and this day has a nevermind feel
the soulful king is full of regret
~hands off~ he knows
watch those whispers
for they betray
the teabag tumbles
in morning mumbles
do not touch the lingering cat
he’s spiny
he’s moony
he knows, too
this boat floats with just a whistle
***
Oh you,
by the window-
all metaphor and innuendo.
Granny fists at the ready
to cauliflower my ears,
to pummel my donkey resoluteness.
And I say Why Don’t You Make Me?
~More malleable~
***
In sleep,
the slowing heart,
the forgetful lungs
speak of an unwanting…
a stepping down,
a recoiling
and return.
When I was alive,
you quickened in bright crimsons.
When I was alive.
(Image: Wasan Tita/Shutterstock)
Bubbles are venous
in the red river’s valleys-
oxygenated.
Bare of snow and ice we were
In the winter’s dwindling days
And we marked upon the calendar
The season’s changing phase
Eager things poked up their heads
To test the springtime air
Some colour in the flowerbeds
To grace a fairy’s hair
But the sun, it paled, as iron dull
And windy came the cold
And liveliness was in a lull
In the garden’s chilly mold
Bereft of cheery focuses
We sat within the grey
The cruelty of coaxed crocuses
The frost had done away
Diamond rain upon us now
It froze to every tree
Power wires were weighted down
In the darkness we would be
The wind at last abated fast
But the dullness and the cold
Recalled our bones to winters past
And jeered at summer’s gold
Once more there came upon our door
A storm of last betrayal
‘Twas April’s cruelest paramour
‘Twould upon our hearts prevail.
***
Today, a brightness lit my room
Awaking me from slumber
Gone were clouds of sullen gloom
And there were birds without a number
The layer cake of ice and snow
That covered all the land
Was giving way, as water flowed
Down drains choked up with sand
The sadness of the icicle
As it lost its winter weight
‘Twas dripping on the bicycle
Forgotten by the gate
And me, I felt a little thrill
And the windows I would open
And though there’s still a little chill
The winter’s spell is broken.
***
Image is from Pinterest
In the wet of dream
she rides on the rocking horse,
gloves the mast of sleep.
Give me the undercurrents
and not the shiny shallows.
The math of founding harmonies,
dark forests in their hallows.
***
Daguerreotype is the day,
ancient as I drive.
Beside me she is a ghost,
and I can’t speak to the veil-
the closed idiom of her soul.
Or
I am the ghost
and have simply lost the language
to this often-paved way.
***
They got into the car just the same, even though this was a frivolous trip. Even though she knew his silences sometimes lasted the whole way. Today, though, was a study in differentness. It was his averted eyes, his apparent focus on an imagined point just a few feet away or in the upside-down.
She moves to make small talk but it catches in her throat, knowing that it usually elicits impatience and forced responses, and fearing what it might bring today.
“Why did I make him go? What is wrong?”, she thinks. “I can’t stay quiet. I’m just not that person. No. Not alone, with only my own thoughts.”
They cruise, and he disinfects his hands at alternate stop signs. She pats his knee, leaves her hand there. A hundred, a thousand times this road has known them and been peppered with their tire treads.
“Nick, let’s go home, okay?”…in a voice more coquettish than pleading.
But he drives on, comes to the traffic lights which flash alarmingly as if cautioning against any further advance.
“What’s the way, Beth?”
“Nick, what’s wrong? You know the way.”
“Beth, I can’t. I’m sorry. You need to show me.”
And she cries.
As we spoke
a wing, long broken,
fell off inside of me,
unnoticed as a leaf.
I stepped out of sheep’s clothing
and flaunted a love.
And my arms,
oh my arms
swelled in strength
to have
and to hold.
***
Aremyfeetofftheground 