A Sore Heart & Some Poems

Tonight was a very difficult night. It was a difficult night that came after a difficult day. The difficulty comes in navigating society and coming home at the end of the day with one's heart intact. My heart and Its creative and healing visions stood before a firing squad, all the day long. I've been pummeled with rock salt, for crossing over private property (the boundaries between the "personal" and the "public"), just to get to a body of water and drink to quench the thirst of my aching Soul. In a society where I'm strangled by a choke collar in every instance I "tell" my Truth; that since I live for truth, do I expect that sooner or later all breath is squeezed out and I am left for dead???? I DO NOT want that to be true, I do not want that to happen to me!

I pray for the animating force of The Great Goodness and Benevolence to provide me with multiple lives, all lives within this One Life. I have much work to do in this world, and so little time. I pray that all my endeavors are blessed with the miracles of redemption and grace. Here are some poems written late in the year 2014. I feel their applicability in these moments.

(another poem that wants to be a painting)

SOCIOLOGY

a mirror is an oracle the modern human

does not like to consult

in all its honesty

in terror

it is not a place for joy.

I do not know where such courage will come from

to look into a mirror I know will turn to stone.

my medusa heart

housed in whale bone, waits for the image to crack,

it takes some time to become human.

if any animal tried

they could achieve human Being and produce evidence.

“humane” is an adjective, and it is accountable.

In an inescapable room,

the cerebellum

creates mirrors pointed at more mirrors

pointing at the subject of blame

Let us freeze the sunshine today.

Today this soul circus

becomes enlightenment.

We are here now,

this was our destiny.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UNBECOME

all this talk about becoming

develop

build

advance

progress

i regress

take my mind on a trip back into itself

we shall cross the old rivers

railroads tore up by philosophers’ creeds

the whole goddam valley ridged with collapsed tree trunks

unwrapped birth control discs

diaries mostly blank

lists and names and only- the- pennies- are- left pocket change

regress

to what seems like dysfunction

disorder and chaos

little girl loving

just loving

because herself is the whole world.

-------------------------------------------------------------

to the abatement of sudden sorrows or, there is no god----

“ive been here before

and though i am here again,

today not regrettably,

it is me

and not them

it is one and

not two.

sleep is death and i do it every night.

every night before i die, my tears stream out towards nothingness.

i do not care to what or where they go, it is enough to release my waters before dying.

when the blankets are a shroud for a body that was once a baby

put down and left to cry,

before all senses dying to the perfume of cigarette smoke

and television and tinker toy story times

and tomato sauce and noodle lunches

and blue jays and cat-in-the-shrub musicals

and the lap dogs vying for maternal love and getting it,

it was just me, the only Me there ever was.

we all go on our way

following the trail of our tears

back to their source

and sometimes, some of us call that enlightenment.

i do not care if you believe me

or if you think i am the religious one,

for if it were between you and me

i will choose my self”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A DAY’S WORK IN TEARS

im not a poet

i was supposed to be an artist of paint and pen

of canvas, of paper, of wood, of clay

my body is on year six of its grief

and on lucky days

something appears on the canvas

after much strain and neurosis have coaxed out the skinny baby

and the cord has been cut and the placenta bleeds its vision

its blood of the brain

its mucous of the soul

onto what I’ve expected myself to keep and maintain

to feed and to tend

to develop

until i have grown at once into myself, like a rose curling backwards into ----

allah allah

allah ----

god ?

and where did that come from ?

llaha

llaha

llaha----

a glimpse of myself today

and it is a woman crying

for a baby

that is herself torn from the breast

i may never chant god’s name again.

i have never happened to believe in the first place

that it was IT who was finished with me

ive over anticipated survival as success

it just happens

as i continue to show up

one tear at a time

fingers twisted, eyeballs twitching

i will force it out

one way or another

for i pray for the stubbornness

to keep showing up

to do this work

when all other parts of me have left.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on a rainy day

i get my kisses when no one’s looking

i drop in the quarters when he’s not watching the can

i tuck the package behind a screen door, run like lightning

i make the call just to hear his voice, hang up on the fifth “hello”

i study her face while she’s looking out the bus window

together we watch the phone poles strobe and the townies

scoot all trippy-like down water street

and i still miss someone

i been in the back seat once or twice while

lovin on the sunshine

in a dream we were bonnie and clyde

but when i woke dear

i was mistaken

n’ i hung my head n’ i cried

hardly anyone likes me anymore

n’ i cant make anyone happy

its cuz i peel back that dirty veil of fantasy

like a foreskin holdin together broken dreams

it seems this grey sky may ne’er hold a rainbow

o’er the rotting grapes that are the hopes for an Ohio dream

as long as i got a heart bangin on the back door of these loving tits

there’ll be no prerequisite for good karma

its come one, come all

will get in that car

and drive back to Athens, Georgia

and we’ll make some babies and name them after

prophets and ghosts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN THIS MOMENT

she knew id like joey ramone

she knew id buy hightops

and roll my own cigarettes instead of light lucky strikes

she knew id hate some of the things she loved

she knew id prove she was real

and display it like concert posters all over my forehead and my body

she knew id be broken once

twice and many

id break myself with myself

and she knew i would be okay

she gave me haircuts i didnt like

its not cool

the kids laugh at me

she knew i would be quiet and try to escape behind pictures

she knew i would be afraid of sound and bright lights

she taught me how to love the dark

she knew id like the ramones and paint my face like david bowie

in my velvety underground, i sing my songs like ziggy in the stars

and visibly wear all my wars

the kids arent laughing anymore

they all become adults who have dilluded their home

and ran away from nothing to run from

and existentially become their definition of “bum”

this moment i have a crappy haircut i bought. and im sitting here with my kids

typing out my own tune

while my daughter cries for her brother’s attention… a million questions

become a tune

i leave to take a piss

while im washing my hands with tear free soap

i look at my reflection in the mirror

and i love my crappy haircut

i feel my mother in the air today.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MY CORRUGATED BUTTERFLY

two bone hands cupped to drink

life and death

and seeds

minnows tribulating in blood

water cradle

death’s cradle

keep on keeping on

ladle us some stone soup

rifle loaded

my pen exploded

all over this eulogy

for weeping mother

she did smother

her longing in

a doctor’s script

she will rip

a hole in time

her children came through

break on through to

the other side

no where to hide

swimmin in a fish bowl

memories like snow year after year

blinded and left to glow----

onward brave soldier

for I'm goin the distance,

I'm goin for speed

let I play one more tune

on that rusted harmonica.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------