Tag: Poetry

• Napowrimo 6

  Somehow I stopped seeing it
  As the park where we went 
  The day we spent together
  When it seemed you needed company
  
  Or the park where I sat
  As a sandbox philosopher
  Immortalized in my yearbook 
  I never got the photo back
  
  Or the park where I would run
  To let off steam not to be a kid again
  But to swing on the swing set
  As an arrested thirty something
  
  Today I sat on the see saw 
  And saw all of that and breathed
  Beside a new you and a new me
  Where you can live even though you’re gone
  
  And I can live with someone who loves me

  April 6, 2019

  Poetry

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• Nanowrimo 5

  And in that year of hospitals 
  And waiting room magazines
  And box cutters following me through the supermarket 
  And the voices on the TV altered to alert my insecurities
  And the anxiety of a window 
  And waking up countless times not waking up
  And thinking I had really only died that first night
  And never took a breath again after the opening darkness
  And all the world was waiting for death
  And I was holding up the line blocking the path
  And I was the destroyer of worlds the trees infinite and never returning from their eternal winter
  And pounding on flesh and car ceiling to restart the universe 
  And waking to think she might be out there somewhere
  And only to wake a year later knowing she was gone 
  And I was the only one who could put it right
  And knowing I failed I could not help but start again
  And love was the answer to death again just the same

  April 5, 2019

  Poetry

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• Napowrimo 4

  Sometimes it takes 
  Losing a friend
  To remember the friends
  You still have
  Are waiting at the end
  Of the line and a long
  Journey you had no idea
  Was happening without you
  To take a few moments 
  To be present to be there
  And know that somewhere 
  Between the two of you
  Though distance may distant
  And time may run away 
  Despite the fact of loss
  That things are good 
  Very good indeed

  April 4, 2019

  Poetry

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• Napowrimo 3

  Your daughter collected fallen petals from the tree 
  The night you were too tired to move
  We had to gather them all she said before they were gone
  
  Another day she walked the backyard saying she was sad
  The tree had died but was grateful for its life
  She seemed to already know so much of loss
  
  Much more than you when I said I loved you 
  After we held each other’s bodies the first time
  You said you hardly know me and I said I know you well enough to know I love you
  
  It was all I could say when you yelled at your parents for no apparent reason
  And your daughter implored you to remember
  How she fell asleep singing your worth
  
  It wasn’t enough all that could not be said
  When your mother sent the message you had died
  I paced the house looking outside the window at the trees
  
  Each petal had fallen and returned to where it had come from
  But once again I was lost losing you
  And I would be lost a long time to come

  April 3, 2019

  Poetry

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• Napowrimo 2

  The journey begins with a death
  An uncontrollable heart rate 
  And labored breathing if any
  Wheeled out into the too warm autumn sun
  Thinking it’s been a mistake
  That you were faking it
  Because you are a really good liar 
  And nothing is as it seems
  You’ve been inflicted with imposter syndrome
  You can’t answer your students simple questions 
  Even those on the verge of depression
  Instead you think it’s a cold 
  You’re taken to the emergency room 
  A good excuse to not teach the next day
  And they give you a shot of Ativan 
  Which you remember your friends taking in grad school
  When like you they have a pile of papers waiting to grade
  And you go home but hours later
  You’re shaking knowing you’re going to die

  April 2, 2019

  Poetry

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• Napowrimo 1

  Because death could not be beaten
  I beat death at its own game
  
  A conversation at the top of the stairs
  In the middle of the night
  
  With a figment of the response 
  To 20th century devastation
  
  Personified as a humble pastor
  Saying there’s been a lot of death going on
  
  But what if we beat death at its own game
  And that was when my brain knew
  
  Though still addled with delusions
  Of seroquel and catatonia 
  
  That despite the fact that I was the cause
  Of everyone around the world dying
  
  God was saving every single soul
  In a million tiny bubble acts of stealth
  
  That nothing can separate us
  Even a burrowing tunnel leading to the glow
  
  Of a television snake eating its own tail
  From the love that shuts our eyes in sleep
  
  At the end of a long naked journey
  That can only bring us back to where
  
  We started in silence and ended smiling whole

  April 1, 2019

  Poetry

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• Winter Spring

  Do not be dismayed, my dear
  By delay of this spring winter equinox
  For snow may keep us lost among the drifts
  Or perpetually covered in love’s enormous gifts
  That never decay nor melt nor barren tundra
  Become what was or what may never will be
  Let us love as we have known was in our power
  The love that first caused atoms to collide
  And brings us here to this imperfect perfect place
  Wherein time’s face shows us eternity’s gaze
  For trees though bare still breathe into the stars
  And ghosts of winters past give echo moan
       Our love still warms through even powerless power
       And molecules collide with every breaking waking hour

  March 20, 2018

  Poetry, Sonnet

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• Catatonia

  Will eternity be made entirely 
  of water or of sand? 
  
  When I was barely hanging on 
  burrowing into the center of the earth 
  
  to find the ouroboros had already 
  been there and devoured 
  
  my tail I could have sworn 
  the rain outside harbingered 
  
  a flood of the end times 
  when all the while the world 
  
  was renewing itself and I 
  had only a few more ordeals 
  
  to endure before I came out 
  the other side until then 
  
  I stared into the frosted cubes 
  of glass and cycled through 
  
  my memories to safety.

  April 24, 2017

  Poetry

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• Tear Me Down

  I tried to build a bridge
  out of the wall that kept falling 
  
  apart and reassembling itself 
  over and over like a broken record 
  
  but it turned out there was no need 
  because all around us was only 
  
  undifferentiated matter and not even 
  a gulf of polluted water to traverse 
  
  we could make do with a leisurely stroll 
  or a tin can apparatus to communicate 
  
  even sending photographs to be developed 
  on the laundry line out the window 
  
  But when the music breaks and confetti 
  litters the stage like our tears down our face
  
  all I know is the recognition that we experienced 
  the same as we together sobbing embrace.

  April 24, 2017

  Poetry

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• Unicorns Aren’t Real

  And that’s that
  No you can’t 
  turn around 
  
  in this drive thru
  We’re all going 
  in one direction 
  
  and that’s towards 
  a sour sugary grave 
  topped with whip 
  
  and pink powder 
  taste the rainbow
  and synergy of 
  
  a billion billion 
  Instagram posts
  that no one will ever 
  
  get around to liking 
  only silently tagging
  themselves slurping

  April 21, 2017

  Poetry

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