Red Sunset

The pic for August, don't ask about July. That month is dead to me.

When what was once
your world is now
a collection of fading
photos in an unmarked
box in the back
of the garage propping
up the broken shelf you
promised to fix when fixing
things was still possible

Do you ever pause
replay the ending?
Was is a slow crack
that gradually rifted
you apart or a swift
shattering that scattered
shards of combined lives?

And now, days and decades
have smoothed and rounded
those memories and a lifetime ago
things that never mattered matter
less, do you wonder if you chose
the wrong adventure?

Me neither

Stronger Through Shedding

June brought this blog post and its pictures to me and the copoet so we each took a stab at what it said to us.  Here's my take, check out her's when you get a chance. 

We mourn the passing 

of those we've loved     

from this world to the next 

we create passage

for their souls 

our pain of missing

burning them as best we can 

into our memories 

promising ourselves to 

never forget 

the tiniest of moments

and at times holding so tight 

to these ghosts

that we cannot move on 

ourselves, held in limbo

afraid to learn what living 

without them means

May Day! May Day!

What are the ways
we choose to prove
that we existed
that we were here
spent time crawling
our way around the globe
spinning years off the calendar
thinning skin and rusting guts

What X marks our spot?
A list of scars etched on foreheads
of your trampled past?
A bundle of poems hidden
rubber banded behind bottom
left handed desk drawer?
A simple, large lettered self chosen
name sprayed on anything that
might momentarily
pause


Inspired by this lovely photo

Tourists

April showers bring super hero pics that the co-poet and I wrote on

Joy spills from between them

flooding the streets

close held hands clasp

the secret that isn't well kept

that we thrive when connected

but our world that spins

information and competition

disconnects and depresses

but a tip of the hat

a smile and a walk

with a friend will

lift

Deepening See

March's picture, The Lost Correspondent by  Jason de Cairs Taylor. 

Silent as if I too were a blank page

still for so long I might as well

have turned to stone with

moss creeping along my

unmoved arm

untouched pen

paper brittling, yellowing

synapses rusting shut

Nothing fires down here

you could have heard me

drown if I had thought to scream

exhaled the deep, that final gasp

words don’t come words don't fill

a mouth a page

cling heavy to an empty echo

these keys, they unlock language

and they create

everything

yet I stare still at them

unable to turn them to any 

true use.

bdr

Let there be...

Diogenes, lantern high, swept

through city streets keeping

daylight at bay looking for

an honest man

Paul Revere riding swift

to hang his lanterns

one if by land two if

by sea

Picture Nancy Drew, lantern

lit slipping silently through

inky hidden tunnels

unraveling secrets

And I, lantern in hand

beating back the black

navigating unmapped woods

unfearing the flitting of

thoughts and memories

Ride

For an alternate view of the same picture check out Shore Sighted 

There is that
brief moment
when my mind
screams,
you have no business being
here.
The breath in my lungs
tells me this is a lie.
The heights I climbed
the depths I've fallen
They contain the same pain
I cannot control the ocean
I cannot control this Universe
smashing its atoms into me.
But I can learn to surf
I can carve out my path through
this crashing of time into space
into me

And you
I see you
spectating, expecting the
failing or falling or flailing
is there in you
some hope of some
last second heroic success?
Hold your applause
as well as your
tongue
paddle out
and ride this life

Come on Everybody do the Renga

A year long poetry project with my co-poet H.  

It was 52 week Renga.

This, the space on the calendar

where the world is cold.

It is dead. It is not reborn

Karmic world spinning

New breath beginning

This, the space between thoughts

where the world is held.

It is open. It is non-existent.

New breath beginning

Karmic world spinning

Seasoned axis shifts

turning new leaves, crumpled sheaves

skirt around ruffled drifts

File old habits like tax forms

be reborn, resolve, recant

Tabula rasa

snowblind from blank page prospects

the space between words

Bear up ponderous silence

be reborn, resolve, recan’t.

Frozen fog

White trees

Silent World

Weighted words hurled without care

Tension breaking deepens the tangle

Hidden sun

Iced breath

Frigid air

Escape blocked unable to flee

stacked on one another adding resentment after...

Iced blocks

Wheels spin slip no grip

Snow angels flounder

Seek to flee cinderblock cells

Thirst for citrus sun

Blue lines confine

Raise hands single file

Where boilers and resentments swelter

Ice revokes recess, closequarterscompress

like mitten-fettered fingers

The man points at dark spots littering the carpet

asks if I know what they are. I do. They are memories

he is here to erase. A hose and soap and they are gone.

Birthdays and dance parties and new puppies

Anniversaries and football games and slumber parties

Boxes and furniture have been packed away, sold or donated

half of it at least. The other half? That isn’t my story to tell.

All that is left is an emptiness to fill a space that was home.

Rooms are silent now no more laughter or tears or dreams

no more playing children or fighting parents

January sits on your ass

grinds your face into snow piles

like juicing a blood orange

Coworkers skitter in and out

of depression like cockroaches

Texts ding like neglected

fast food french fries in boiling oil

cheaper than therapy

February atones with roses, sweets

and foiled promises

Roses are bacon and resentments forgotten

another February Fourteenth runs like

a frostbitten streaker through dark nights

between fights

kisses sprinkled

Tis the time of year

or the reason we’re here

spoiling surprises spilling secrets

Seeing the dark

through pinholes of light

Each revolution ‘round the sun

A revelation in illumination

street lights strobing on a midnight drive

Flash of light. Secret reaper in father’s flesh

more apparent this year than last

Strapped in, gravity pinned

Midway between darkness and light

lock hands tilt and whirl it’s almost over

Daddy don’t let go

Too scared to ride this alone.

And we dance

stumble about the floor

floundering for rhythm

Missing the beat

recounting restarting

And still we dance

forgetting not all of us

believe in the band

Seems I never know the words

on the verge of bowing out

hope no one’s really watching

In here, the clamoring air is too

cluttered for Poetry.

She’s cringing in a cupboard covering her ears

wings mangled, dress rent,

weeping over fragmented metaphors strewn across the floor

In here, we coax

silent moments out

from under beds

desperately murmuring sweet lies

about how they won’t be harmed

In here, I coax

words from

somewhere?

teased pulled

out after struggle

ink tipped fingers

drum tabletop rhythm

killing blank pages

here silence

comes to die

Barber shop cape swirls away

Spotlights dimples freckles baby blues

Ta-da! Oh god we’re in trouble

Liters of soda, “Chug! Chug!”

Playing spin the bottle for hugs

Swimming pool ringmaster circled

by girls who will shortly be filling out their bikinis

teasing grin traps with ease

He tiptoes a middle school tightrope

Oblivious to the drop

Last night

Kerouac and Frost,

they got in a fisfight

On the road

less taken

Empty bottles

spun without

joyful hopes

Scenery

unseen

Scruffy towel spread along the road

yard moonbath ready

blades of Luna light slice

monochrome skin

blanched in night wind

body stretched across

a frigid yard

like bleak verse on bleached paper

Trampled under musing wheels

of an unseeing chariot

Running

on empty

on fumes

on anger

on pain

Running out

of faith

of hope

of understanding

of comprehension

Pioneer Cemetery

wood markers: “Unknown”

gone are days when the dead died nameless

In the present pixels capture

every dispatch to Hear After

Little birds tweet atrocities

Every shard of shrapnel

scattered across cyberspace

Screen light leaves no grave

unmarked, no horrors in the dark.

Gone are those simple

days of

days of before now

We

the walking dead

Cannot seem to

wake shake

this blue screen dream

Where has

the irl gone?

Cognition stripped

gears won’t catch

fire on no cylinders

scorched and

threadbare

beastly burdens

press

obliviate

useful as a

forest Roomba

Twelve steps

ask for one more

I’ll be out the door

Sit

let go

How many dancers

in this tango

two?

Sit

let go

Super Teacher

slashing the six-legged

Ignor-Ant to smithereens

Razor tip of the Power Point

flings four-point-ohs left and write

Uplifting the meek

capering capeless above it all

Suddenly, child’s tears: kryptonite

Can our hero survive

the parent smack-down?

Valleys so deep

the peaks are

still underwater

a hundred percent

isn’t always a hundred

Storms swirl between

tear apart, rend the world

contains seeds of the next

drained

completely

drained

pulled the plug

the schools have migrated to summer waters

breath unfurls to glaze horizons

calendar spaces blur

decadently

unencumbered

days unnumbered

basking adrift

no destination required

They are like

mushrooms

after spring rains

popping up

and open

scattered through

parking lots

bicycles littered around

ah the

sno cone shack

Goosebumps

fear-filled

dimples

Brave smile

on pool’s brink

Mermaid wishes

submerged by

the gravity of physics

Unsure of the outcome

she leaps

The poem spins

halfway through

its  journey

don’t

blink

or you’ll miss

the point

living

stop and

see

We sink sorrows

With summer oars on the pond

in glasses filled with rum and laughter

set aside bodies

that parent

full of shortcomings and goings

We toast joy

With toes tapping by an open flame

Fish leaping in love with our light

And we dance.

Floating

asleep

burning

summertime

pool time

slather

aloe

wince

recharge

recharged

Pink curlers

matching slippers

up since dawn and retired

Hosing down lawn edges

fighting sidewalk scorch

Trying to snag joggers

in conversation

even eye contact

wilted by heat

and loneliness

I could have

the Sunday Ticket

If I didn’t

Have to water

the damned lawn

I could have

more time

to write

Have to mow

the damned lawn

Mom shuffles

stumbles

grips edges

chains of age

hobble, imprison

knees shot

lungs murky

heart groaning

I run

bloodhound genetics on my trail

Time

Speeds up

Summer’s shorter

When I was a kid

I thought it would last forever

Blink

It’s gone

Vacation’s missed

When I was a kid

I thought it would last forever

Luxury is fleeting

Summer days snuggle daze

All squandered

Calendar’s gravity

Weighs heavy

Tiny hands soft cheeks

Entrusted elsewhere

Days that should be mine

Providing security

At what cost?

Heavy heated days

linger ending August

summer sighs to an end

But

Football!

Soon, too soon

raking replaces

mowing

But

Football!

Days

flash

past

Whoosh

Gone

Blink

time

flashes

Whoosh

Gone

Not always

on track

But

We

try

And sometimes

a break

needed

we 

try

Thrashing

daily depths surge, shift

nothing solid for miles

head tipped back

grasping and gasping

The links we weave

surround, subsume

twining fingers in friendly mesh

we rise, caught

in nets of love.

Arrogance

Ego

?

Your wounds

you won’t allow to heal

How dare

I

treat you

as you

treat others

Chafing wounds

Borne under skin

Born of disuse and distance

Rubbed raw

Absence made the heart grow crabby

Grab hands

Take off

Hours, miles uninterrupted

Words flow like balm

And heal.

Disrupted

broken

flow

take time

to heal

depleted

empty

flown

take time

to recharge

Like a trail of plastic eggs

And rabbit tracks

Or Kringle signed notes and half eaten cookies

Like tip of tongue tastes

Sampling lower now lower

The writer spools out

Delicious fictions

Lapped up

We're left wanting

Once upon a time my lines

flowed furious from fingertips

but

now

stagnant

and

frozen fevers fry furrowed

brows that once held no lines

now

write!

The skin

Of my teeth

Is damn threadbare

Repetitive woes. Can't stomach

my own broken record

One

More

Weak

Teeth skin

Don't fail me now

The skin

of my forehead

left on the same brick wall

Repeatedly trying to

smash through

another

damned

week

This wall goes

or I do

November

do-over

Fall back and regroup

Beards and blankets

Beckon for snuggles

A furring of the edges

Soup spoons

Scoop away October’s jagged teeth

A deep breath

Before the truth of winter hits

Tea steeps in the mug

vanilla hints in the air

sweetness on my tongue

Fall has

chilled

Bones a year older

already pine for summer

when feet can be free

Fall has

frozen

Hey could you…

When you have a sec…

Why haven’t you…

Bending over backward

a torrent of whining bullets

Hey mom…

That’s not fair!

Why does he get to…

Self-imposed cleaning spree

this I can control.

What family is,

that idea,

is crashing

outward

growing

into something

that cannot

be defined

and perhaps

should not

Once rivals

Now teammates

Shoulder to shoulder aligned

Courtside strategizing

Panting, plotting, playing

Set the screen

Alley-oop

Sinks it

In sync

family

Slowly spinning

to an

end

The year

exhausted

Empty

of

drive

The body

exhausted

Awkwardly they lean

arms outstretched

tipped heads

Shy smiles belie

Mid-school-cool

Teacher gifts

goodies and gift cards

pale forms of love

Next to teenage hugs

radiant cracks in the armor

Threats of

you better be

Good

or else He

won’t come

Endless whines

of

I want!

greed vs

giving

Calendar spaces

Filled with exes

Stains on the rug of the year

Cut it up.

Resentful jitterbug

Spin, shift, twirl

cast a cold light

burn old, reveal new

Karmic world spinning

new breath beginning.