Day 30: Advice That’s All Too Easy to Ignore

If you struggle to love her, write her down.

You can’t look that closely without a little love.

If you struggle with how much you love her, put the pen away.

Because once you’ve carved her presence into words,

outlined the curve of her knuckles on the chair,

and named the peculiar pressure of her laugh;

once you’ve ransacked every simile you know

to find the one that suits her eyes precisely…

well, you’re done for then.

For the Graduates

It’s graduation day in my town. Several of our local college graduates are friends of mine, people whose smiles and drive and energy and stellar child-whispering abilities have made my life better, in big and small ways. I want the world to see how f&^%ing remarkable they are, and I want them to see it, too, when the world doesn’t.

I guess that’s why I feel compelled to share this list today. It’s torn and limp from being folded and unfolded. I call it my imperatives list. These are things I’ve learned the hard way, and they were worth it. I still fail at them every day. I still add things. I keep this page with me all the time.

I know my list can’t carry a lot of weight – advice like this is better learned than taught, and that’s how it should be. If you take nothing else from it, take from it the value of knowing what you stand for and who you are deciding to be, because that is -- it absolutely is -- a decision, and it’s a decision you will have to make again and again. Make a list of your own, and then when my kids graduate college, you can share yours with me.  

   

When in doubt, make the harder choice.

No one can decide right or wrong for you. Their rights and wrongs aren’t yours anyway, so it wouldn’t be much use.

Strength is not an inherent trait. It’s a decision you make, always. Make it.

Fear no one. No other human being has a damn bit more value than you do, and no one has true authority over you either. When you approach others with fear, you don’t get to experience one another, and that’s tragic. When you approach others with fear, you don’t challenge yourself or allow yourself to challenge them. No one learns anything, and no one moves forward. Fear is bad for everyone.  

Question everything.

Take action, even when you’re not sure. You’re never going to be sure. Thinking without deciding will paralyze you.

You are responsible for your decisions. Respect other people enough to refuse to take responsibility for theirs.

Be private if you want to, but do not take part in secrets. Secrets are damages unrealized.

If you find yourself apologizing for the same thing over and over, either stop doing the thing, or own it and quit apologizing. Otherwise your sorry only means “I’m too lazy to change” or “I’m too scared to commit.”

True, deep connection with others is a sacred thing. Don’t neglect it.

Only the radical deserves your time. Whatever you choose to do, do it radically.

  

That’s it, kids. Congratulations. Go party. Go unleash your homemade havocs on whatever world you discover.

Day 28: Demolition Waltz

The turn, the swing, the hammer

thump              hiss                  crash

The savage, welcome clamor

grind                clang               smash

The boot, the door, the splinter

bang                grunt                crack

The wild rebuke of winter

roar                 whirl                smack

No growth without revision

groan               bend                grasp

No stitch without incision

cry                   drip                  gasp

One final shove, it tumbles

boom               howl                clap

                                        The newness roils and rumbles.

Day 27: Scarcity

The water taught the leaves to swim this morning,

giggling “come along”; they tumbled on to neverending.

The thrasher blew its imitation kisses from the fencepost

while the cat stretched out her paws to catch them crosshatched in the sun.

The living green shone riotous, daring me to count its shades,

then twisting with a wink to show the myriad it hid.

I stepped outside to write some verse on scarcity,

but the trees laughed, donning their infinite robes.

Day 26: From the Front Steps

Petals on the walk.

Kitty’s getting married again.

Small hands wet with captured bubbles

line with fur each time she tries to jilt the teddy bear.

They don’t know Here Comes the Bride.

Kitty takes the aisle to Inspector Gadget’s song:

doop doodoop doodoop...

Four half-finished books nap spreadeagle on the porch.

Lazy pages flutter in the musical hush,

the exhalation of the trees.

The sunlight treads its patient progress through the ladybug gardens.

Day 25: The Ghost

This morning I’m bedeviled

by a ghost, its heart disheveled,

and its face a darkened mirror

in which I do not appear.

Its presence grips and rends me

and its empty glass upends me.

Only monsters lack reflections;

am I that? Am I not here?

It sings a plea for kindness

-- ever blind to its own blindness;

while I beg for its departure,

it pretends it cannot hear.

In vain I’ve tried to cease it,

and in vain tried to release it,

crying, Please don’t make me face

that glass so empty and so clear!

From a distance I could ache for--

oh, my heart could even break for—

this poor specter so unfairly bound,

so wracked with grief and fear…

Yet this ghost returns to find me,

and with adamance remind me

it won’t let me redefine me

when it hovers ever near.

Though my eyes are red with weeping

ghostly mercy must be sleeping;

No – I see on closer study

neither eye, nor mouth, nor ear.

And how strange to now perceive it--

I can barely yet believe it--

underneath that horrid mirror

is a face I still hold dear.

Day 23: Haiku

You’re never finished.

There are still so many things

to rediscover.

Day 22: #youarereal

  

You   have   a   body

carbon matter occupying space

you have a brain

fed by pulsing blood

you’re full of filters,

engines, valves;

you take in and put out.

Your skin still sparks,

I’d bet,

you drink your coffee,

hiccup unexpectedly;

you trip, you stub your toe;

you have mass,

solid, liquid

you are real.

you have a pair of grasping hands

whose fingers open

gateways into worlds

devoid of matter

in which

no one is

accountable

where all of us

are avatars

that keep what we let go

that live the lives we lie about 

whose hashtags tell

the best-intentioned fictions

yet

you     have     a     body.

#youarereal

No.

You are real.

Be that.

Day 21: Our Words, Our Bright Balloons

There’s nothing new to say.

            Our words, our bright balloons,

            they    bob       and      hop

            content to be confined

and understood.

All we know is infinite ::: repeat.

            These strings, these greens and blues

in just this order,

this same knot

to ground them.

How                to                     our                   are

            absurd             think                lives                 new.

How                to                     our                   unique.

            absurd             think                words

So let’s poesy (like prophesy but wordful)

            let’s twist and squeeze

our emphases

remold the lexis

undefine

Let’s anything but not say nothing news.      

Let’s blossom out our fingers

and goodbye kiss our bright balloons

to unexpected treetops

out of place

So at another time

some-unspecial-one will spy them

            fish-flap-flapping in the branches

            in a moment – any moment

and hmmmm a thought, cut loose by accident.

How beautifully absurd.

Day 20: To the Ocean

She watches

Google maps, she

eyes the gas gauge.

She pictures them

along the highway

stranded with

the luggage.

He finds the

local NPR again.

He knows there

are no exits

after Freeman,

not for miles.

It slips below

the quarter mark.

“Remember when”

he says --

she stares

into the dashboard, 

lips tight, 

gritting --

“we’d listen

every Sunday

to this show?

We’d drive

the afternoons

and laugh.”

His watch has

left a line

around his

wrist from all

the sun. The

yard is lovely

in the spring.

She pictures

them along the

highway, stranded.

They did laugh,

didn't they?

The sky expands

as they near

the ocean.

Day 19: Haiku

One thing that is not

Confusing or upsetting:

Baby panda bears.

Day 18: On Platitudes

I get it. It helps some days.

It helps to glance through Instagram

to find that chick whose profile pic

is her off in a field somewhere,

the sunbeams shining halos round her head.

You find a meme that tells you what

you think you need to hear;

1000 pixels square, max 10-word therapy.

You focus on your chakras

and then move on with your day

a little stronger:

You can handle this.

The day moves.

I get it. It helps some days.

But what about the days that do not move,

when time keeps stacking higher on your head?

When you’re the beaten beggar

too exhausted or ashamed to turn your eyes

out of the gutter,

and someone walking by without a glance

throws some cheap hope

-- forgotten pennies –

in your cup …

it’s not enough to buy another coffee.

Go and tell the hopeless to “choose happy”

when what they want and do not want stand face to face in mirrors

and yes and no are lovers, coupling everywhere.

Go and tell the grieving “just let go”

when each new trill of birdsong drives them wet-eyed to the graveyard.

Try to tell me nothing is “im-possible”

when lying is unlivable but truth points sharp at someone else’s throat.

Inspiration offered blindly lands just like a club.

Use it carefully.

Watch for the beggars.

Day 17: Panic

Panic walks through the dust

barefoot in white linen,

pulling you behind it on

a dirty sheet. The sheet

winds around your ankle

rattling its silent tail.

Panic hauls hard as gravity

upon the rope

that anchors you

to both the ground and sky.

It pulls

as though you are a bell

booming from a tower made of

toothpicks.

Inside the bell is

a smaller bell,

and a smaller,

until finally a chime

with one tube missing,

which barely rings

don’t give up.

if you give up today yesterday won’t count

and you were never

real

don't give up.

And sometimes you hear it

And sometimes you don’t.

Day 16: Snapshots

Crepe myrtle, barren, bows above, its spindled fingers spread.

The banjo birds are singing.

One row ahead

A back tied in black lace recalls

An azure flower scarred into a shoulder

Striking vivid lines in cotton webs.

All things are made of other things

All memories cobbled moments.

I'd like to lie in the grass and look.

Each iris is a mountainous new world

Each pupil is the tiny void it orbits.

And no one floats away.

Stone and wood and family

Make place.

Day 15: I tried to write the villanelle again.

I tried to write the villanelle again.

My verses got all tangled in your hair.

I have no power over this damn’d pen.

I found a rhyme to use just now but then

I thought I heard your footfall on the stair.

I tried to write the villanelle again.

This line, I thought, would preach of gods and men,                            

Except – I’m sorry, what’s that scent you wear?

I have no power over this damn’d pen.

I breathe more deeply, try to find my zen …

My thoughts keep snaking back into your snare.

I tried to write the villanelle again.

These hands rebel; they reminisce of when

Your tender lips first came into their care.

I have no power over this damn’d pen.

I thought that it was finished, cried Amen!

Alas, another interrupted prayer.

I tried to write the villanelle again.

I have no power over this damn’d pen.

Day 14: If I have to choose a silence

If I have to choose a silence

it will not be

earphones

secretly unplugged,

pale, straight lips,

a shoulder,

or a lock of hair.

It will not be the

liquid sheen of moonlight or

a deep-woods midnight crouch;

it will not be binoculars

or stacks of books

or holy candles.

If I have to choose a silence

it will be

a highway underpass

that’s charging through a rainstorm.

Here

.

.

.

then gone.

Day 13: Advice to Me and You on Days Not Like Today

Lean forward.

Everything else does.

Those barbs will tear you up

if you keep trying to pull them out.

Paint the ends instead,

a yellow smiley face on one,

a fist raised up

a cross-eyed dog –

That’s funny, right?

It hurts less when you’re laughing,

assface.

See? I know what I’m doing.

Paint the line with rainbows

and just follow them,

’cause flopping like an angry fish

ain’t doing you no favors.

Stop saying grief.

Call it something noble; call it yours.

Make it sweet and melancholy,

own it like a Sunday sacrifice.

You thought that it would set you loose in time.

It won’t, if you still love a part of it.

Don’t give that up, though.

Just lean forward.

Day 12: Excavation

Are you

brave enough

to be discovered?

I promise I’ll be gentle –

as gentle as one can be

while one excavates a soul.

I’ll pull the scales loose

lovingly.

It will be more

undressing

than dissection. I’m

good at that.

You’ll tell me you read children’s books—

not with your radiant bundle giggling on your lap

but late, alone by lamplight

in a room painted with shadows, where

you always realize halfway through the book that

you’re the child,

and you cry, uncertain

whether you are sad

or deeply grateful.

I’ll tell you about the night

I polished off the homemade hooch

at an apartment party, and a

doped-up rennie grabbed my hand

and looked into my eyes

to tell me “Daddy’s sorry,”

which had no meaning for me, but

was magic in the sense

that he believed it

so I smiled and let a tear

roll down my face.

I’ll always ask you why.

And when things get

too quiet

I will wait.

You have to want

to be seen.

When I find you

it will hurt

the way that grieving does,

the way it hurts to notice

that your skin has gotten loose

and bunchy at the joints.

But that will fade

because you’ll know

someone was looking for you,

begging you to want

to be discovered.

I’ll tell you that you’re beautiful,

and you in turn

can tell me if my

truths are truths,

and if you can forgive me

for discovering.

Day 11: The Vultures

the vultures watch imaginary figures intersect

from chairback perch

the ornamental iron clicks and groans

with clasp-unclasping

<< husssshhhh >>

the vultures watch imaginary fires run

their flaming tongues from ankles north

to prickling burn retreat

their eyes the deep reflective black

of every screen gone dead

<< shhhhhhh >>

they snap their terse wet beaks

and wings tar-paper rasp & tremble

whispering imaginary endings
impatient for a fresh

catastrophe

Day 10: Untitled

Drop me at the rusted railroad track.

Point me to the woods.

Tell me where the floorboards rotted through

Ten years ago.

Don’t come.

I need to turn around alone

And open up my eyes to what

No other eyes have opened on before.

Give me my camera and set me free.

I need to see a miracle today.

Day 9: The ways I want

Like a petulant child.

Like a titan, hips commanding slaves.

Like a scientist unsatisfied with watching stars a universe away.

Like one two three just be, just be here.

Like a vine sharp with thorns.

Like an alley bitch slinking toward an offering, eyes fixed on the uncertain face.

Like a surgeon dissecting mysteries.

Like leaves newly fallen from the tree. 

Day 8: Clarity

Driving down a county route whose name is spelled two ways,

 I glance off to the left      just     as

the morning sunshine  s c a t t e r s 

into beams         between          the  pines,

     and   I   can

           see

      the   air

--a vision I am sure is not allowed.

   It twinkles soft and smooth

 light as a honeycomb

here-not-here

    the breathable air

     gilded, taking space

  rushing past and

gone.

I will never see that miniscule eternity again.

Why am I laughing?

Day 7: Sonnet

No line of verse is writ by me unless

Th’ elixir of the morning sets my pace.    

Espresso’s riotous rhythms onward press,

And open up the veins of inward space.

By evening, coffee’s hot duress expires;

And wine lends inspiration to my wit,

Emboldens me with strangers, loves, and liars,

Untethers from my mind all counterfeit.

Both drafts together churn my guts with rage.

I fear my crumbling body soon must choose--

Unhappiest decision of cruel age--

Which vital pump to coddle, which abuse …

Let’s toast, with Kaldi’s brew and Bacchus’ art,

this war between my liver and my heart!

Day 6: The Other Side of Yes

Your right decision landed like a shipwreck.

Words draped

breathless

on the rocks,

  their beggar’s ribs protruding,

and

  your body doubled over

             with the shock

                    of new integrity.

Still, when you had finished it

            you   thrummed

the way you always do

   when     dissonance

            resolves.

The right owe no apologies,

and yet

 in grace you planted

fragrant gardens

   for remembrance.

Here,

 on the other side of yes

  the bells toll

never ceasing

  for the lost.

But now and then

            we raise our heads

and catch the smell of

   flowers

 on the air.

Day 5: Once I Was the Springtime

Once, I was the springtime.

All the new green things carried my name

and hope like pollen scattered wide,

prolific and disastrous.

This parlance of new life

is not for me. I know that now:

my ciphers all reformed and redefined,

my totem, too, co-opted,

and I, my Self, erased from them,

and I, my Self, re-forming.

I train my ear once more to learn

the language of the season:

the raucousness of plunging birds,

the water’s deaf’ning march,

the bees whose drone en masse  

has quickened in the holly.

Perhaps at length I might reclaim as well

spring’s emerald silence.

For now I choose the louder dialects:

the clack of horns, the roaring of the bear.

Day 4: Unraveled

I saw a snake bisected

by a garden hoe,

the edge too dull to cut,

so blow by blow the thing

unraveled

not like skin should do

or scales

but cords and sinews

one by one

recoiling

to pop loose.

Bloated on the garage shelf

it posed a risk.

The baby birds were gone

already.

And our dog was there …

Blow by blow its head

whipped back,

it tail tight formed

into a squeezing coil

to seize from us

our weapon

or to stop it,

pleading body-full --

what god does a snake

cry out to?

No one thought it Wrong,

that slaughter.

It was Right.

Protect your own.

I cried and cried.

The coil of its fear

wound tight

around my wrongness.

One year later

when we moved,

I scrubbed with bleach

but never got the bloodstain off the floor.

Day 3: Green shutters, brick exterior

We’re hard to find here.

Beyond the slow rotation

of wind chimes made of keys

and sticks

and multi-colored yarn,

the night erases all

that marks my place –

the tree out front,

the ditch, the neighbor’s drive,

the dullish numbers on the mailbox.

Everyone drives past.

Inside, against the blue-green wall,

the piano bows with books.

The yellow lamp illuminates his face.

From the tub, one child tells

the story of the berries

that will commandeer

the tiny boat she’ll make tomorrow.

No one cleaned the dinner plates

before they poured the wine.

I laugh.

The night stops outside my door.

Day 2: Road Trip Haikus

From D.C. to Illinois,

Aunt Marcia and I

Composed haikus in the back.

Later, in the mail,

Accordion booklets came

Tied with blue ribbons:

She remembered each poem

And printed them all.

“Giraffe” was my favorite.

Thirty Days of Poetry, Day 1: Questions

How do you love without wanting?

{like holding an egg yolk, naked and slick in its rolling skin}

How do you want without needing?

{like savoring a mouthful, blind to the empty spaces on the plate}

How do you know without understanding?

{like a monk smiling in prayer, his shorn head smeared with ashes}

How do you give without expecting?

{like reveling in a festival from a hillside far off …

like releasing a moth from a spider’s web …

like spinning wild circles in the grass till you fall sick … }

How do you find such answers?

{… by failing.}