unresponsive stillness.

The man collapsed blankly into his seat, his anger and energy suddenly spent.

He had no strength or will to row to shore again.

He would lean to the side, he thought. That was all.

He would lean until the boat tipped him into the water.

And then something else would happen, or nothing.

Perhaps God would meet him there as a hungry leviathan.

Perhaps God would not notice.

His hand, his wrist, his elbow slid into the water. His ribs pushed hard against the gunwale until he could feel the bruises blooming.

The boat would not tip.

A light rain began to fall percussively upon the lake, and the man watched his face break and reform in ripples on the surface. He remained unmoving so long that a small perch brushed unwittingly through his fingers. His hand clamped shut, trapping its tail in his fist, and he lifted the fish from the water. Its gills gaped while he held it aloft. Then he dipped it back into the lake and released it to dart away, cursing or grateful, to whatever fate it may find.    

NAG ME PLEASE

This is a ploy to motivate myself. For months, I've been half-working on a short story called The Waiting Room. I want to finish it. It could be a pretty good Twightlight-Zoney Halloweeny thingamabob. So I'm giving myself an October 31 deadline to get this bugger done and up. 

Here's a wee preview. If it interests you, or if it doesn't and you just want to help me accomplish a thing, please please nag me regularly and remind me that I said it would be done. Remind me how many days I have left. If you spy me screwing around on FB, call me out and shoo me back to work. You have my permission to be horribly obnoxious. This is your task. So let's go: 

I thought once the baby was born I might be called out. We keep saying the metaphor rules the world. Once we’re done waiting, we’ll get called out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone called out, though. I think I would remember it.

The room smells of old coffee and latex. I reclined across the end table to push – hard plastic chairs bolted down; there was no other way to lean back, and I would not lay on the floor. I would not. Her newborn self nearly fell, but by some miracle of anxious hands she splashed into the unwelcoming yellow seat, slipping like a melting ice cube around its shallow bowl. Her tiny body slid through my fingers when I reached for her. The others huddled in the corner with their eyes turned down while I cleaned her off and apologized over and over.

We had privacy for a while, back before all the sheets wore through. It’s been a long time since anything new arrived. It feels like a long time. We held a vote about the sheets to decide whether physical or emotional comfort was the better use for them. It was close. My side -- Marco, Harry Potter, psychokitten and I -- argued that the sheets were too thin to stop us shivering anyway, and we won. We shoved the corners between the ceiling tiles and pretended that every deep breath didn’t make the walls flutter.

When the sheets were up we tiptoed around and talked in whispers, as though the illusion of separation somehow made it more important that we not disturb each other. I remember suddenly feeling the need to ease my weight into the seats to stop them from creaking.

Begonia donated her extra hand towel to wrap the baby up in. (Everyone said that towel was stolen anyway. No one remembers from whom.)  Begonia has lost the hat that gave her her name. We don’t know how things get lost in here. Maybe it disintegrated. It was old already when we first saw her.

Begonia doesn’t mind the baby crying. She has no patience with anyone else’s noise. She used to wake everyone up in the night to stop snorers, back when we still tried to keep day and night. We don’t turn the lights out often anymore. Harry Potter has night terrors, so we stopped doing night. It didn’t make sense anyway. 

to be continued ...

Affirmation*

Beloved,

the part of you that you think is twisted,

weak,

unholy,

the buried part –

that’s a hard place in you.

You’ve grown around it,

because you’re strong like that.

It’s heavy as hell,

but you’ve carried it.

Crack it open.

Beloved, there’s treasure in there.

Gently pull it free

of all the shoulds that drape

like cobwebs over top.

You never needed those.

Now, look.

Look hard into that cracked place.

That’s you in there,

and you’re none of those things you thought you were.

That’s you in there,

that blinding light,

that fiery flower,

that prism dancing on the water.

That’s you in there,

that bird spinning through the air,

all joy and power.

That unspeakable beauty –

That’s you.

So love it hard, beloved.

Love what you find in there.

Let it shine out of your wide-open eyes.

It will feel nice, I think.

It will feel nice to feel like you.

* for National Coming Out Day

At Night

My daughter shuffles into the hallway, rubbing her eyes with her fists, her hair tossed and tangled. “The ghost,” she mutters, and shuffles blindly back, knowing I’ll follow.

She knows it’s not a ghost. She knows it’s a robe. But at night, when it’s dark, and she’s alone, it doesn’t matter what she knows.  

I’ll take her black robe off the hook on the wall and lay it on the floor, and she’ll roll over and go back to sleep.

I hope her ghosts will always be so simply set aside.

epidemic melancholy

She called in sad to work today.

His hands itch with music he’s not making.

I stumble over a name.

It’s the weather that’s to blame

For this epidemic melancholy:

Gloomy, messy warmth,

Broken vow of autumn,

Damned rain hissing old secrets into our ears.

You hear that?

Underneath that meek hypnotic drone

It taps,

Begging entry.

Remember?

Damned bitter rain.

Who needs these bleak reminders?

[Can I not feel it still

running rivers down my neck,

putting out my fires?

Do I not know how they were set?]

Steaming, biting rain,

Whispering the words that redefined us.

Listen up.

No one gets to redefine us.

I am not an indiscretion.

You are not a quitter.

He hasn’t failed.

She isn’t useless.

We are more than the whispers of a dark September night.

Balance / Imbalance

Last night I mentioned my book to a friend and realized I hadn't touched it in a long time. This morning I opened it up again to re-read, to see where I stopped, to remind myself.

When I began it, it was an exercise and a challenge I set for myself as a writer, and it was an exploration, a therapeutic process. It was an attempt to understand. 

When I began it, I was one of the book's two main characters. I've always known that. But now, as I re-read it after nearly a year of avoidance, I am -- I am, clearly -- the other one. I can see my gestures as I read her. I can watch myself sitting in her skin.

I said once that this was the story of me meeting me in a dive bar. They were both always there. But I never expected this new one to be the one on the outside. 

I can't help but wonder if I have rebuilt my Self in this last year around a character I half-discovered, half-created. Even if I was truly aware of her characteristics impatiently waiting their turn in there, how is it that their manifestation is so strikingly similar to the woman I'm reading? I'm trying not to think too much about that.

I suppose there's a lesson in it, regardless; I suppose I should take care not to drown that first character in the second one, now that they've traded places. I suppose I should look after them both now.

Time to put the book away for a little while longer, I think. 

Art Matters

I gave a speech/reading yesterday at the Jacksonville Create Festival about why art matters. Here's a partial video and full text. 

The night after we launched the #artmatters experiment, I was on the back porch at a bar, having a drink, catching up with some folks.

A friend of mine was sitting next to me, smoking a cigarette. As I turned my head she took a drag and let her hand rest on her knee just under the table.

It was a meaningless gesture. Just a movement; she just needed a place to put her hand. It was trivial.

Except at that moment, someone moved out of the way of the light shining from the bulb above the door. And it shone down across the latticed metal of the tabletop to throw a web of shadows across the back of my friend's hand.

The thing about my friend is, she doesn’t always feel confident. She doesn’t always feel capable enough or strong enough to accomplish the things she expects of herself.

But at that moment, her hand was a picture of poise,

of repose,

a cigarette dangling between two fingers,

a fishnet glove of light and shadow painted across her skin

It was an image of total control.

It was breathtaking.

I interrupted the conversation I was in, I said to the guy I was talking do, “I’m sorry – do you see that? My God, can you see that?”

He didn’t see it. I couldn’t put words to it fast enough to tell him. And then someone walked in front of the light, and my friend lifted her hand to take another drag, and it was gone.

But that ten seconds crystallized why art matters to me.

It isn’t that beauty appeared unexpectedly, although beauty is important.

It isn’t the fact that something trivial morphed into something more significant, although that’s important too.

What mattered most was that moment when I thought my chest would explode if I didn’t cry out to someone, anyone, everyone near enough to hear: “Do you see that? Do you see it? Stop. Stop whatever you’re doing and come here and Look. Look at this beautiful thing I’ve found. Come stand with me and look through my eyes and see what I see, and then tell me what you see. Come share this with me.”

That’s why art matters. It draws a line of connection between us that bypasses all the noise, all the questions and qualifications we put between ourselves and other people. It catches us off guard and invites us to grab hold of the person nearest by and say, “Hey – do you see that? Tell me what you see.”

I need that. We need that. We need to look one another in the eyes and say those things. See, art matters because you matter. We matter.

So to all of you artists, performers, dancers, musicians, writers who’ve put your work out here today: What you do matters.

And to everyone who came out today to enjoy this work, to support the arts here in Jacksonville, to expose your kids to art in all these forms – what you’re doing matters.

Thank you so much for recognizing that, and for coming out to be a part of it.  

Hello, morning.

Hello, morning, rising chilly through the floor.

Climb up my legs and lay your

calm

cool

palm

there

on my belly.

Stop the churning.

Don’t stop long, though,

don’t stop there.

Keep climbing.

Grip my neck,

kiss it trailing with your prickling breath;

squeeze the passion out

so it rings smoky fragrant round my head,

so it dances away from me across

your stiffening air.

Let’s do this together, morning,

you and I.

Sting the tears into my eyes

and drink them back again.

Remind me that you’ve been and you will be;

though all that has come with you

lies in state behind,

still you return.

You return,

not forever,

but tomorrow.

the half light

the half light

            calls

                your throat the

       black horizon,

                         name    dissolving

salty

                                on            my       tongue.

  your incubator chest

               hums

            new songs      

              into my 

            fingertips.

do that again. 

rumble   all   delicious

                             low

                                    &

                                        sweet

                                                …

I will follow

          the fluid air                   the thrumming wings 
                      

                        the graveled honey     

              trapped

between

                 the ridges  

of  my skin

                        traveling                your skin

                                                                                                to north

                                                                        to breathe        the earthy        thunder

                                                                                                rolling        from

                                                                                                                         your

                                                                                                                                    lips.

Trivial

from borrowed sheets
you watch the stripes of light
and light’s retreat
slide slatted ’cross the fan blades,
the unexpected billow of a curtain.
all the aching voices quit their moans.

a wilting clover bargains on the doorstep.
the ceaseless water runs beneath the bridge.
a pebble shaped like Earth lies snug
in a child’s eager palm,
while under her feet
the mammoth world is turning fast enough.
  

Everyday Fictions

Once upon a time,

it begins,

always.

Then words start to tumble out

to fill transparent shells of people,

outlines drawn by outlines, scratched or carefully devised –

we tell stories.

We bring others into being.

What else can we do?

It begins the same,

always,

even when we step into the middle

and risk scribbling on a masterpiece

or forcing endings that do not belong,

when we cannot know –

are we heroes or villains, foils or clowns? --

when our characters will not behave

[the bears bewildered find that Goldilocks has barred the door;

the ugly duckling chases children, never trusting his reflection]

We yell some stories

to drown out other tellers,

some we whisper, some relinquish,

some we hide.

No tale is yours alone.

No tale is always true.

But we build new narratives, ever bolder.

Gentler, maybe. Kinder ones;

we let Goldilocks tell her side,

and we believe her.

We begin again,

the same, again.

For you

For you who ask unanswerable things.

For you who won’t forget

though memory exacts (the sweetest) pain.

For you who seek.

For you who fight to win your story back

from other tellers,

who scribble monuments of words

to prove you’re no mistake,

you’re true, you’re real, you are.

For you who cry for mercy.

For you who cut memorials of ink into your arms.

For you who cut – just cut –

because you feel

nothing

and you have to feel,

to know life moves

forward, consequentially --

if x then y, if x then why

if xx   xx

   xxx     x

x   x    x

For you hollow ones.

For you, for you

who sit back on your heels

and watch us rage.

For you who run and cannot stop.

For you who remain.

For you bisected,

you whose yearning stretches out with hungry fingers.

For you alone or not alone and lonely –

especially for you –

a chest rises and falls for you,

I promise it.

A soul hunts you,

that knows you without knowing,

without words.

In you a fiery rose of beauty blooms.

Roar. Weep. Love. Rejoice.

Be still.

Stuck

This is where the hardest work begins:

to see that no is not a long perhaps

(the light so late discovered now is lost);

to watch the pain recede, but still

with sick discomfort pine for it,

whose searing edges

sliced away the excess, forcing choice:

stand now, or cease;

to dread what then remains --  

the hungry ache of grief

that seeps, a wellspring, through each seal …

There is a rising here.

That’s what this poem’s for.

The hardest work’s the trudging through

the hours and days of losing,

and the building up again.

Forgive me. Tonight

the hardest work’s too hard.

Tonight my mind is stuck on that perhaps

back at the start, and like a cry

caught in my throat

it won’t let me read further.

Step Outside

Step outside yourself.

Step outside.

There’s light shining somewhere.

Take it in,

Lace it through your bones,

Tie it tight.

There, now:

An extra skeleton for days like this,

When the one you were born with

Won’t hold you up.

If you can’t see any light,

Then taste the air.

Not far away

Someone else is breathing out

While you are breathing in.

Life circulates.

We all reach one another

Eventually.

Another Word

It wants another word, this thing,

one more fitted than

the dull, blind giant “love” is,

whose hollow, bloated imprecision can’t sustain more meanings.

It wants another --

not an infant word to pet and coddle,

to lower into spaces other words have left;

no block letters stitched on quilts,

no dangling filigree;

not a word to mutter or command

or list alongside others like a task;

not a substitute – kindness, generosity, these nobles need no proxy;

not a word to brandish or to bait, or to enshrine,

not a thoughtless valediction, no …

no word that rolls so loosely off the tongue can say what this thing is.

It wants a notorious word,

thin as sweat on skin,

a word that’s signed in broad and vicious strokes

kinked, knotted, crossed,

a question with no answer,

an unreadable word.

It wants a word that hisses through the teeth,

or tumbles unexpected,

or only sounds when lips are pressed.

It wants a mouthful.

It wants a word that goes on wildly saying

until

it

decides

to tame itself,

and even then 

continues in the silence.

Kick

* Click here for video of this poem performed *

I’d begun to think

lately

that there’s not much more to life

than drowning,

as if we’re born

knowing the sweetness

of the air

before we’re dropped

into the surf,

where we learn

by days and years

how to accept it,

the process of sinking --

how to quit fighting

and to breathe the water,

breathe it in gulps with relish

to help us forget

how horrifying drowning is.

I’ve been curling up

to watch the bubbles rise,

limp with

my own weight,

hands over my ears

to block

the whispers of

“impossible” that

followed as I

drifted downward

fact by fact by fathom.

This morning, though,

I kicked,

convulsively.

I kicked

because someone

reminded me

that there’s still air up there,

and I’m not the only one

who’s tasted it.

I’m not the only one

who wants to breathe again.

Someone reminded me

how bright it is,

how clear,

how mesmerizing are the clouds

reflected in the wet

triumphant irises

of seekers who have fought

to get above.

Someone reminded me,

just by loudly being,

that it’s worth believing

in things

the drowning

cannot see;

that maybe it’s not foolish

to look for love in every pair of eyes;

maybe it’s not weak to cry

when someone offers up

a passing kindness;

maybe giving more than you have

doesn’t make you a doormat,

it makes you a saint;

maybe sacrificing for someone

who doesn’t care

is noble instead of pathetic;

maybe it isn’t odd, maybe

there’s something beautiful

about finding seven layers of epiphany

in a coat of cracked paint;

maybe a child’s voice really is

that

magnificent;

and maybe it matters –

God, maybe it actually matters

that we’re listening.

Someone,

without meaning to,

reminded me

that it’s not crazy

to kick toward the surface;

it’s crazy to think

there’s anything reasonable

sensible

logical

in breathing water

when there’s such a thing

as air.

There’s still air up there.

Remember?