Posts Tagged Love
The Persistence of the Sharp Freezes
The freezes visit too often
on some of the days,
longing for round and deep sewers,
forehead is warn from friction of hands,
mostly the left hand, working to wear holes,
to make openings for the tense, frightened
animals, for their escapes, for relief,
for return to the emptiness that is more
dull aching, more like the squeezing
of an adult’s hand on a child’s tiny arm,
which is far superior in the frozen mind
than all of the stabbing of ice picks
on all of those small, squeaky animals
scurrying about like lost rats in daylight.
My mind feels like that baby’s arm,
and I wonder if it is you, though I know
better, but I wonder if it is you, that fierce
beast behind all of the ice picks, and if
it is, why can’t I block them with my
sullen, stiff, messy face made of all
the tiny frayed, burned, torn wires.
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Ups and Turnabouts
Roller coaster is the quaint way
to reflect on what the red sauces
with black electrical wires do,
but today, I am running down, exhil-
erated or running up with climactic
buzzes showering my body, good
parts of the body, chilling, shivering
parts of the body meant for engage-
ment, or am I in at the bottom where
we load on and roll off, where we
drown in silky, muddy waters, devil-
ishly eating us, for they are left
over from yesterday’s distress,
never done ruining, but today, breast
stroke, grabbing the wood seat with in-
cisors, twisting desperately, and I pop
up, see the monsters left, see the wa-
ter dry vehemently, and I dive, head-
first, you catching me, loving me, driv-
ing me into your lush folds, warmth at
last, and today is full. Full blast, down
and up, hard and fast, sweet and juicy,
all is big beautiful life for these minutes.
I told you; quaint.
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Me and the Woolly Black Bear
Today’s PAD prompt, in honor of two for Tuesday, was to write a poem about the hunter or the hunted or both.
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Me and the Woolly Black Bear
He is my rear shadow, the woolly
black bear. He doesn’t have
a name, and shadow because he
spends his time coming
after me, always getting close,
but not killing me. A few times
were close. I almost surrendered.
He’d love to eat me. He wouldn’t wait
to cook me. He’s fierce, and the winds
from his claws cause my hair
to fly like when I’m on a motorcycle
without a helmet, and a helmet
would be good when he’s
after me. I know it’s his nature,
but his battering and clawing
create tremendous distress. We
treat it with medicine, but my prayers
go unanswered, for I wish
the medicine would kill the woolly
black bear. I see a kind
lady, a doctor who specializes
in people who are traumatized
by these black bears,
and when I am with her, I
become the hunter, and
very rarely, I imagine I have
killed my tormenter, but it’s
never true, he’s never dead,
so I’ve learned not to celebrate
when it seems he’s dead because
his absences are far too short. I
am hunted, but I try to use
my injuries to help
others and sometimes, I forget
about my woolly black bear. Though
I know better, during these times,
for short spats of time, I celebrate
his absence and love the world.
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Lessons on Madness and Flow
Lessons on Madness and Flow
Rolling back, go gentle,
pray with the blackbirds
as they scatter to the soft
trees, trees bending graciously
with bright air, and remember
the leaves are moving for you,
so move with them and when
particles of evil come after you
fast and hard, duck down on a
slight bend and feel the energy
as yours, and if someone greets
you, smile at the beauty of being
there and remember those knives
from people who don’t know you
are false, and dig with integrity
to live as you wish, and this I tell
myself, each day, trying to be
the man I want to be someday.
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Seven Minutes of Healing
Today’s challenge for PAD 2013 was to write a “sevenling,” which is a poem with two tercets, which may be unrelated followed by a single punch line.
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Seven Minutes of Healing
Soft colors and faces warm the room,
and plunked, I’m in a corner, swamped
by sympathetic but foreign personalities.
Linda held the room to a low energy,
allowing our insides to come outside,
making our hot souls melt the evils.
I cried, and I wasted gobs of Kleenex.
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Lightly, Not Trespassing
This is my late submission for PAD Day 3. My dog ate the first one and that is why this is so late. The prompt for this day was to write a poem on something tentative.
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Lightly, Not Trespassing
Her ego, too large, but perhaps not,
might it be a sensitive soul,
needing defense, causing compassion,
and I’ve fallen in, or have I?
She talks of her fans. They love
her, cause her to be reticent in shar-
ing, about how close they get to her,
and I want to be one, a fan, close to her.
More of her takes me into deep, warm
areas, and I must hold back, not tell
her any truth about my desires, so I
watch her, shiver, downed by longing.
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Being Human, Occasionally
My mind
strives for meaty
pieces of love, stirring
strangled wails from empty airways
choked dead.
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
Brahms has the twitchy fuse,
lighting me in acidic
flames and the arguments inherited
from old elephants, between piano and orchestra,
are trudging – me, I verses the world,
and I’m losing
but I’m pounding the keyboard
until I get a break, a breath, a sigh,
and I show this grace
that is un-Brahms
but is
Brahms at his greatest,
and when the horns arrive
in red army coats, you know
victory is grasped with dirty,
dry, crisp finger nails, but it
never happens, never consummates.
I am finished, a heaping
pile of slippery dung
when Brahms is done.
And as a practicing drunk, the tears
would wilt tarnished cheeks and create heat
emanating around thorny eye sockets,
but these days are desert dry, pain layered
and hidden and only Brahms, only the
master knows, knows the truth, and now,
at least I rest, I stop, I pray, lost.
.
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p.s. – Embedded below is the referenced piece, performed by my favorite conductor and one of my favorite pianists. The exposition of the first movement lasts 3:45, so patience is needed in waiting for the arguments between piano and orchestra. The climax/recapitulation of the first movement at about 13:20 is one of the most intense sections of music I know along with the ending of the first movement. It is immense music. The third movement is a kick ass jam if you make it that far…
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The Birds Mock Me, But Harry Loves Me
Wandering madness catches me briefly
after I skip exercise, after I stress over
my lack of discipline, and the birds come around,
they mock me, but it’s not personal,
and the pigeons vibrate detestably, so I
send Harry through the sliding glass door, and
while he smiles, he makes a lazy but quick lunge
at the pigeons, causing me to wonder whether they
can take off quickly enough, but they plod like
C-130s and off they go, and I wonder, where do
they go with such sloppy bodies. My enjoyment
of Harry’s antics, his smiles and circling tail, his
wiggly glances, sideways, quizzing my sleepy stare,
my enjoyment chugs uphill, fights my shame,
and I stay right here with Harry,
for a moment.
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My Day in Tricky Bullets I
- Empty mind, the goal, but interference.
- Dog man, dog man, listen to that shitty music, don’t listen to that shitty music, just let that shitty music float through and cause you to vibrate, dog man.
- What would guru guy think about how empty my mind is, but if I wonder that, it, the globby mind not my wonder, is filled with egotistical motives and pollution swarms, blowing circuits.
- For a moment, as smart as the five dogs, but Harry looks at me.
- Get your shit together, he says. I’m hungry and you need to quit fucking around.
- Pixie loves me, but she’s only looking for a surprise for her breakfast.
- No surprise, she toys with the others because dog food sucks.
- Gracie does not chew Pixie’s head off. I don’t know why.
- Idea for poem trickles in as I am busy feeling ashamed for not emptying the mind, feeling dizzy with the wheels of insanity trying to trick me into losing my place in the world, threatening to make me forget who or what I am, threatening to remove my sense of the calendar, threatening to incapacitate me and bend me over the edge of the sink under the rag infested with the rottenness of old kitchen mess. I am ashamed of my diseased self.
- An unbearably sweet girl on the roof downtown throwing rocks.
- Maybe 20 stories.
- Maybe pebbles, but more rock-like because they have mass, power to alter the world,
- and she throws and throws, and all the people in the streets are joyful.
- The people do not protest.
- The people strive for acquiring all of the free rocks.
- I see why my poems suck so badly when I have ideas like this, but my editor earns his pay, and he says, You quit even thinking about writing until you have a brain that might understand what art is supposed to be.
- Mozart for lunch. I did not eat Mozart.
- There are times, listening to Mozart, and I am sure I’m listening to God. I wish I could understand this.
- The odd phrase “could not be more perfect” comes to mind.
- A guy talking politics on LinkedIn the other day said it’s rude to bring in things which come to mind. I suppose it is too spontaneous for politics.
- Reduce your time with politics, news, silly strings of comments about art which somehow make you feel contentious.
- Reduce these and do something worthwhile.
- A guy talking politics on LinkedIn the other day said it’s rude to bring in things which come to mind. I suppose it is too spontaneous for politics.
- I’m a fucking toad sitting in a meeting.
- New guy. doesn’t understand. You don’t know what we know.
- Some guy says he likes Carl’s idea and I feel less like jumping out the window.
- Jumping out windows is tough on the 16th floor because the glass is very strong in order to resist those things that buildings tend to run into.
- For a short time, I reflected on the last 8 years of being a father as opposed to the years before that, and I had an immensely good feeling, a rare sense of worthiness, and I thought about the last time my daughter told me she loved me. Yesterday. Oh, there might not be better goodness, and I hope that is okay.
