Creepy Splendor

I’m not a fiction writer
so everything comes
from the truth within.

If my thoughts stray
to strange evil places
should I follow them
or rein them in?

I can picture anything
and everything
like an algebra problem
of objects and images.

I can place myself in
the center of wickedness
in the degrading abyss
in the filth
as though it was all academic,

but I refuse to keep
my mind as controlled
as the Old Testament
would require.

God is always
making everything new
so why not God’s nature
and commandments?

So if the thoughts come
briskly,
undisciplined
depraved
or naïve,
should I be damned?

The world is forever new
and my thoughts are forever new
and if I squelch them

then I kill any chance of
future new dreams
ahead,
and I need my thoughts
my dreams and wishes

for to deny them
in all their creepy splendor
is to deny myself.

[POsted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com, my favorite poetry site!]

Rain and Water

Water water everywhere
and it just kept
coming.

It was too short for
a biblical epic
but just enough
for a tsunami.

So much immediate
death,
impossible to grieve
can’t imagine the
force

and the waves
brought the mudslides
and trapped the beautifully
naive people
in their luxurious
castles of clay.

I want to work up
a tear for them,
but they are too
faraway and besides
they lived in
privileged communities

until now.

But the rain
took a young woman
pregnant with child
and swept them
away,

the rain and water
indifferent and unforgiving
dragged them along
and into the
abyss.

Almost contritely
the rains finally stopped
but it was too
late.

Dan lost his wife
and unborn daughter
and I cannot help
but imagine his own
private tearful tsunami
sitting in his house
surrounded by their memory,

trying to find a way
to live with
rain and water
for the rest of his life.

Selfish

eating what I want
when I want it

and buying bigger clothes
and not being too concerned about it

this is my life
just me
this chicken quesadilla
and the song piped
through the Del Taco

I'll think of nothing
or no one else

just me and
my happiness
and melted cheddar cheese
and loose fitting pants
and a pen that glides
over lots of
luxurious blank pages
just waiting for

me.

Her Steve Voice

I don't need to ask anymore
when my wife takes the cordless phone upstairs
(like I'm going to listen in)
in our one-room loft apartment
she turns the TV up loud
as if that could distract me
more than the sound of
her Steve Voice.

Full of giggles and curves and
gushing acquiescence,
I recognize it
that used to be her
Buddah Voice,
the voice when we first were in love
when she had a crush on me
before I became her husband
her promise around her finger
her conjugal banality

and it slowly, deliberately
steps and grinds its heel
into my heart
because there is more electricity lately
in the Steve Voice
than the Buddah Voice,

and I won't mention anything
and I'll rehearse my indifference
(if I inquire too much I'm presumed jealous
if I inquire too little I'm presumed condoning this)

so I practice
with long even breaths
repeating my mantra
the only thing that keeps me sane:

I trust my wife.
I trust my wife.
I trust my wife.

Ring

However educated I will become
I am still simple
because there is always someone who is
better educated than I,

it's relative.

However beautiful I will become
I am still plain
because there is always someone who is
more beautiful than I,

it's relative.

However sensitive I will become
I am still a dullard
because there is always someone
who is able to feel more deeply than I

it's relative.

But I control one aspect:
however thin I become
I will remain thin
because there are diuretics
and appetite suppressants
and laxatives
and organic vomiting
so that no one will ever be
thinner than I.

No one on television
no one in magazines
no one in the world
thinner than I.

It almost has a ring to it

anorexia
anorexia
anorexia nervosa.