Poem #30: Self-Portrait

He is of a dark complexion with hair that indicates laziness or perhaps avoidance.
There is the makings of a shaped body dominated by a large belly;
he loves food but also loves the idea of discipline.
He has the kind of frame that you hate to see go but you love to watch leave.
Secretly thrilled by his color, his hair, his teeth, his feet,
loves the idea of these as slipped seemings for his inherent nature.
Tries to be subtle about said nature, but fails at it; it's all around him
if you really look. He alternates between pride, sloth and whimsy
which means he'll never be as consistent as he likes
but he'll keep trying; it's his own stone, and he'll roll it up the hill
any damned way he pleases.
Worries that his eyes are too dark, longs to steal the spark he sees in others,
imagines himself as Pollack slashing colors on huge canvasses --
transmitting a wordless reality that will never be understood
because it can't be explained.
Then he realizes what pretentiousness that is and tries anyway.
Embarrassed, he knows other people will always say it better
and that he'll just be a finger pointing at the finger who points at the moon.
Sometimes, he accepts that.
Others...
He loves and is loved.
He is preoccupied with endings because he can never get to them.
And there are a million things he will never get to do.
He sees himself as small when he is not.
He sees himself as poor though he is not.
Once he realizes his potential, he will live up to his responsibility.

Poem #29: Why Running Is Best

Most of the time, it's just terrible.
You're sweating and huffing, you have to control your breathing
and your gait. You must watch out for the people around you.
People never cheer you on; at best they nod and step aside
while looking at your generous belly or the way sweat drips
from your second chin. They never congratulate your effort
to look better; they merely think how much worse you'd look
if you weren't doing that.

But every once in a while, an inhale will force your back straight
and your eyes up, and the colorful world you've ignored for a mile
is right in front of you. There are houses that broke someone's back to make,
a family who lives inside and tends to the roses and poppies.
There are bees brushing pollen on the backs of their legs before they lift
like tiny helicopters, delivering their payload to the next petals, and the next.
There are dogs, babies, cats, toys and sunlight.
There is wind and scent and traffic lights and cars
and there's you, a part of this scene moving through
not perfect, but not bad, with every right to be there.

And when you collapse, soaked and exhausted
on your bed there's the knowledge of tiredness earned,
a sense of accomplishment that won't replace the construction of a good home
but gets you just close enough to believe that you can do anything,
if you just push yourself for one more step.

Poem #28: A Diary of Sins

I've written down the things I'm not proud of
and laid them out for you in a neat little line.
You might think this puts a distance between myself and these acts
but that's not the way I see it:
speaking is quick and thoughtless --
I just make my tongue and lips work in the way I've rehearsed
but writing, writing is a slow thing that demands your attention.
You can't put something to paper without meaning it,
and I've meant all the words you'll find there.
So, if you please, write my absolutions in the second half,
tell me that God's grace is with me and that he still finds me fit.
But choose your words carefully, Father. I'll know if they're thoughtless
and there is nothing worse than committing sins not worthy
of your full attention.

Poem #27: The Enlightened One

It doesn't matter how old he is; he wears his age well.
When he makes tea, he makes tea; when he washes the dishes,
he does so fully.
He has his habits, but he is not burdened by them --
they are merely comfortable clothes that serve their purpose.
There is always the capacity for surprise; he's seen a thing or two,
and his educated guesses are very good, but he realizes
that you can never truly know anything, and he is comfortable with that.
He sees people as people first, everything else second.
He is aware of the reality that whoever speaks to him wants something,
and he is not resentful of this: desire is a natural thing,
even when it drives people to unnatural, destructive behavior.
He is happy to provide what is demanded, as long as it is his to give.
Complication is something he can navigate by cutting through to the simple realities,
though he is aware how everything can be colored and subsumed
by their relationships.
He is appreciative of the smallest things.
The way the sunlight hits the leaves,
the curves of his lover's back,
the timing of tension's release,
the clockwork tick of a good story.
He wakes up the same way he goes to bed,
quietly, simply, with contentment purring in his heart
even through the noise and chaos of the world around him.
He is not perfect by any means,
but he is flawless in his imperfection.

Poem #26: Depths of Mind

To him the world is always colorful
and something must be monochrome to catch his attention.
It's why he loves the old movies with Bogey and Bacall,
lives for those visionaries who make a strong statement in either-ors.
He's tired of living in a world with shades, variations on a figure
that could mean anything depending on its relationship to everything else.
Black is so much deeper than grey.
White is so much more pure than cream.
The older he gets, the more he finds himself dancing around extremes,
mistaking dim bulbs for the sun, playing havoc with his navigation,
losing all sense of perspective for the sake of the simple.
Sometime, once he's grown comfortable, even two options will start to annoy him
and he'll try his best to ignore anything else
but the light he dances around, crashing over and over again,
burning the choice out of smooth, smooth brain.

Poem #25: The Star

When you look up at it, it's hard to imagine it being huge and hot.
From down here it looks so small, so cold and sharp,
just one of a myriad dotting the sky with the faint light it's managed.
You never think about how much energy it's expended
to shine down on you, the distance and time it's taken to be there.
You never think about what it's really like, an enormous fire
raging out there in the void, providing heat and motion to a universe
that would be dead otherwise. It expands and contracts,
breathes and expires -- mindless but alive. And we especially never think
how long ago it really existed, or the fact that the night sky we see
are little more than photographs, a celestial photo album with family members
who may or may not be there now. We see them as they wish to be remembered,
strong and young, in their prime, full of spit, full of fire.

Poems #23 and #24: Catfish/Wearing Bees

Catfish

Father went away every weekend to a place we couldn't follow
and he'd always come back with things I'd never seen before.
One time, it was a dead bird he'd wrapped in his handkerchief
for me to see; I was fascinated by its tiny eyelids, the way the skin
matched its feathers, the scales on its legs.
Sometimes he would bring home a rock or a giant pinecone
and those were interesting enough until I forgot the stories
he'd always given me with them. With the words gone, so was their luster.
My favorite, though, was when he brought home the fish.
Always in the detergent bucket, with water and silt in the bottom,
always cramped, nimble bodies curved around the sides,
wide eyes staring in terror at the air-breathing giants above them.
I never knew how they died, but I would follow them from the yard
to the kitchen, where Mother was ready with her knife.
Her incisions were clean and practiced, right up the belly,
under the cheek, and the smell of them was sweet and watery
just like the candied blood soaked through the newspapers.
From then on, my nose took over --
I smelled everything from the cast-iron skillet,
the onions, the bacon grease and Crisco, the lima beans,
the sugar and flour, cheese, potatoes, the leaves and dirt outside.
Then, the dish, in three sections:
succotash, boiled vegetables, and a brown mass
lightly breaded and vaguely fish-shaped, without its head
but with all of its terror, still but sizzling.
It was the most amazing thing to me, the journey of that catfish
from its magical place to mine, the last it would know.
And it never occurred to me the suffering that went into that simple plate;
the work of my father, of my mother,
the life of everything else.





Wearing Bees

He claimed they did it because he smelled so sweet
but we knew the secret: a tiny cage where the queen
was held captive. Her knights would come first,
trying to draw her out, and then curious onlookers
rubber-necking the scene of the accident.
One bee would leave and dance the story to his friends
and they would come, a massive cloud
dimly aware that something great was happening,
that order had been disrupted, if only for a little bit.
They were content to be a part of it just to be near her,
the only order they needed. This is the love of a serf for his master,
something the old man would never understand.
"See?" he would say, and smile.
I always noticed how they would move away from his teeth.
"My breath is like honey to them."

Poem #22: This is the Way

Hollywood always imagines we'd know about it
because to be honest it's more dramatic that way.
But I like to think that we'd be doing what we've always done --
picking a good wine for the salmon with lemon sauce,
lying on the rooftop with a best friend, looking at the stars,
making love with the lights on so you can see each other.
Then, suddenly,
there's a flash
and a rumble
and then nothing is ever the same again.

Poem #21: Cloven Wingtips

He never meant to be a friend
but we made him one anyway
and that is something he'll never forgive us for.
We've shaved his legs, we've covered his obscene nakedness--
the pants are baggy and down to the floor
just to make sure there are no accidents.
His teeth were flattened, and whitened and
we've diluted the brimstone right out of his mouth.
We let him eat an egg sandwich now and then.
We've bleached his skin, we've filed his horns,
we've covered that bare and blasphemous chest
with a double-breasted suit that makes him respectable.
His hair has been tamed into something far more agreeable
and in just the right light he has the dangerous edge of a Dean or Brando
as we take him out of the wild and put him squarely in the boardroom.
It's there he plots in between games of solitaire,
nudging things just so while he bides his time.
In no time at all, you see, he'll have a great view
as he remakes the world in his own image
and his imported clothing wilts right off of him.
He'll smile, a horrible, wild one he'd been saving
for just that night.

Poem #20: The Benefits of Religious Upbringing

I think often of my cravings:
the calls for beef and pork, sugar, fat,
the need to express my subverted sexuality
in the most fantastic way possible --
I think of them collected into a neurosis,
how their influence has travelled to every corner of my life
so that any time there's happiness inevitably there is shame.
This is what I'm used to. I'm not sure I understand what healthiness is.
I often think of what it would be like
to indulge those cravings without remorse,
to walk into a restaurant, order the biggest, roundest thing on the menu,
watch it drip onto my table before I take that first bite
and feel simply bliss without the the cricket gnawing my ear.
One day, maybe, release will be just that
without the burden of additional sin, the fundamental knowledge
that what feels right is always wrong,
that little sting that keeps me from surrendering to that tingle of contentment.
Until then, I'll keep piecing together moments here and there
where just this is enough and the mystical feeling of
consequence-free enjoyment never enters the equation.

Poem #19: The Little Deaths

She's heard that the closer you are to bliss, the closer you come to death
and she's always been one to test the theories that entice her.
That's why you'll find her on the stool at 2 pm, readying herself
for a marathon run through the bartender's book.
By 5, she's not even close to quitting time; she's still got miles to go.
She's the one who'll be dancing alone by the jukebox,
shouting for the nearest person to come have some fun with her
a little too desperately; she's the one who'll sidle up next to you
like she's known you all of her life. She's the one who will tell you secrets.
They come tumbling over her lips from some forgotten place
and they evaporate like hot alcohol on her breath
but that's precisely the point. She expunges them to kill them,
to send them out of their host where they won't hope to survive
but, and here's the worst part, they always do.
Just long enough to crawl back to the stranger's apartment
she finds herself in at noon, her head pounding with the hard work
of last night's forgetting. They lodge themselves unseen, right where they were
and they fill her with an animal's sudden need
to brave the blinding sun, to seek out her territory's bar,
to eat pretzels to slow the tequila's sink into her bloodstream.
She drinks, she dances, she talks, she kills
night after night after night, never understanding how she destroys
the wrong parts of herself every time.

Poem #18: Damned

When he came down from the mountains
and told everyone about the great things he had seen
they only replied "You haven't come down far enough."
They stripped from him
the clothes he made himself
from the carcasses of goats and meager leaves,
they snapped the walking sticks
he wittled from the trees that hugged the foothills,
they kicked him bleeding and naked
further down the valley. He bore it without complaint.
When he arrived at the next town,
he told them about the great things he had seen
through swollen eyes and cracked lips,
and they said "You're crazy, but we'll help you anyway."
They nursed him and clothed him, made him comfortable,
but they shook their heads when he told them of wonders
far from home; eventually, he fell silent and smiling
until, one day, someone looked up at the jagged teeth
scraping the sky all around him and wondered
what the village looked like from up there.
He took them aside and he told them
"You'll be damned if you go, and you'll be damned if you stay here.
Go."

Poems #16 and 17: Crushing/Why I Wear Gloves

Crushing

These days, it’s hardest simply to say “No”
simply because we’ve run out of reasons to.
Why not? someone will say, and when you get down to it
there’s no such thing as a good answer.
Surrendering is easy, doing what’s easy is easy
and it gets you the same place as doing what’s hard
so what’s the point?
Temperance just makes us boring --
it’s much more exciting to live on the extremes
just because the view at the apex of the pendulum is so enthralling.
Who wants to wear brown when orange and purple
are always in season?
Who wants to be quiet when it’s become so easy
to be loud?
Who wants to work so hard when it’s better
to be friends with who you work with?
We’ve let ourselves grow soft with indulgence
until we barely notice the pressure of our desires
and the way it immobilizes us.
Suddenly, one day, we can’t move
because we’ve never learned to resist
the winds blowing all around us
saying “Why not? Consume.”





Why I Wear Gloves

There’s an entire unseen world out there that wants to do me harm.
Unseen animals are crawling on every surface all the time,
and you’re an entire world to them. Why wouldn’t they exploit you as a resource?
I can imagine them, strip-mining the minerals out of your skin
for their own use, taking your hard-earned fuel and using it for their own.
They’re relentless, and they won’t stop simply because
they’ve never learned how. They’ll keep on multiplying
until they’ve covered every inch of you with their filth,
until you’re wasting away with disease. The fight against their kind
ages you, you know, and me, I’m going to live forever
as long as I protect myself from their assault.
These gloves are my bid for immortality, you see;
I’ve suffocated everything that touched me
and I’m refusing access to anything else.
This is what I’ve learned from my time on Earth,
that the only way to truly live is to be lonely

Poem #15: 19:20

When they give the automatic letters
I always immediately think “rustling leaves”
and just like that I’m back to my childhood
at Roslyn Avenue, with the maple trees and mulberries,
the honeysuckle and tiny wild strawberries
growing between the cracks of the sidewalk.
I would remember the way we would squeeze dandelions
to see the milk, the mystery of the dead fireflies
that always greeted us on summer mornings.
Did they just hate mason jars? Or could they not survive captivity?
The face on the bottom right corner of the screen
gives us additional letters, looking as determined as possible.
C - The caramel candies I got for a penny from the corner store.
D - Our dogs, Lady and Chance, who liked to sleep underneath our porch.
M - Mina, one of my best friends, who suddenly got too old to play with boys.
A - Atlantic City, home of the best beach pizza and salt-water taffy...
The puzzle is easy, but I’m miles away from solving it by the time the letters turn.
“What’s wrong with you?” he says, bumping my elbow. “That was so easy!”
“Nothing,” I reply, and wrap my arms around him.
“I was just thinking about something else.”

Poem #14: A One Way Conversation

From my window, I see the trees speaking to one another
in ancient tongues, sharing news of the weather, the mating habits of birds,
what’s current in the cuisine of squirrels this year.
Branches will bend towards each other, then straighten
with wizened self-satisfaction; they know how to mesmerize
when they speak, command respect from the young saplings
who will do what they do one day but not yet.
They know that there might be someone like me,
watching them through the window, wondering what it’s like
to be so still, yet constantly moving, always changing.
How can anyone think the world is silent?
If you know what to listen for, it always has something to say.

Poem #13: Cutting

Inevitably, you have to let some things go.
If you want to be one thing, with all of your heart,
it means you have to give up on those other things that catch your fancy.
You have to watch them fall away, one by one,
the doors of possibility closing with that tightening focus
on the reality you’ve chosen. This is what it means to grow up;
making the successful transition from “I can be anything”
to “I am now something”; and it’s rough, I know, because
those potential people are still you, and it always feels like a death in the family
when one of them goes away. It is acceptable to mourn.
But never let the grief get the best of you.
It’s a long road from indulging potential to aimless drifting,
and it’s quite easy to miss the signposts,
but you’ll know you’re there. Even if you hide behind billboards screaming
“All who wander are not lost”,
you’ll know.

Poem #12: Or Maybe You're Just An Asshole

Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee,
which, depending on how many people take my advice,
could be after seven thirty but is more likely closer to nine.
I swear my blood is more caffeine than plasma.
The rush wears off right before eleven, so that’s no good for me either;
you’ll see me rush off for a walk with a granola bar in hand
and heaven help you if you try to stop me.
Lunch is late, because I’m putting out fires until then;
I’ll be occupied straight through early afternoon and by the time I’m hungry
you really won’t want to deal with me. Besides, I eat my salad in the park
and talking about work is the last thing I’ll want to do.
The earliest I can pencil you in is about two, but don’t expect me to be attentive.
There’s that mid-afternoon crash after lunch
and I’ll probably need to catch up on everything I let slide over lunch
while chugging Diet Coke -- you’ve seen me in work mode,
you know how much I hate to be disturbed.
I do have open office hours starting at four, but they’re always so busy;
there’s always at least eight people clamoring for my attention
and you know how hard it is to switch gears from one crisis to another.
I’m thinking it might be best to just stay late until I can get to you.
We’ll order in Chinese, we’ll huddle close over my laptop to see your charts
and I’ll make a comment about your perfume, how unassuming, yet sweet it is.
Just like you, I’ll say,
and my lips will touch your skin
before you have the chance to pull away.

Poem #11: To the Roots

Instead of coming up from the ground,
thick and full as children only to diminish
our potential with every choice until, at last,
we’re tiny, fragile things,
I like to think that we start at the end,
small and pliable, and every choice we make
brings us together, makes us stronger,
makes us wider and richer with experience.
Our momentum turns us downward,
and we join and join and join
until at last we’re sturdy and ancient,
able to support those coming after us on their journeys,
tender and green.
Though we become brown and ugly,
though we’re heavy and low,
we’re the part you lean against when you seek shade
and we’re the symbol of what you’ll miss
when the whole damned tree is gone.

Poems #9 and #10: Smash and Grab/You Are What You Eat

Again, a pretty full weekend, so I thought I would post the weekend poems together. I think I'm starting to hit a stride.

Smash and Grab

The deadbolt seems useless now;
the door is always going to be broken.
There are the muddied bootprints tracked across the floor,
the first sign of the intruder’s violent nature
(an end table thrown onto the path from the hallway to her favorite reading chair),
the brand new flatscreen she had to replace with a smaller one.
It still doesn’t cover the scrapes on her hardwood floor
from where the entertainment center fell face-first, like a bar drunk;
sometimes she still thinks she sees the glimmer of smashed glass.
The books, curiously, are the same as they always were,
but the kitchen has never recovered --
the tea kettle’s whistle reminds her of the police siren
and the pop of the toaster forces her back
to the tromp of police shoes over her life’s wreckage
and she recalls how perfectly she couldn’t meet their eyes
even after they gave her their cards, after they apologized, after they left.
Her bedroom has changed the most.
It is tight and orderly, always locked before the lights are out
because, when she pulls up the covers and closes her eyes,
she swears she can hear him pacing the hallways
looking for the next thing to turn over, the next most valuable thing
to take right out from under her.





You Are What You Eat

I don’t know how I ever liked him.
He couldn’t appreciate the taste of a mulberry plucked right off the tree --
we’d always have to walk three blocks to the corner store for
a Ziploc bag full of penny candies instead. Never mind
that the honeysuckle in our yard was free, or that the rose petals
from Mom’s garden were tart and bitter and challenging
(it was like you could taste the thorns). It was all American cheese
and Wonder bread with this guy.
I knew it wouldn’t work when we planned our first barbecue.
I raided the perimeter, he snaked through the aisles
and we met at checkout with his foods all boxed in cardboard
and mine wrapped in plastic.
When we got home, I marinated the beef and mushrooms
while he microwaved the Velveeta and dug out the ranch dip with a spatula.
Our guests arrived, and I immediately took Vera aside to talk through
her standing me up last Tuesday.
He grilled the meat and was the first one to eat it.
He drank beer with our friends, he laughed and joked,
and in bed that night he told me how much he hated them.
Right then and there I said,
“I’m breaking up with you.”

Poem #8: The Complex of Simple Things

Everyone tells you to take it step by step
but they’ve never done it themselves.
Do you know how hard it is to focus on this one step
knowing that it will be followed by another, and then another?
They bleed together, the motion is automatic,
relegated to the part of the brain that keeps ticking without you
and you’re free to think of other things.
The way your foot hits flat on pavement reminds you to get
a better running shoe, and that reminds you to check out
that store you ran past one time, and that reminds you
of the old neighborhood with those great restaurants you miss.
Then, if you’re like me, you’re reminded of your gut
and the fact that you’re braving sunset and cold and judgemental looks
to lose it. The steps don’t matter themselves,
they’re just a means.
The end is what we’re conditioned to think about,
the next big thing, the connections we’ve made from now
to then to what will be.
Every step is the movement from one place to another,
and our journey is nothing without a place to come from or a place to go.

Poem #7: The Glass House

His shoes were an expensive barrier
keeping his toes away from the marble floors;
they were nice to look at, anyway, but not meant for touching.
The same was true of the lions protecting the narrow hallway
to his bedroom, where delicate things awaited his use.
The windows were thin and he liked them that way --
it put him closer to that fantastic city view, made him feel
as if he could reach out and touch all of that crystal glittering below.
The furniture was not made for people of any excess except wealth.
Brown leather, all imported, all vulnerable to anything sharper than a fingernail
backed against walls carefully clothed with etched paper, also imported,
that would not stand for being leaned against.
It took him ten years, but he kept his vow.
When he left the hard world of dirt behind,
where everything he owned had to withstand a variety of uses
he told himself he would learn one thing and do it so well
that he would never have to be his brush or a crude tool,
but a specialty surrounded by singular implements of like function,
that they would all do one thing well,
they would be delicate
and they would be his.
Now, with his brutish hands he held his demitasse
and toasted -- here’s to the dream and the trappings thereof
and may these soft things never remind him
of how hard he has become.

Poem #6: Noblesse Oblige

When she was angry, the whole world knew it.
The dog would slink from the sound of the frying pan
and we would perk in the way we did
when we heard thunder approaching.
If we saw the storm rolling in we would seek out whatever shelter we could find;
a book borrowed from the library,
a doll that was suddenly unbearably naked.
We would wait for the clouds to pass and sometimes, they did.
That was her nature, mysterious patterns of weather we could not predict.

Every now and again, though;
lightning would strike. One of us would disappear, snatched up
in a frightened whimper or wail of despair
only discovered later, somewhere else, confused and red and wild-haired.
That was our way. We were nature’s children.

The droughts would come without warning,
entire evenings spent without a drop. We were expected
to scrounge for what we could, to go to bed grateful but wondering
why there were no clouds, why the wind didn’t move.
Later, in the darkness, our dreams would flash white and forked,
and we could almost taste the salt of water, bittersweet.
Those were the days we’d dance, voices raised and feet stamping,
doing what we had to
praying for rain.

Poem #5: The Maestro

She can never stop hearing the music.
When she rises, the wind haunts her
with the echo of the violin her father played.
She can hear it, weaving through the trees
harmonizing with the branches, fading back in time
for the songbird solo.
The whistle of the tea kettle,
the percussion of dishes against silverware against furniture,
all set against the backbone hum of the rising sun.
The crickets play the same concert they always have
when she’s in the garden, but here’s what makes it special--
the overture of her leather gloves,
the allegro walk through her back yard,
the adagio of planning her tools,
the scherzo of hard work,
the triumph of sweat and exhaustion.
In the evening, the insects keep time
for the sun’s longer, lazier notes.
Sometimes, she jams with whoever’s around;
sometimes, she isn’t afraid of sounding crazy on her own --
she likes to improv.
Even the silence is music of its own,
empty bars of feeling her roots sliding full and deep and tight
in the fertile soil of her existence.
Those notes, her favorite, become long and even,
carrying her steadily on into the night
into the endless rehearsal of simple, tonal dreams.

Poem #4: The University's Apprentice

He’s stared at computer screens for so long
his eyes glow with the cold fire of the world’s knowledge
and has stood on the shoulders of giants for so long
he has mistaken himself for one
there is no thing that he can’t do
no idea he will not entertain
the thought of point-counter-point makes him giddy
with possibility -- he assembles to dissemble,
to find the guts strewn out on his table and look for the gaps
where they connect, or don’t, where the missing parts
don’t have a corollary
then, he creates one
the universe is his laboratory
and experiments play themselves out in real-time
presenting results that he forgot to ask for
and delivering consequences to actions that weren’t his
but inevitably, he would reap
it’s a struggle, he says
to learn to be unsurprised with everything that happens
but by the end of his four
he’ll know that there’s nothing new under the sun
that everything, everywhere
is the product of something
somewhere

The Weekend Poems

Here are two poems I wrote over the weekend. Because Saturday and Sunday were so packed full of awesome, though, I didn't really have time to post them. Here they are, in all of their glory. I hope you like!

Tea

The aim, they say,
is to take you back to the time
where we had to be quick on our feet
and we lived on what we found

It almost works -- if it weren’t for
the crafted teapot, or the simple but polished
cups to brew, then pour, then drink
leaves that have been carefully preserved
for that illusion of raw age

There’s the creamy sage dressing
in a metal cup that’s splashed over kale
beets and carrots; they aren’t seasonal
but they haven’t been scraped and it’s feasible
they were cooked over an open flame

It’s a meager meal -- that part they’ve gotten right
and you look up after scraping the last of the seeds
from your polished wooden bowl
I catch the longing look you give my scone,
the same wild gleam our ancestors gave
when they saw something sweet

Go ahead, take it, there’s plenty for all --
there’s simple pleasure in watching you
devour the cream and jam, thinking
who would ever want to go back to that time
when we had to think on our feet
and only ate what we found?

What Happens With Sun and Water

All around me the trees are saying,
“I know I won’t be here forever.”
They prepare for the future in the way they always have
with an explosion of fruit and flower,
hoping to attract the air or the favor of birds
to carry their half of their progeny to the other.
Nature, of course, takes care of the rest.
The flowers are blatantly mistrustful of the good weather
so they ready themselves while they can,
screaming for bees in their way, offering the promise of food
that these insects can’t turn down --
they need to feed their young too, after all.
The buzz fills the air as I jog by,
everything making its plan to ensure that this,
just this, continues to happen next year.

Poem #1: Anything

I'm celebrating National Poetry Month by writing one poem a day every day this month. Here's the first one. :)

Anything

I have only walked on air
for these past dozen miles or so
to prove a point;
that the gravity of a situation only holds you down
as much as you allow it
and that any connection, no matter how fundamental,
can be cut.
And who wouldn’t want to float over the precipice of life,
unburdened with the need to look down,
leaving the sharp teeth of reminder and responsibility behind.
It’s so amusing to watch those crocodile jaws close slow
around nothing at all. The unfulfilled, jealous stare
makes you feel even more alive than the banishment of physics --
there is nothing, nothing at all
like the feeling of knowing you’ve inspired someone to wonder
what else is impossibly possible?
As they shrink in your vision, note the way they look over the cliff
as if they could follow you, as if
there’s the seed growing within them,
displacing those connections, making them fray until one by one
they unravel.
This, my friend, is how we unmake the world
and put it back together to exactly our liking.