Category Archives: poetry

Easy Beliefs

2022-02-23 – 13:24
a stylized yellow and orange sun over a patchwork green field

It’s easy to believe:
that this is it
it’s all over.

Optimism foolish,
and hope a meager meal.
Seeing a pattern of life defeated:
prevailing winds all sailed.

Much harder is the challenge
to recover, to rebuild
to end the cycled brooding
where harvests never yield.

And it surely doesn’t help
that complexity seems fraught
little nooks and crannies
that only seem to rot.

Yes, simplicity is charming
like an easy winning smile.
It can seem a deft decision
to prune away denial.

But shutting off and shutting down
just mimes an early death,
barely meeting definition,
of fire taking breath.

And it would also be mistaken:
to paint a happy-lucky wash
grimness has its uses
to avoid perspective lost.

Oh, but it’s overwhelming
the grinding of this wheel
scraping skin and breaking backs
under boots of steel.

Which is all the reason
to keep the bridges open
to bind and knit the friendships
that soothe us when we’re swollen.

Because there are no saviors
no single points of success or failure
instead its threes and fours of us
that move this stubborn glacier.

No, it’s not quite the end
not this partial apocalyptic;
we humans still have centuries
despite naysayed insistence.

Hope is still the worthwhile choice
with meaningful resistance
neighbors helping neighbors
mutually aided persistence.

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Foggy Mornings, Additional Musings

2017-08-12 – 01:43

Foggy Mornings

And Additional Musings

When the day is young, still
When the fog rolls in
When the morning light is dim
When my mind is lost
In lingering dreams, my friends

When the forest is too overgrown
When the underbrush is thick
When the wooded trail is lost
When each footfall breaks wrists
And promises speak of death

There is the hopeless
Then is the moment lost
That is the breaking point
Before barriers are crossed

Then is the moment
Where solutions make sense
Whether or not
They can provide a defense

Why should we rely
On the infallible thought
That we can try
And figure it out

But in those gloomy places
With just the right lie
There’s still a torch to see
A pretty face
Or a project to be
A mental construction
A glimmer beckoning

And maybe, perhaps
It’s just an illusion
But believe in illusion
Until it must be

 

Avoidance

Something cold trickles down, drips, catches
Sits, waits, becomes a weight
Heavy, heavier, the heaviest thing
It’s bearing down
It’s listening

A thought that hammers repeatedly
It bothers, needles, breaks skin
Digs down and burrows in
Becomes the truth
Despite denial

Oh denial, oh its relief
The promise it offers of unchanging
How can I stop who I have been?
When it took so long to learn to be

Acceptance is good, isn’t it great?
You can be yourself
You can let the world in
You can alienate all of your friends

So patch the dam as it cracks
Bulges, creaks under that weight
Just ignore what might be
Take the comfort
Of not reckoning

Avoid the searching of who and why
The state of not, doing a thing
Stalling, stalled, a stall that breaks wings
Keep the secret
Down within

 

Caught

They caught me on the doorstep
One Saturday evening
We were arm-in-arm
Secret kissing

Some secrets are joyful
A happy surprise
A dramatic reveal
That pleases
Assures
And Complies

But those aren’t the best secrets
The best secrets draw blood
They drew blood
Because of a secret
They broke hearts
And you lie

Conformity breeds liars
You have to fit in
But if you don’t?
If you won’t?
Then you learn to fib.

Honesty is for the normal
Honestly for shapeshifters
They fit in a box
Because they were poured in

But what of the misshapen?
The ones that can’t melt
Or those that refuse
Because that’s not being yourself

Then? A choice.
A statement.
Of life:
A constant fight
Or a constant fib

 

Never

She took a step and stopped
Looked at me, quizzical
The question wasn’t why
It was not a question
An accusation

And I couldn’t take it
I couldn’t refuse
Love was easier
Than hate

But who wrote the rules?
And when do they break?
When did the moment pass
Where someone had been hurt?

I didn’t succumb
I overcame
But to an outside viewer
They were one and the same

The challenges are breathless
Wordless
Weeping
Choices

And those choices, daggers that cut different
Hurt self or someone else
Any choice is deafening
When an expression of self

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Back Roads

2017-05-30 – 02:20
back roads

American roads, the long and winding blacktop, often look the same.
The differences, the only changes you see, are the leaves of trees.
Same road signs and rails, same tire-rattling tar-bumps, everywhere you go.

I took a turn without thinking
A decision of unconscious need
Away from the four-lane highway
Onto an old back road

It’s easy to forget
To drive without thinking
And the miles go by
Before you realize

The road turned to half-sand
With trees encroaching
Before the mind recovered
Before a reemerging control

Where was I?
There was no telling
It was a secret stop
An unknown spot

A turn of the key
And even the engine quiets
Jarring the moment
With that change of tune

The windshield was shining
Soaking up the sun
And on the skin-sticking seats
My head drifted back

All of the things that I must do
Driving, work, bills to pay
Prompt the most vivid dreams
I fall asleep most readily
When I should be awake
But when I have permission
I fight to find my sleep

And yet there on that road
Parked between stands of trees
I drifted into a slumber
And then all simply ceased to be

There are those places that become more like moments than physical locations. Some of these places are temporary. They’re situations where everything is arranged just for some particular action. However, most of these momentary places are not transient themselves, but the experience that takes place makes them transient.

Roads are the perfect example of this nature of a place that lapses into the realm of time. Roads, by their very nature, provide momentary glimpses of a location. They are pathways between destinations. Journeys are given a lot of head-nods about value and learned understanding, but destinations will forever be our true focus. We like to be somewhere, after all.

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