The Puzzle
I had in my mind’s eye a picture
Of what I thought we were and could be
When the pieces fell into place or were placed
Where they were always meant to be,
But now I see that we
Were never meant to be,
Never soul mates,
Never more than what we are
And never more than what we have chosen—
This. Now.
And that is enough for me.
Password
When I was little
On TV there used to be
A game called Password,
Where Famous and Forgettable comingled,
Where someone Important, who Knows the Answer,
Would stare into the eyes of the Unimportant, Unknowing,
Say a single word, perhaps “love” or “death,”
And the Unimportant, Unknowing would stare back
And try to guess what they meant,
Try to scrut the inscrutable.
The longer it took to guess right,
The fewer points they got.
Little did I know then
(In my plaid pants, striped shirt, and homemade haircut)
That life would feel like that almost all the time,
That I would be staring into the eyes of those I suppose are All-Knowing, All-Seeing,
Trying to scrut the inscrutable as they say words like
Love and Life and Death.
Adam and Eve (Innocence and Experience)
Neal’s eyes say,
“Give me more of everything all at once.”
The world is new like jazz.
Volcanic innocence and open-mouthed joy burst forth in his smile.
Bare-armed, bare-chested, naked and unafraid,
Neal dances on the edge of all that is.
Ken’s eyes say
“I know where this ends. I’ve seen it before.”
Mirth and sorrow mingle
Together and apart.
Ken tastes love and longing, bittersweet—
All the weariness that ever was and will be.
The Adam and Eve poem was inspired by this photograph: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2011/08/01/arts/MAGIC1/MAGIC1-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
Battle Flag
I was lying
On my couch, eating popcorn, watching Netflix,
Playing solitaire,
When suddenly a thought
Slapped my face hard, left a mark:
I am at war
With myself,
And I have the wounds to prove it.
Wounds invisible and visible to everyone
(Except sometimes myself)
Show the world that I’m losing
This battle, this war,
Because despite my sometimes best efforts
I forget that I am
At war with myself and
On a comfortable Friday night
I don’t see the carnage, don’t smell the wounds.
Instead
I lie down on my couch,
Eat popcorn,
Watch Netflix,
Play solitaire.
Fireball
Sweet kick in the teeth and
Spice on the tongue,
The two are one.
Liquid red-hot heat
And warm sugar glow
Linger like the winter sun,
Heating up as it goes down.
I Am a Poem
Half read, half lived,
Unabandoned by the Author,
When readers read me
Too short
Too long
Too obscure
Too plain
The Author smiles and shakes Her head
Knowing this poem is perfect
Just as it is.
My Spirit Animal is a Scarab
I wake up to roll shit
Across the hot, hard ground
And, while doing so,
To remind those who see me
Of resurrection, rebirth,
The morning sun
And God.
Against Elevation
Here in the Shadowlands, there is talk of sun,
But it is only talk, a distant memory,
A wistful dream of what was—warmth and light, unspeakable joy.
I will have none of that.
I am afraid of the sun because I am afraid
Of sunset, a return to the Shadowlands and Shade
With dread and loss reborn, the ash of what once was
And is no more, the scent of love
On a cold pillow.
Arles
“I wanted to defend myself and couldn’t do it.” Vincent van Gogh
One hundred twenty-six years ago.
Today.
The future of dreams,
The dissolution of friendships,
Isolation and
Abandonment—my yellow house
And blood.
Loneliness
Is a civil war—
Vast multitudes
Dead
And I am maimed;
I hear echoing emptiness like irises
Writhing in the sun.
Overshadowed and insecure,
Bitterness
Leaves its mark —
Compelling hate and glory,
A luminous shout
From the withering sky.
This is the story I don’t like to tell.
Wound
I am here and you are there,
Or there,
Or there,
But almost never
Here.
Your fleeting love, your fading breath
Breathe life into my unhealed, open wound,
And what was feverish is pallid, cool—
Little passion, some sorrow, no hate.
I don’t want anything anymore
But to throw the dirt in
Over what we once had,
Make the sign of the cross,
Touch foreheads, whisper
And let go.
We will remain
One soul,
Separably inseparable.
Eucharist
Inside me there are bones,
Forgotten, taken
For granted, my humanness—the epiphenomenon of thought
Is stuffed inside
This body,
This blood.
Was there original glory
Before original sin?
The curse of creation and the roller coaster ride—
I am East of Eden, wandering,
Trying to remember, trying to understand
My parents, known and unknown.
I want assurances
I will not suffer.
But suffer I do
And suffer I will
Memories, dreams and heartache,
The empty road, the barren hill,
My passion, my body, my blood.
I dreamt the other night
That we were still a “we,”
That we were not through,
That times were rough but there was hope,
The possibility of repentance and forgiveness—
A glimmer.
I awoke to the sound of my heartbeat,
Surrounded by darkness and dust.
Nothing else remained.
The Other Self
It begins, always, with desire,
The one that brought you here—
Success and failure,
You estimate your need.
Begin at once
Communicate
Dictate
Violate
You are the same as you have always been.
You said my name once, twice—
I looked around the room,
Blinked my eyes.
Death Notice
For years I thought I would die
Alone
And any day now
(Feels like every day now).
I am awake, a living nightmare, and
Alone
Like Jesus in the garden
Without holy blood
Or friends.
I am afraid to open my eyes,
Afraid to close them,
Afraid to die
Alone.
Ruptured
Snap back, lightning
Collision, crush(ed) I am
Frankenstein’s Monster
And a sad smile from lips that bleed.
I have fallen all my life, fallen
Head snapped back against the concrete floor,
Seeing stars, feeling the shake and slosh
Of jelly brains, recede and retreat,
Dizzy with pain.
I have pushed against the glass door to open,
Only to shatter and slice my fingers bone
Deep, the scar that lingers,
Loosening my grip.
I remember the towel and the hot blood,
Flowing and sticky dry,
Sticking to the shiny white tendon,
Through flesh cut loose.
I have felt the kinetic rush
Of energy transferred
Blindside from a tractor-trailer,
Saw my love flung forward
And free, like the stars,
Spun back against the blue vinyl,
Everything torn and a bleeding eye.
Today is another day,
Head snapped back, lightning
Struck, eyes melted,
Scalding tears and ash.
The Drowned
The first one, I guess, drowned in the swimming pool…
Neighbors said, “You ain’t got nobody extra—why is that?” But I didn’t know.
We lost their names, the little ones.
I need that kid’s things to tell God about him. We don’t want God to forget about our boys and girls.
Especially the little ones.
I have to learn how to catch him or catch God.
Retrograde
Some days I forget
Everything
I know and everything that matters–
*poof*
My baby girl is twenty-one.
The days of baby joy are gone–distant
Memories, bright as the Morning Star,
Roll up from the horizon, drop down again.
Soon I will be too old
To remember how her birthday parties
Turned hope into chaotic bliss
In the blink of a young man’s eye.
Today is what I have, today
My baby girl sits
Across from me reading Gide,
And I am wondering
How any of this makes sense
In the half-light of a setting star.
St. Germain: 5 Rue Princesse
The world is full of holes that I fell through,
Alone, like a gasp
cut short.
Jesus has suffered
His suffering, his anguished eyes
Remind me that I am
Not alone
At the precipice.
I am always falling
The way my stomach tumbles
And gravity is lost
And hope is lost.
Will He reach out for me? Can he?
Or will we both fall alone,
We with our anguished eyes?
My Last Day
If this were my last day, the day before
They shut my eyes, turn me to ash, spread me out
Like powdered sugar across the world’s pancake–
I would want to talk to Jesus,
Tell Him, “Hey, thanks, I’m ready,”
Eat crepes and see Rodin’s The Kiss,
And bask in the sun of miraculous Paris–
Toes in the Tuileries, toes on the Tower,
Laugh until my sides hurt,
And remember my babies’ faces.
Today is first and last a blessing
To be in Paris with my Molly,
To be in love with life, the Kiss
Ever fixed upon my face,
To see the sun and the Seine,
To celebrate the sacrament of joy.
The Most Crowded Starbucks In the World
Fist fights break out! Tourists scuffle as
Women in bright blue pants strike fast
With pastry trays and unforgiving eyes,
They take chairs from children too weak to cry.
That new journal Molly brought,
The pink one with the Sharpie scribbles
Looks ten years old, looks ancient,
Like Hammurabi’s code, stolen
From the Louvre of my dreams.
The white sugar floats atop cream clouds,
Triumphant in its granular glory,
Sweet cumulus clouds floating
Above blue mountain beans brought to Paris by pirates.
Jean wrote “Brown” on my cup–
Which may or may not be French
For “Ron” in the loudest, most crowded Starbucks
In the world, Starbucks Opéra.
When I die (or leave for Notre Dame),
I will bequeath my treasured chair,
Like Louis XIV, the other Sun King.
We pass down our divinity
With a chair, a table, and two sugars.
lux/cantatio
And there you are, breaking my skyline,
Low puffs and the placid sea—
Morning or evening?
The Silver Sun shimmies free,
Shakes her hips loose, does the Fire Dance
With me.
And there you are, breaking your silence
The wintry frost blinding lucently—
Lark or Whippoorwill?
She sings her symphony
Full-throated, a rhapsody in blue
For me.
Roselawn Memorial Park
My brother Brian is dead
The Half-Brother I never knew,
The son my father would admit to
(The one he loved instead).
He is in the dirt now, more than a year
Has passed since he stopped crying—
The graveside service, the shared umbrella,
My father, his mother, wild with rage and despair.
They hack each other now with whispers, lies and hate,
Denunciations of hope and memories of Brian’s blood.
June 15th, was the razor sure?
The live dissection, the opened veins,
The blood poured out like liquid flames—
Was it sickness, Brian, or a cure?
Extinguished
Your eyes are as eloquent as fists,
But I didn’t need convincing.
Didn’t you notice
The permanent bruise,
The garishly subtle yellow, purple, blue,
Like clown makeup running down,
Covering my heart?
Of course you didn’t.
You were too consumed
By our shadows and the interplay
Of mad desires
To care
Or wonder
Why I always wear a shirt to bed
And do not take it off
Until the light is almost out
And we can lie
Together in the dark.
Mercy
I (alone)
Am badly worn and weary,
Empty and threadbare,
So if tonight
If He is
If He comes for me
Let Him
And let Him come quickly
To close my tired eyes,
Quiet my ragged breath,
And hush my tattered heart.
The Scream
My best friends and I live
In museums.
They never cease
To terrify,
To embolden,
To strike true.
We are all painted black with pain,
Thick layers of dried blood spilling out from frames.
When I am here I am home.
I float and fall
Amidst the strange beauty,
Amidst the limitless horror,
Amidst the sky and the skin of the dead,
Taut against the wooden rack—
Some of them give up and speak their secrets;
Some of us give up and gasp and moan.
I Am Covered Up In Darkness
This morning I am covered up in darkness
And I am trying to remember where the days are longest—
Is it the equator or the North Pole? Either way, I’m moving.
This darkness is the sort that creeps in through your windows and then through your soul
And makes you wish you had a picture
Of your little boy when he still loved you,
And when there was summer,
And when there were days
Without darkness,
The sort that climbs through your windows,
Slips under your covers
And stares at you like an angry lover,
Waiting for you to wake up.
This Morning I Cannot Keep My Eyes Open
Embolus
Jagged, the broken piece of soul
Tumbles loose in my blood,
Floating unseen, like me
Beneath the great chain of being,
Quiet, just below the soil.
Thrombus
I accidentally saw the moon again
And last night
The broken piece of soul was pestilent,
A stabbing hope
Like beauty, a distant dream that mocks my waking tears—
Then wordlessly I am cautioned:
Don’t read, don’t listen, don’t sing, don’t speak.
There was a time once
When I had hoped
To sing or speak,
When the sky was crystal and kissed the blue mountains
Ever visible
But then, back then, there was hope, a whole soul.
Resolved
Heavy-lidded now,
My eyes are closed autonomically to shut out the sorrow
And I am unburdened by hope.
The solace of emptiness covers the broken
Piece of soul
And I slip down into the quiet pool that abides,
The deepening darkness of all our deaths.
I have something hard but important to say
Simmering anger, suffocating in a plastic bag,
A haunting, a glass of deep red.
Change that will not change, the joyless moon
Steps in front of an oncoming train.
april
there’s a Man, stands taller than my house
grows cold red daisies, thorny in my yard.
ask Him not to? He just laughs…
Cold, red daisies,
and the old Man
He just
laughs.