June 2020 – Aremyfeetofftheground

Pillow talk

When you lay down,

tears no longer fall,

but they pool

in the cups of your eyes.

Sky pilot

Lay prone
in the hammock of home.
No drink, no smoke, no drug.

Let the blue loom of the sky
seep its dye, so sterile, so dope.

Great is its storied fresco.
Rest easy that it waits for you.

Grown up

Kid I was
when Dad got my nose
showed how to take your thumb apart
Oh, and the trick
with the hats and cigarette butts

How to worm a hook
Bought a poetry book
Must’ve seen my look

Told me I must be a man
Face the bullies
Have a plan

Double up that fist
Let ‘em have it!

Yeah

Dust bunnies

Taken-
the combings of years,
of minutes and seconds.
Sift and sieve,
this sultry eve.
What’s fallen,
plasmic,
into dream hands,
begs of wonder,
of worship,
and tastes
of regret and forgiveness.

Itchy & scratchy

Burdock socks

are what I have,

a-clinging to my sleepy feet.

Everything, and the kitchen sink

* Mental health triggers, suicidal ideation*

God. You know, I’m just washing dishes, feeling useful and kind of self-satisfied. Haven’t dropped anything or cut myself, even though the bothersome cat is weaving around my legs. I swear- if he had a ball of yarn, I would have been a coccoon by now.

See, it’s the third week of withdrawal from a particularly nasty medication, and I’m thinking I have aced it. Not too bad, not too bad. There’s a cast iron frying pan with some baked-on crusty stuff, and so I run the water very hot and start leaning into it with the old scrub brush. I’m even thinking that this is good exercise, when the destined vapours rise up to me… the singular smell of fried mushrooms. [Me, at twelve, tagging along with Dad, picking them in fields and ditches, once getting chased by bulls] [Mom, frying them up in her iron pan, the whole house smelling delightful]

And, God dammit, I cry. I rattle dishes and run the water faster to help stifle it. And I think of missed things and squandered chances for love. And I let this self-pity pool into something worse, and I think what is the freaking point of trying to get clean and well? It’s not as if there are more memories to make, more chances to unsquander my wasted life.

And at last, to myself: “You’ve made a mistake, bud. Better go back to the upswing with those meds.” Because I see myself hanging from a tree like those men they found, and I take it to the logical conclusion of worrying about last testaments and burial arrangements. That’s what it does. That is what it does.

And so, tomorrow, we find out what we are made of.

Be my Witch

You must be my Witch
In the day, you are as plain
as day
I think you don’t see me
Maybe you think I don’t see you
but I am good at eyes
Always in your greys and tans and flats
Shiny swinging hair
Bottle goggles to discourage the shallow
You glow
from the feathers of my pillow.

Once, in a lullaby

At night, the Ghost,
she sang to me
in a seeming lullaby.
I listened very carefully
and her words they made me cry.

She told me you will wait for me
as long as I can bear
this lonely life of reverie,
this heaviness of care

Shown was I your happy face,
your painful weathers gone.
Your sorrow soothed, and in its place
your spirit brightly shone.

Then, in the morning, I awoke
upon the stroke of seven,
remembering well the words she spoke
of one who dwells in heaven.

Dirty birds

Down here, tonight,
on the green ground,
it’s quiet and still,
vacuumed.
I look up, by chance,
to test for rain.
The darkening clouds sail,
like a float of smoke.
A diamond of dirty gulls
rides the breeze, like flying M’s,
and I fancy I feel feather fluff
and whoosh of wings

Dramaturge

I was one for Drama,
but the frame was the thing.
I wanted only to be
the swelling strings,
the muted xylophone,
the kettle drum tympanic.
I would whip the most mundane
into the unforgettable.
Make you think your sadness
into music.
All in allegory
of our mad desires.