Poetry Archive

Here are some poems I wrote for the joy of playing with words and the good of growth: 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
A ceiling fan is never enjoyed even with eye contact and happy sighs.
Not ever in the same way as
after the hours the power was out,
the days you didn’t have one at all,
and the week it groaned and clicked relentlessly.
 
It’s not as if there is one last joyous moment before the amputation.
No, what is needed is
gratitude like an oracle,
thankfulness with the foresight of the blind,
and the imagining of things as they are not, in order to be best well with things as they are.
 
 
Hold one black paper up to the sky for the smartest rainbows.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
When Water Does Not Work
What to do with the paintbrushes covered in oils?
And the accidentally-purchased dry clean clothes?
And if the baptism doesn’t take?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
It is fitting to trace my life as she cradles her beloved’s.
It is finishing to cherish my moments
with the same persistence of need and fox-tail of longing
to, to somehow complete the beauty by looking, caging, sharing, noticing, capturing, pointing.
She caught at it. The paths she walked have prints of her heels catching.
My paths show smooth steps: the orange dirt bears signs of pacing.
Moments are immortalized in gratitude.
Life is made full in praise.
 
And
the lace of the waves is such that you couldn’t and wouldn’t set needle to it,
each swirl of cloud or cream resists record.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
My most beloved cognitive error:
a mouth full of strawberries, life was always sweet.
Ecclesiastical knowledge
windows upon windows:
something to it.
Have grace when you turn your back on the breeze
to hold hands with the wind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
I don’t read much poetry because I don’t understand it.
I only write some to try my hand at
the Hemmingway truth.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If god isn’t real and prayers land on the ceiling (1)
 
If god isn’t real and prayers land on the ceiling,
well what can we say is worthwhile and weighty?
If pastors are just pasters of posters of propaganda on all those old poles patched
with scraps of corners and rusty stapled marks of other flyers,
what will stand solid staying top-side-still in the sifter?
 
 
If god isn’t real and prayers land on the ceiling (2)
 
If god isn’t real and prayers land on the ceiling,
my quiet heart yet offers worthy pebbles:
stone that does not break and gem that does not ignore.
The worn-old quilt of henna hands, blue white beads, and doorway scrolls
is soft and keeps life.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
We climbed the nooked stairs up to the terraced top.
There in the corner were two boys with smiles and guitars.
Coming out of their chests were long pieces of red yarn.
As they played a neighborhood tune, the large party to their left picked up a piece
and held it loosely as they sang along for good times.
The rest of the strings remained on the floor.
I picked one up and plugged it to my heart.
Oh the connection was good: tin cans formed
and the vibrations began to flow like a looping hand, back and forth.
My red strand was a quiet, small, brave thing to do.
but what (joy)!
Why were the other lines left on the unfeeling ground?
I picked up more and fixed them in.
The smiles increased, the warmth glowed, the music took off with the night.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
mothers sigh for sitting on counters and kitchen floors
wives, for long drives and the freedom to be careless with their selves
 
and the others sigh for sighs of wanting a body reclaimed
they wait to wish for time alone
eager for the struggles of a future un-had
yet enjoying the always-ripening-and-spoiling avocadoes that sit
undisturbed on their cool, clean counters
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
Running, mostly walking in the sudden thick wetness.
Swollen hair in tubes, snake tails in mud,
fibers expanded, held around the wine bottle that is life and sweat running through
and also forming up
all sky, all ground, connected in permanent rain structures.
The form molded in white plastic and flip-upside-down-able,
puddles to clouds: modern columns, mist to surface: lined points to spin around
This world sensibly keeps the clouds’ lighting to ease the hollow plastic into Comfort and Depth.
 
But really, it’s a large red rain jacket on warm skin and bare feet slipping by the front door.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From where they swim in the depths below
to points where wings segment the wind,
all these creatures high and low
know we each, together, have sinned.
Yet let us not forget to tell
of trails light and bolstered, even unpinned.
And may we remember just as well
How goodness can be twinned:
 
Eyes must open       to receive sight
Touch the earth       to know heaven
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
I left home to taste what was good, and to test for good what was home.
I changed zipcode and standards, clothing and cultures.
I swallowed ice cream for breakfast, forbidden bottles for lunch.
Even so – even the distance and difference being full – I hadn’t left.
Home is where the mind is; mine still bound by such only ways.
Eventually, I suppose I did leave.
Because now I know I have no interest in my spot at the lunch table.
But what if the odds are bizarrely in my favor and
home is where the heart actually is?
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
the rubbish parade marches the town every day
useless news-crumbles roll down rusted cement alleys
empty gray-sand wet-spotted streets
 
the rubbish parade is all flash and bright
uniforms: great glowingly eggy sunset-cream with blood stripes
boots: all crisp, deep knockware (as if that were necessary)
 
the rubbish parade marches right, and right, and right, and right
a caravan of gleaming trash in wagons, saturated recycles on trays
the alone-one audience of a girl doesn’t even like them
 
she says she doesn’t care to watch as her cheers bounce askew off the tinways
there she is
see her as they pass by?
there she is.
 
every time.
well, most times
one time she was muted by glory-brightness
on a different street, of course
she has seen other streets you know
better streets
streets with pink slender ones filing by and
others with wide-eyed brown boys dancing through
but there she is, right there, do you see her?
she’s there and they’re there
the rubbish parade dins on
and her wooing is the flat eye-shine; the reflected stale march
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The meals she liked best had to be forced,
though the poison was gulped in seconds (and thirds.)
One portion of posture practice with mind-numbing nothingness,
but that Blessed Woman ate no food when the mouse was around!
What a waste of non-empty that would be.
 
She sharpened herself by measuring back to back with the giant. It’s not all rot and spoil.
God help the pleasure-seeking vortex of a girl.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -