Category Archives: spiritual

Cubbyhole

There’s a place of peace and rest, I think.
In daydreams there are hints.
But lost they are in just a wink,
and leave no fingerprints.

My valley is of rolling green,
with castles in the mist,
and starry glitter nightly seen
as by the heavens kissed.

At torment’s end, forgiveness.
Release from worldly cares.
A pardon’s leave to live in this-
a rarity of airs.

Though just a dream, I hold it fast,
abandoning it never.
In days of present, future, past,
it holds me close, forever.

My Man

hunch up those shoulders
carry that hollow barrel chest
on spindly trembling legs
practice your ghostly motions
stare obscenely out of eyes like yellowed olives
your gates are closed for good
and i stand
holding you up
listening to disconnected mutter
while you piss black tar
dribbling onto the floor
and you say “I’m sorry”
my man
oh my man
there’s a hole in my heart.

if I had a field

If I had a field,
I would not ask for much.
Just so by so by so…

Fences, side on each,
but not contrived.
Along the ell of the dusty path,
evergreens tall and dense.
Shelter for scared drivers in winter’s wrath.
At right angles to the pines,
a long long hedge of beech,
kept in tender trim.

At true north, a vine clad wood,
ivy underfoot and climbing high.
Predators and prey.
Sharp eyed owls,
ravens plotting.
Rising scent of pan sized mushrooms for my plate.
Barbed wire long buried.
Good neighbors that way.

The east wall would not be a wall,
but a salamanders’ creek.
Hinted at, (to one approaching, eyes shaded with a long hand)
by a stand of bulrush and devil’s paintbrush.
Summer’s breed of bugs, food for the lizard-like,
messengers to the flowers of fire.

Walk would I, only,
in this sleepy time of life.
Nothing would I take,
save the proffered mushrooms,
filling my canvas bag.
Or, on a day, perhaps a wild turkey
from the bold and black flock.

And, when I die,
please,
do not burn me up.
Put me, rather, in a canvas sling.
Even an old tent, fallen into disuse.
Prepare my place by the bulrush bank.
Put me in, close, so close, to my Earth.

Bring with you a seedling of mountain ash,
for my field has none.
At the close of day, plant it well, if you can.
This, my marker, will show out where I lie,
and what I loved.

(Image: Pixabay)

Child of grace

Just this morning, Clarice went to coma. In hallways of cottony grey she swims, but not aimlessly. She has shed the displeasures of the flesh, and does not feel, as they slide the needles and tubes into it and make the lungs rise and fall. Only hears, in a fast fade, the pops and clicks and hisses. She knows there will be no visitors for a time.

So small now, with lightness, this sprite of being.
The singularity awaits, the neutron star that holds the knowing. She can touch it, she senses, but waits for divine invitation. In her life of walking, she has been shown but parts of its great story and, in those moments, her friends and kin have turned away and left her in quietness.

And soon, we know now, Clarice will return, and fill the languishing body with a spirit of soft fire. The quietness will stay in her person, and grace will shine. If you are the one to whom she turns her eyes, beware, for she may ask you to walk for a while.

For sad old earth must borrow its mirth

got good at hiding it,
you think.
but, someone will see you,
and they’ll know.
the things you do
that are just a bit, um,
abby normal.
the way you let your lips get dry
then bite on that thin strip of skin.
pull it off.
taste the bitter blood.
encourage that wonky hangnail.
wait for the right moment to yank.
do the red watercolours
somewhere inconspicuous.
let your pain matriculate,
bone deep.
tell no one of this atonement.
connoisseur of cultivated anguish.