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.
