sometimes staying in bed or just disappearing
feels like a better option
than one more pull on the bootstrap
or half-hearted acknowledgement
of just how silver the lining really is.
we are tired.
it does not seem fair that while children are starving
simply because they are not our own
and people around us are ailing and dying
simply because its “part of being alive” –
that we should have to also put up
with some hack job politic or crumby job
or even a hurt of our own.
we are really that tired.
i’m hoping it will be okay someday
for you to tell me how broken you are
and for me to just hold you
without trying to fix you
or telling you how fortunate you really are.
and i am hoping that once we have all admitted
we are worn to the bone
by all this busy-ness of being alive
we can go back to feeding people
simply because they are hungry
and caring for people
simply because they are ill.
i’m not sure there is much more to figure out than that.
maybe feeding and caring
would be enough to change the world.
Tag Archives: poetry
Sunrise
Your death is an angry wasp –
a hungry bear –
desire turned on it’s side,
blue.
I always wanted to tell you
something meaningful like god.
As if words could summon a heart –
a tiny rainbow of hope –
taking its cue
from some other side.
You were a Diva who understood dying
well before you were sick.
I was a poet
who traded my name for numbers
and lost my death
in a life half-lived.
Both of us always running
to beat our own lovely fall.
Your falling was a quiet farewell –
no more talking our way out of this one.
I said good-bye like a broken drum
while you commanded that heart to stop.
It seems we are both still trying to speak –
Me – a mad pen, tired bones, an ache –
You, a deplorable sunrise
another moon
the light.
#64
when i reached for the moon and fell out of the crib i was moved to lower ground. when i fell out of the tree and broke my ankle i said who likes tree climbing anyway. when i wrote a poem and you said it moved you i thought i could write forever. then forever became a mighty long time and somewhere i decided it was maybe better not to reach. or to climb or to write. because what if with falling or breaking or resting i could no longer move you? and what if not doing means not being? and what if the climber leaps?
#61
#60 for sarah
in the evenings, when even the bones are tired and every bit of energy that could be conjured has been - there is still a young rapper in his room - discovering the magic of words - and another boy, taking a vacation from the wonders of the cosmos and finance to play a video game with a friend. the noises are absolute. my dog curls up like a pinto bean - his big ears on alert. something inside me hungers. so much of a day spent doing remains undone until the heart has had her chance to rumble. the fingers their chance to skip across the black pavers - at last awake.
#52
when they forgave me - for words i had not spoken - i hurried to use my voice again, for forgiveness's sake itself. before i changed for the better, i broke things. a stampede through time unaware of the china - a hurricane of doubt in a trusting heart - oblivion on top of indifference - and the tiny riot of fear. people said come back - there is room here - in-between the pictures you left, are all these blank pages upon which to show you care.
#40
Forty is a magic number like 7 and 11 and 13. Forty is when you are closer to fifty that you are to twenty and you just cannot believe it. It is also when mean people start to not matter and your real friends show themselves and your occupation is only part of who you are. It matters who you love when you are forty - because you realize you may be half way home or on the back nine or however you say to old to screw around anymore. It matters who loves you back now also - more than it did before - because who has time anymore for half-assed love affairs and broken promises and the greatest insult of indifference? Forty is great because you really start to care about things that matter - differently than you could when you were thirty - and you've lived enough life to simply reply "because i said so" when someone asks you why. At 46, I'm thinking 'hells to the yeah' just watch me put in some crest strips and hit Facebook - i'll write a poem all about the life.
#38
sometimes people ask you a question and then get mad at you because they don't like the answer. sometimes you give someone your trust and they give you back a knuckle sandwich. sometimes you think every little thing is a-okay in the world and then you wake up. sometimes it hurts to laugh and feels good to cry and you have to ask am i little crazy? someone who really loves you will say "no."
# 36
they say all is fair in love and war and i think that's a bunch of malarkey. like how with love - there are so many more catchers than there are pitchers, its nearly impossible to get a game going. from the bleacher i want to just yell Throw the fucking ball! Hurl it! because i think eventually someone will show up with a mitt. i know it looks easy to say from where i'm sitting - sharing a bag of seeds with my prince - but i'll be damned if love won't break your fall if you jump. i have always known that i am not afraid of heights. what i am afraid of is jumping.
#34
my friend Louise is little and cute and i call her loulou because of it. also she is a quiet somewhat sneaky sort of artist who splashes you with her art instead of drowning you in it. i admire that about her - how she treads lightly, slinks into a room unassuming, but with a smile that changes how the light rests. loulou is one of those people i think who would never expect a poem but who sees the poetry everywhere - in everyone. "you don't need to rhyme" she tells the moon, "no iambic pentameter needed here" she assures the daisies - "just speak" she whispers "all your secrets are worth sharing".
#31
the rain is back this time like a no nonsense bag lady collecting hours and their passing. i wanted to say something important today but there was turkey and cranberry mold funeral potatoes and green beans crispy onion, corn and cream - plus cookies and cake and pie. that shut me up like a million lazy minutes and all i could say was thank you. when we decide to age together and i mean really age - without all the trying - i hope you will remember that i am cute.
#25
for my birthday i got
a belt of cellulite
a bag of popcorn
and tickets to hear the stone foxes.
nobody told me my ass would drop
or the fine lines on leaves
would fail me
or that it would be my choice.
if it werent for the way you danced
i might have blamed it all on age.
#24
tonight i am listening to a cello concerto on a vintage garage sale turntable i scored for twenty bucks. last night - a law and order re-run. tomorrow - maybe cake. it's easier not to be perfect. people think if you are happy all the time there must be some lack of depth - as if only misery or worry or grief could be measured against the truth. i think happy is an unmeditated reprieve. a joy for something not forgot. a joy for escaping the narrows. i see how we wear our hearts on our faces. "mine is broken" or "love me" or "yes." and then how we do all these other things to pretend they are saying something else.
#20
sometimes grief comes out of left field dressed like an angry bird. steals your sack lunch - makes a mess of things. i try to hold your despair like walls down an unlit hallway, feeling my way through the dark to your heart.
#19
I cannot tell if everything is sailing or sinking - whether what feels like rain is food for the plants or floods in the making. there is so much half and half about this living - how i'm certain good will win over then terribly worried others won't get the memo. i try to take a few deep breaths a day, pausing to remember how we are loved. most of the time it is quietly - in ways we cannot know.
#18
i took a break today from caring too much. ate grilled cheese and onion rings at the same meal - mixed the colors and whites in the washing machine - turned off the ringer on a work day. i asked once, when the sun hit my cheek - as if it were July and not November - how to be useful, even in the midst of trying not to care. there was never a time when i did not feel lucky. i like to watch people come and go in a certain hurry - as if they too could forget the things that really matter. it's impossible though, to take your heart outside of something. it just stands there beating "i see you" "i see you" "i see you."
#17
there was a time when all i could think of was how to be more in love with you. then all that loving made others things to love - so many in fact, that all i could think of was how to be more of myself somehow. now i am just thinking about how to be enough - and kind. and also how it is possible to want something so bad, with everything that you are, and not get it. and still know that somehow it is enough to just be enough and kind.
#16
i wanted so much to be proud of who we were becoming but when things didn't go my way i was furious. angry at the world irate at people i love mad even at the sun for shining its "haven't-a-care-in-the-world" kind of shine - today of all days. then i remembered a promise i made myself one time long ago - when words really mattered. always no matter what i will look for the light. always no matter what i will find a way home.
#15
sometimes it is better to say less or nothing or zip. i am wondering at the petunias and how the marigolds may fare in the spring next year at your house.
#14
today is the end of something. we all know that, holding our breaths, hoping we win. and i am thinking about the other people, who aren't thinking about elections and polls and emails and pussy. the ones who are looking for an empty doorway or a couple hits left on a butt in a gutter or something warm. i am not thinking about them because i am good but because i am sorry. i am so very sorry.