One o’clock silence
while other children slept
wandering on gravel-laden tiptoes
to enjoy swing-sets alone
To make haste under the whooshing
quiet of white-hot solar systems
Enjoying bad afternoon television
while air-conditioners roared.
(for Read.Write.Poem.
I am tasting a freshly painted house
As I brush my teeth before bed.
A gentle brown, warm, chocolate.
I smell clean carpets and possibility.
Prospects of what could be in a given space.
I am thinking of vacations and beaches
Aquariums, museums and big ships
Big enough for me to spit off of.
Water running out around me
Like it comes from me
And that water is an ocean
And I am the heart of the world.
I feel drafts on my skin from open windows
And feel sunlight on my toes
Feel home on my nose
And see books ordered just right
Which means I am on my couch.
I think of might-be greens and summer wind
Small places to hide small trinkets
Cupboards in a blossoming kitchen
Rivers of might-be all around me
Stories waiting for telling and
Yearning for the hesitation that says
“Waiting until the time is right is best.”
(for Read.Write.Poem.)
For mere seconds, parked
Three crossed the median, laughing
Gathered in friendship, traveling.
These are my friends reflected in others.
My eyes realized these existed, other people’s friends.
I watched people drive from intersection to intersection
First car, a fight
Second car, someone singing
Third car, a phone conversation
It is not often that life not mine is so clear to me
Windows long shaded now open
Clouds over mountains passing
Words long gibberish, made known
(for Read.Write.Poem.)
Sigils of sound
Grafted onto molecules
Lovely music make
(for Read.Write.Poem.)
The best representation of the Republicans I’ve seen in months. Yes, I’m a hater…
Was a time when moonlight would tempt me,
Move my heart and grip me,
Under moonlit waves of night and wind
I’d dream of ancient lore.
Then, thought and information mounded
Within the path of knowledge rounded,
And ever I did learn that more was life
And life was more.
Take from this what you will, but came
A certainty without a name,
And from it a doubt and suspicion
That gripped my spirited mind.
Once, I longed for white-winter maidens
And gods with heads all horn-laden
And wanton dreams of powers
Reaching out beyond all time.
My brain was sorted and reordered;
My mind was soothed for further borders
And I lost my faith in things unseen
And far less profound.
Came a day when gods abandoned,
And my heart felt nearly ransomed
Until I looked into the sky
To see the glowing round.
A floating stone, a massive rock
In tidal and earthly gravity lock
Shining nightly and for seasons
And explored by men like me.
What left is there to know and learn
When all the superstitions burn
And left I am with only reason?
I’d say eternity.
(for Read.Write.Poem.)
(from Suburband Panic)
We’re going to illustrate a common misuse of evidence by resorting to one of my favorite rhetorical tropes: the television police procedural, or the Law & Order example.
The tough but secretly sensitive detectives of Law & Order: Zoo Patrol are on the case. A rare primate, a librarian orangutan, has been found murdered in his book-filled enclosure at the Manhattan Animal Sanctuary. The orangutan was recently acquired by the zoo, after he was confiscated in a raid of an illegal animal smuggling ring.
Giving in to all deviation
Straying from my own path
Clearing the brush of the overgrowth
Wandering down poorly lit corridors
Undulating microwave egregiousness
And a sense of blasting wonder
Pulling back the scales of days
Passing under moons not terran
Yielding only to the way things never were
Leaving all past for futures unfettered
Blessed are the lost
Blessed are the scraped knees
Blessed are the feet over cobble stone streets
Foreign even to themselves.
Gather up your roses
And that vase from your last venture
Step out into amber lights and velvet midnights
Embed your mind in its unknowingness
Concentrate on what you have not to do.
(for Read.Write.Poem.)
Joys and fluttering hearts and giggles
I get from hearing about other people’s husbands;
About how they kiss them on the neck in the morning
Or how they exhibit comedic timing exceptional.
Winks, a wet eye. All vicarious.
And day wandered thoughts about when I will have it
For myself, so I can tell stories
How he refuses to sit anywhere but near a window
Or where he wanders off to when he’s lonely
And how he always comes home to me sitting up, waiting.
How he plays guitar better than well
And how we often talk about taking a band on the road.
Yelling over dishes
Crying over commercials
Heating up leftover lasagna and having a night in.
Tales of triumphs over ourselves while the other holds on
Hands clasped tight around each other’s hands
Talk of what he reads, and what secrets I can’t tell.
Getting along with his parents, and Christmas with mine.
(for Read.Write.Poem.)
…eats bugs.
