The Ravages of Hope

Oh, hope.

You are the wickedest of virtues.

In your sainted presence I forget that here is now;

I beat against the present like a caged thing.

Your unspoken promises set wildfires in my blood;

For I’ve tasted your impossibles before.

When you hover before my eyes,

O hope,

I lose my will to sacrifice.

You make me wish for evils—

My goodness I abandon like a harlot for your company.

You hold my heart’s desire in your arms,

You wretch, you wraith,

And when I look at you my memories come alive,

Those memories of the future that you dangle

So unkindly from your fingers.

You are breath and life, you are hell made over as heaven.

You are tenacious,

And I am too weak to fight you.

Stay away. Stay away from me.

Do me that small mercy.

And when I call you back again--

I always call you back again--

Don’t come.

Weeds

My daughter pities the weeds.

She listens, absorbs, echoes:

“There aren’t really weeds, you know.

That’s just a word we say.

They’re only flowers people do not like.”

Child glowing with compassion.

I’ve shown her unawares

How to love the wildest flowers,

Reckless, unbounded,

The unmanageable ones,

That stretch on lanky stems all unabashed,

And open up so wide their petals

Bend back toward the earth,

Intemperate and hungry for the sun.

I praise her as she coddles dandelions;

Should I warn her of them too?

Must I as mother see she learns

That she may love the weeds—

God knows, I love the weeds—

But she’ll grow no gentle gardens if she does?

Should I train her in the rubric

By which the fiends of symmetry

Determine worthiness?

Which merit poisons,

Which provisions?

Is a flower ornamental? Needy?

Do its colors complement?

Can it be tamed, contained, or sold?

Insidious lesson – why teach her

What she cannot help but learn?

I’ll not.

May she always err in compassion’s favor.

Let her find with ease the real and vivid beauty in despised things.

Let her love the weeds.

I Carry You with Me

I carry you with me

Like a brightly painted stone

Like a paper scrap unwound, a scroll drawn from a hidden casing.

I rest you in my palms

Cupped as though to drink

As though with splintered lips to draw you in.

Let there be peace in that.

Let there be comfort in invisibility,

And faith in silent mourning, celebration.

There are no partings,

Be that bane or boon.

I carry you with me.

Feedback

Two elements apart

One can only listen

Only one can speak

Proximity

Feeds one

Drains the other

Common signal

Amplify and return

Infinite loop of

Oneness rebounded

Ends not in harmony

But in screams.

Swamp

You’ve been weeping into the dirt so long

You’ve made yourself a swamp to sink in.

Couldn’t be helped.

Your business now, though,

Is not to sink.

I know how heavy it is.

It’s a vacuum pulling your insides out of you,

Hauling you back down like a greedy hand

Every time you try to rise.

You can’t see this but

It’s up over your shoulders now

And mounding on top of your back.

You can’t see the sun shining above you either,

With your face wet and buried and the muck in your eyes,

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The sun is going to harden that mud into bricks

And it’s just going to get heavier, beloved.

So I need you to try to get up now.

We don’t say this to each other often –

We should, maybe, all the time –

But I’m only one step ahead of you.

I’m not singing from some oasis

Not some rosy country road

Not a warm fire and a cat on a winter evening

Or the arms of a love free of questions.

I’m covered in mud.

But I’m breathing.

You don’t think you can tighten your neck

To pull your face up out of that mess --

Can you turn it, though?

Turn it just a little to one side

So a bit of air can get to you.

Maybe it’ll smell like honeysuckle.

Maybe you can blink the crust off your eyelashes

And see a little light.

If that’s all you can do,

Well, just sit with that for a minute.

You’re a little freer than you were,

A little more you.

Every time you decide,

You’re reclaiming something,

I promise you that.

So turn your head, just a little bit.

Decide to.

And then decide again.

And we’ll see what happens then,

After a while.

  

Vain and Fraudulent Pen

Vain and fraudulent pen

Whose tip I’d rather trail along a spine

Than o’er a page

Can we make no hope of this?

Where is the holy fool you drew so well?

Coax it out

And with it any last true thing.

Can you find not one more worthy drop

Inside these puckered veins?

Dig deeper.

And if you come up empty,

Vain and fraudulent pen,

Lie till I believe

You can make of me

Something better than I am.

Sweet Sacred

O sweet sacred,

flex and roll your

soft blind wave.

When the ghost

in brilliance hovers

out of reach,

and breath long-since

absorbed and

reabsorbed

on memory’s lips

condenses; 

when spectral eyes

averted

dart and slice

but then – oh then,

that stolen drop,

that gift that

slakes and burns;

o sweet, sweet sacred,

roll and carry over

into the body buoyant;

roll and carry

away and never leave.

Velvet quake

unparalleled,

roll and roll

and do not ebb.

I give over.

Roll and slow,

until the visions

cloud and all

is one and nothing;

slow down sacred

for the

sacred

slow, o sweet

o sweet sacred

…

Vocabulary Builder

roar

to release an excess of emotion

a vocal response to a defined or undefined threat

an expression of pain, fear, or confusion

spiral

mathematically: a continually increasing distance from a single focal point

symbolically, upward: universe, continuity, self awareness

symbolically, downward: loss of control, despair

juxtapose

to situate side by side

in narrative: to place two characters close together to emphasize contrast

in narrative: to draw a line of connection between contrasting elements

heal

to return to a former state of being

to cease to feel [pain]

to callus or cover over

contrite

sheepish, ashamed

apologetic

weakened by remorse or self doubt

mercy

an action performed to relieve suffering

compassion, forgiveness

an exclamation of helplessness; a plea, often made in shame or desperation

withdraw

to seek protective shelter

to hide

to remove oneself from active engagement

comfort

to ease the distress of another

a sense of calm and peace

a gift sometimes best bestowed from a distance

paradox

a logical proposition that leads to an absurd or unacceptable conclusion

a situation or person that embodies contradictory features

a seemingly absurd proposition that holds the potential of truth

faith

a belief in someone or something that cannot be proved valid

(to keep __ with): to remain loyal to an individual or an idea in the face of hardship

to assume good motive, loving intent

Haiku

Beast, a stifled roar
won't tear your ribs asunder.
Bite it back. Be still.