New Poems! (Pt III)

The Mechanics of Handstands

The impulse today is to walk

the block and a half from my house

to the southside of Colonial Lake

and do handstands.

Handstands, to be done properly,

require a few moments of quiet contemplation

before they are begun. Do this

on a sun-drowned green bench, shirtless,

sweating.

It is so loud here.

Left ear:

a lawn mower and a backpack-mounted leaf blower and a family playing and a game of tennis and a girl talking to her puppy.

Right ear:

birds.

The loud is good. It lets you center,

whines and cycles together through you,

drowns everything but the mechanics of handstands.

For the moment it is enough to bake under the sun. Let

sweat fill every inch of clothing, run over your face

and bare chest, all of it irritating, all of it alive.

When you have had enough of looking at the sky and the large military cargo airplanes screaming over the city, stand up.

Take off your shoes,

Empty pockets.

Stand barefoot in the soft summer grass,

bend at the waist to fill your fingers with the ground. This is the proper handstand position,

ready.

Breathe, and in a rush kick your legs up and catch your face as it falls forward. Flex your arms and tighten stomach and stretch up.

Breathe and wait for the sky to come down and be your new floor.

Stay this way

as long as you can.

New Poems! (Pt II)

The Price of Honesty

There are days when everything

you've done wrong stands up to you in blazing

neon, impossible to ignore

and you're never in the right.

There are days when a cloud

looks like a slap in the face

and the wind is the only thing

keeping you upright. There are

the days when everything which surrounds

you is so beautiful that the only

thing you can think is

"I'll never be able to write that."

There are more of those days

than there are of the ones where

you're centered and quiet and happy,

and the days when you're truly enjoying life

are always bracketed by the ones where

you want nothing more than to torch

every bridge and move West,

to leave all of the bullshit behind.

It's impossible to pretend everything

is great with yourself when you

know it isn't true.

It's the price of honesty.

If you are awakened to an idea, share it.

If you want to learn about someone, ask them.

If you want to love someone, love them.

If you want to accept someone’s love, accept it –

but never do it falsely. Someone else

will appreciate what you do not.

If everything hurts, give it time.

If nothing hurts, and you’re happy

in your tiny space, break your bubble.

If you know what’s going on,

and you’re happy, enjoy it –

time will not give you many moments.

New Poems! (Pt I)

You Ask How I Know I Still Love You

I know because I went out to buy dinner today,

a sandwich from the place on Bull -

I was walking back and was struck by how silent

the street was. Green spilled

over the fences, building a canopy

stirred by the warm breeze. It smelled

like Jasmine and the sea and all I could think

was that I wanted to tell you about it.

I wanted to call you to fill the space between us

with my words, impress my little bit of the world

into your mind.

I’d start by describing the light. You always were a part of it,

and the light in this moment was made for you.

It was warm and felt like home.

I was sad to feel the green heat on my skin

from the canopy and the wind off the sea,

sad to breathe that air because all of it felt like you.

And when I breathed it back out it would be me.

Just me, standing under the green summer light,

with the empty space at my side that is always there.

The First Poem in Some Months.

Inspiration beat me over the head with a club tonight. The results follow.

Nuances

(for Paul Allen)

The occasion is a musical

recital. The hall is dark,

and full of quiet children.

All of us, children.

A computer projects an image

onto the wall; it tells

us Who, What, Why.

Black, man-sized letters shimmer

above us. The stage lies

under the light;

red and yellow – it is bare.

From the corner

of the stage come the performers.

They take their places,

young players caught in the hush

before their storm.

The man comes out. His shoulders

sag, his suit heavy.

He stands center, his face

bathed in flame from the projector.

The boy comes to stand in front of the man.

He raises his arms.

For a moment, they mirror,

two pairs of thick-rimmed glasses

reflecting the red light endlessly

between them.

Their shoulders fall away at the same angle.

The boy lowers his arms.

The light blinks out.

The man waits. All of us wait,

staring up at his hard face,

lit only by the small penlight he holds.

The man begins his poem,

giving us his words, giving

his voice to the air around

his children and our ears

and the thin night behind us.

The boy’s arms lift and he conducts,

his music spinning into the gaps

in the man’s voice.

It seems an age.

Man and boy.

Poet and musician.

The father and all of his children.

The music hums to a slow close

and the poem fills the silence;

‘Do you think a car can

Take two curves on its own?

Was chance kept it going,

Chance and the slant of the road.’

The boy’s violins come in.

They sing to us, sing of two sun-lit roads

which wind through the man’s growing

green mountain Spring.

One road takes us where he has been;

the other shows us where the boy will go.

Coming Soon

It's been quiet around here. I'm working on fixing that. My writing focus - until 2pm tomorrow - is on a much longer short story than the Micros which have been appearing here. Once that's done, I'll put the story up here - either in one post or several. This story's been absolutely hellish to write, but it looks like it might be my best one yet. Check this space tomorrow for new content.

Because This Story is Perfectly Bizarre

I...yeah, I don't know. Enjoy.

Dear Girly,

You might not remember me. In fact, I’d be surprised if you did – delighted, sure, but surprised. There’d be no reason for you to remember me. I’m sure that I’m nothing but another name to you at this point. Just another name that you check off on your endless list of conquered men and broken hearts – been there, done him, etc.

Don’t think this letter means that I’m one of those fools who have fallen in love with you. You’re just someone who I suspect would still be reading this, still be interested. Even if it’s just idle curiosity, well, that’s better than pity.

Do you know where I am, girly? I’m staring at a burning house right now. The flames started in the kitchen. Something went wrong with the stove, and tongues of flame began licking upwards, slowly peeling off the cheap wallpaper, curling it and crumbling it into dust. The flames, spreading outwards, caught on the gasoline that I’d sloshed around the floors, climbing higher, consuming more.

Where are you right now? What are you smelling? What are you seeing with those huge green eyes of yours? Are you looking up at the deepening twilight in a field somewhere? You’d be sprawled out on wet grass, lost in the dark above you, living in that moment only for the pinpricks swirling above you – dead light that is so old the number has no meaning. Or are you in some bed somewhere, exploring – like a conquistador – the body of another unsuspecting boy? Are you making him love you?

If you could see this! The flames are climbing higher and higher. It’s a better show than the best Fourth of July fireworks bonanza ever. It is eating all of their knickknacks and clothes - furniture and old photographs all broken down into the same ash. The smoke is whirling and shifting – I’d swear I could see faces in it, if that wasn’t absolutely crazy.

I still remember your face. I remember the way it was rounded in all of the places you’d expect it to be sharp – false angles hidden away in your face. It’s a unique face, a face made in a poet’s dream, or a sculptor’s nightmare. Listen to me – I sound like I’m madly in love with you. The truth is I’m not. Your face comes to mind and I feel nothing. No gut wrenching longing or bitter regret. I’m just curious about you. I’m curious about why you do the things you do. What you get out of all of those boys. What you find out about yourself. Not that I’ll ever know, and even if I do, it won’t change my life. Still though, I’m curious.

Have you ever really seen an out-of-control fire? It really is something to behold; an untamed force that eats and eats and eats. Even still, this house’s death is strangely quiet. Dignified. As if it was saying, hell, if I have to go out like this, I might as well make the best of it.

Making the best of it. That’s what we’re all doing, isn’t it? We’re just taking all of this stuff that life throws at us and simply making do. It’s how disaster victims recover their lives, I’d imagine. Picture it; you evacuate your suburban neighborhood because of a coming flood. You watch on the news as your town is destroyed, carried away on raging waters or simply drowned under a river. The water recedes and you go back, picking your way through debris and the detritus of what was once a town. Everything you own is destroyed – except for a single record collection, or a set of yearbooks, a favored coffee mug. Something. Wouldn’t you treasure that thing? Wouldn’t you cement the idea that you could rebuild your life around that one thing? Wouldn’t you have to live?

Sure, it’s just a coffee mug, girly, but it could end up meaning so much more.

Like at this house here, where I am. I’m sure this fire won’t burn everything. Even now I get the sense that it’s slowing, the mad rush of energy coasting to a halt. There will be things for this family to find – did I mention that? There’s a family of five that lives in this house. Two boys and a girl. Pretty kids. Happy. Stable. Secure. Or they were, until some crazy bastard came along and set their house on fire. I wonder what they’ll find. Don’t you?

Sincerely,

A Poem I Found Lost in a Notebook

Here's a poem from earlier this year that I wrote and forgot to transfer into digital medium. It's short and simple, in the vein of the previous poem I've posted. Let me know what you think.

Friends

Spin in and out of my life.

I don’t know why the ones who stay,

stay - and the ones who leave,

leave - but I’m looking for the reasons,

weaving through dark February days,

anchored in myself.

I need a home,

a place I can be myself in and sit

awake nights or sleep away

days and write in,

around,

and about,

forever.

I don’t know if I’m talking about a Home a House a Girl Love

But I think it might be all of these things.

I want to build something.

I want to use all of this strength I’ve gained,

Fought myself for,

Fought other people for,

And use it to lift,

Stack,

Shape and carry –

span a roof over my head and build

it wide enough for my friends to stand with me.