This Fog Called Time (For Rachel’s 20th Birthday)

This fog called time

tricks us into thinking

we’re safe on dry land

only to blow away 

and reveal we’re really

only standing

on a cliff.

Time sings an

impatient, demanding melody

that everything is urgent

and everything must be addressed

now!

but then time plays that record

backwards,

revealing a hidden message

that lulls us into

thinking

that more days will come,

just as easily and predictably

as all the days before,

as our very next breath.

Raechy, I know

I’m just your

old man,

so I while I know you

and love you,

my first instinct

is to watch out

for you,

and keep you safe.

So,

I’m just asking

that before you run out

into this profane and

pulsating world,

please,

look both ways. 

[Written for Rachel's 20th birthday and for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com - my home away from home for poetry on the internet.]

Keep Moving Forward

Hey!

I'm talking to you:

all of you
who spill their seed
onto expectant blank sheets
and then try to sop up
everything that isn't art,

and those of you
with the naive idiocy
to try and capture the
breathless admiration
upon seeing a sparrow
in its purposeful
fleeting escape

and to all those aching souls
in houses of darkened memories
huddled in corners
playing their earnest acoustic guitars
trying to deconstruct
and reconstruct
the past,
daring to imagine
a tomorrow,
any tomorrow.

Finally, to the few
who trod this sacred path
wearing oversized clown shoes
just to see
where it leads
for laughs,

I urge you:
keep moving forward.

Do not be swayed
by the reader count
still stuck at
001.

Do not think that
you are invisible
or that you suck
or that you are
a mere content provider.

You're the holder
of the puzzle piece
that belongs to
no one else

and if you die
with it still
in your possession
then all you've done
is tighten
the knot of confusion
around the rest of us.

Face it.
Sometimes people comment.
Sometimes people don't.

But you are not invisible.

Detour: Noise

Here's some noise I made.

Dreams, Like Tears

Keep your dreams

in that secret place

where you keep your tears.

Putting dreams onstage

forces a reaction

from audiences

more often prepared

for novelty

than transcendence.

Feed your dreams

in secret,

keep them close

to your heart

and let them out

every now and then,

just a little

to spark your imagination

on fire,

to keep that grayness

at bay.

Be forewarned:

someday

your dreams will

spill over and

spill out,

much like tears.

Steel yourself

for the laughter,

but if none is

forthcoming,

listen close

to your audience.

Listen for their tears,

their dreams,

and let them in.

[Written for #OpenLinkNight at http://www.dversepoets.com – my poetic watering hole on the internet.]

#twitterverse

To set the world afire

naively, was the dream.

Now my words merely aspire

to be a virulent internet meme.

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com - my favorite writers in the world meet there.]

Fighting with Anger

Anger hunts me down 

and sneaks up
behind me.

He drags me down
by the shoulders.

I try running
but he
pins me to the ground
and spits in my face,
taunting me
“Come on, do it. Do it!”

I‘m not going
to play his game.

“Get off me.”

His insect face laughs
at me
as he drools saliva.

I try ducking the dripping
slime but I feel it
in my hair
humiliating and inescapable.

I want to just be
free of it.

His laughter echoes
in my head.
“Come on, what are you,
a pussy? Are you gonna take
this shit from me?”

My body summons its strength
and I knee him in the groin
as he topples off me.

I can still hear his laughter.

I stand over him and
and start kicking his head.

It bobbles
somehow still connected
“is that all you got?”

I stomp my heel
on his heaving thorax
over and over
trying to put out this evil flame.

He’s almost dead.
I leap as high as I can
and with both feet
come down hard
and he splatters
into a stench-ridden puddle
of tissue.

Some of it has
splashed onto my shoes
and my pant leg
but I don’t care.
I’m convinced
that I’ve handled
the problem.

I don’t look back
as I walk away
but I hear that mocking laughter

and I know
I’ve just played his game again

and lost again.

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com the best site for poets on the whole damned Internet.] 

Harvesting Lesson

Shake the word tree.
Again.

Again,
harder.

Peer up through
the branches,

“what’s sticking
them up there?”

Stop trying.

Take a seat
in its shade,

relax your gaze,


daydream…



bonk!

[Written for http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2012/10/words-count-with-mama-zen.html - Thanks!]

Thank-You Notes Never Sent

Thank you to her father

for leaving immediately

thereby planting the seeds of self-doubt

and for the occasional tortured visits

that made you stay away even more

and an even bigger thank you now

for taking no responsibility

for your absence

when asked 35 years later.

Thank you to her mother

for forgetting about her while you

squandered the family purse

in search of end time prophecy

in the holy land

and for introducing her to

the man who would molest her

in the golf clubhouse

and an even bigger thank you now

for still ignoring to her

right to her face

with an empty smile at every holiday.

Thank you to her ex-husband

for being the life of the party

by making her his punchline

especially after all the time

she told you how much it hurt

and an even bigger thank you now

when you take her kids every other weekend

for their quality time of

videogames and sugary cereal

with their willfully illiterate father.

Thank you to her ex-in-laws

because she felt like she was

finally part of a family and

even though it wasn't paradise

she did feel loved

and an even bigger thank you for

completely shutting her

out of your lives when

she finally got up the courage

to leave your shitheel son

and break the cycle.

Thank you one and all

because you've made it a real challenge

for her to accept

her own lovability,

her own worth

(she's not even sure of

the love of her own children

much less her second husband),

so I say thank you

because your callous indifference,

your malignant neglect

has made me

necessary 

to her,

because I will always love her

and take care of her

and treasure her

because I know the value

of a good, decent person.

It takes one to know one.

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at dversepoets.com - come and poem yourself into a tizzy!]