Category: Poetry

Heartbeats countdown
The flow of time and blood
Both of which I’ve too much on my hands

Contrary to popular belief
Neither heals all wounds
To think otherwise
Is to think too much of time
And too little of wounds

I cannot wash my hands of either
No disinfectant makes me a suitable surgeon
To sew the stitch
Or apply the salve

“Sorry”
Is the worst witch doctor remedy
Snake oil dripped from forked tongues
And venomous fangs
It’s a token subtle serpents hiss to women they betray

We often fail to realize that we are someone’s poison
Their wounds can’t heal
Until we are removed
Blood
Heartbeats

Some wounds still
Neither close nor kill
They leave survivors, not victims
And they live with their damage within them

I’ve been someone’s poison
And to have committed the unforgivable
Is to live your entire life in penance
A sentence dealt by the justice of truth
And what can be destroyed by the truth deserves to be

You can’t bury your past and not also yourself
Leaving an unhidden tombstone for all to see
And shame etched upon your epitaph
You see, wounds that neither close nor kill
Leave one survivor too many
If harm lives to harm another day

The cure and the poison cannot share space
The finest thing I’ve done
Is allow my annihilation
And in small ever-constant doses
I’m am made into my antidote

Neither time nor blood heals all wounds
To think otherwise
Is to think too much of time
And too little of wounds

On Apollo’s Chariot
Tied by golden lariat
To equestrian beasts
Hephaestian feat
By Vulcan forge was formed

Golden orb of Helios
Fire burning furious
Cross celestial ledge
Horizon edge
The Earth is slowly warmed

Stars and Nyx abscond away
Aurora is fond to stay
Luminous advance
The heavens dance
The nymphs awake in kind

Bathed in bless’d beatitude
Life returns its gratitude
Turn Euros’ way
I greet the ray
Which on my face too shined

We sing similar
Peaks and pitch of such likeness
As to seem equal in audience of an Audobon auditor
The two of us each early share the same worm
We soar across identical paths
Both bore by Boreas
The wind which renders our wings weightless
Our wings
Beautiful wings
Covered in pretty plumage
Of radiant color and pattern
Iridescent black and bold blues
Extending from dapper dactyls
Distinct
Yes you and I
Dichotomously distinct
Duplicate
Yet different
Special even in our species
Yes, you and I
Even you and I
Are not the same
What we share in genus we differ in genesis
We hatched from the same nest
Yet emerged from different eggs
Which is why now I come to roost
In the same tree
But a different branch
You and I so alike
But our duplications are duplicitous
Dubious
Indubitably inimitable
I am not you
Nor you I
No matter where you fly
My flap is mine own
And though
Together we flock
Whether or not
The weather is fine
My feather is mine
And will never be thine

And then it happened
Announced by herald Angels to atheist shepherds
Upon whose ears the horns fell silent
And foretold by portentous stellar scribes
Whose etched prognostications shone down on illiterate Magi

And then it happened
Like a thief in the night
Responding to his early invitation
Prophesied to non-believers and their talking-head idols

A plague spake by Pharaoh’s own mouth
Who stands shocked o’er his stricken son
So leave it unwritten
Still let it be done

And they wept
O did they cry
“Why have you forsaken us?”
And lo
God did not answer
Their DM was left on read
As did His emails go to their spam

As wisdom cried through the streets
Fools paid her no heed
And the plague did visit every door
And as he knocked they opened

And there was no lamb’s blood
O’er their posts
The lamb was slaughtered
And made into a scapegoat

And then it happened
Announced by no one
That was being listened to
And then it happened
That the world stood still
And science was blamed
For not sounding urgent enough

It must have been the words carried on the air
The subtle trickling of meaning soaking itself into every neuron
Even making the atmosphere more humid
Or was it the flop sweat
Or the tears
Or the reign

The cloud began as soft tufts of obfuscation
Ever so infrequently blocking the luminosity
The disinfectant of daylight
Passing by like idle thoughts
Bubbles of speech in illustrated Sunday funnies
Then the thoughts, and the chatter, and the gossip
Blotted the sky with ominous darkness
With the portent of storm

Lowering slowly, as clouds are wont to do
They prevailed their dominion over land
Abandoning heaven
There is no heaven
And alighted onto the cement and asphalt as fog

The chatter, the gossip, the silent and deafening thoughts
The din which became hush
As I walked into rooms
The change in mood in tone in pressure
In atmosphere
I was a cold front walking into a hot mess
I brought the storm

Maybe it was the flop sweat
Or the tears
But I could swear it was raining
Not a cloud in the sky

I knew I couldn’t turn back when I wanted to turn back more than anything else
When not quitting felt like not breathing
When continuing felt like just bleeding

I knew I couldn’t turn back when it was still too easy to
When I was four feet from a forfeit
And no one would judge me for stopping

I knew I couldn’t turn back when they told me that I should
When their being right meant they were right forever
And forever is a long time to face what if

What is there to turn back to?
Back to the dreamer who wished he started?
Back to the starter who wished he finished?
Who told himself his life wouldn’t have purpose if not lived on purpose –
Who felt meaningless if he didn’t send a message –
Who couldn’t feel valuable without utility –
Who was empty when he didn’t fill a role?
If I’m going to have a neurosis
It will be one I choose
That takes me somewhere
Because I’d rather like myself for achieving nothing
Than hate myself for not doing anything
What was there to turn back to?

I knew I couldn’t turn back when the first person called me an inspiration
That they kept trying because I gave them hope
And they weren’t just watching for me to fail

I knew I couldn’t turn back when I committed myself not to
Like forces burn bridges
Like Cortez burnt boats
The port is now closed

I knew I couldn’t turn back when forward became falling
I couldn’t stop if I wanted to
And to reverse would be an act of God

For too long I didn’t answer my calling
Like my accounts were in collections
I didn’t realize that I wasn’t trying to do something
I was trying to be someone
I wasn’t trying to prove I was alive
I was trying to earn the right to die
By doing what I was privileged enough to be born to
Because the world would be lesser if I didn’t
And it hurts to move on

But every time I doubt it hurts someone else

I knew I couldn’t turn back when someone said they needed to hear what I said that day
I knew I couldn’t turn back when I was asked to come back and speak again
I knew I couldn’t turn back when someone told me I helped them clean up their life
I knew I couldn’t turn back when my children told me they wouldn’t want me to change
I knew I couldn’t turn back when the people I harmed on the way weren’t healed yet
I knew I couldn’t turn back when the secrets I held weren’t revealed yet
I knew I couldn’t turn back when the visions I saw weren’t real yet
I knew I couldn’t turn back when the obstacles didn’t make me yield yet
I knew I couldn’t turn back when I couldn’t see my starting point past the curvature of the Earth

I knew I couldn’t turn back when I finally stopped thinking “I knew I couldn’t.”

O what a luxury it was to be awoken by the sound of silence
Long ago when silence was anywhere
Its hollow ring soothed my lids ajar
Released the dew from my lashes
I wipe away a tear
My HVAC has forgotten which season it is

Shrieking tinny cacophony
Aggravates me away from sleep
O what a luxury it was to be awoken by the sound of silence
Long ago

I rise
Which only serves to prove that I have fallen
Too late to make fresh coffee
It is man’s lot to toil
Live by the sweat of his brow
But I do not sweat
Nor am I man
And yet I toil

O pitiful wight
Sad and woeful spirit
I once subsisted off the land
The Earth herself
But man has bought the land
Sealed in contracts
Magick of judicial grimoires
And I who is faerie folk and of the land
Must produce on behalf of the land
Tentative tenancy, I labor
That I may stay beside my mother’s breast

My kind was caught surprised
By their spells
And their force
And their cunning hypnotic feature films
Elders evicted
And the boohag fined for disturbing the peace

Wrapped in slave linens of poly-cotton
I garb myself for today’s tortures
O fragile nymph whose skin is in bondage
To at least be leashed by a tie less ugly
Or shackled by whole socks
Socks would never tatter in elfin shoes
Nor would my ankles blister

Cursed cursed fate
O cruel and monstrous circumstance
Have I forgotten it is Friday
And my report is due
Damn the gods
Particularly the young gods
Of networks and social media
They laugh from their cloud
Count my wasted hours scrolling, my interrupted Wi-Fi

My eyes and ears crepuscular
Suffer the din of mankind’s world
Trains and planes
Iron replicas of dead dragons
Shuttling empty souls each Morrow
Midday devoid of frivolity, and only 45 minutes to eat my sushi
Damn them and their world
Even-time with no fire no song
Only toil from sun rise to fall
To earn the space
Upon the land
Their magick stole

I forgot my airpods
Damn this world

Completely wrapped in your embrace
A substance just as subtle as a bubble’s empty space
Felt but never seen like an emotion
In your ocean I am drowning
As you take me on your journey aloft.

You always push and seldom pull
And carry all the landscape but your arms are never full
If in the lull I breathe your ether
Deeper in my lungs
Could I hold you on your journey aloft?

Your howling crashes in my ear
I can’t measure if for pleasure or aggression I should fear
But unadulterated awe
Is all I fall in as you’re calling
So I join you on your journey aloft.

This destruction is your gift
Descended from the heavens and benevolently swift
And lifting less than what you level
As I revel in your play
While I’m carried on your journey aloft.

Life
A privilege of prosperity
In a model of supply and demand
In which we all demand to live
But we all can’t stand to give
There just isn’t enough life to share
So we must choose who dies
When before we chose who lived
A decision we forgive
When the dying were forgotten to begin with

Liberty
Is it Freedom if you choose your prison
If you were given full reign of your four walls
It is no longer safe to walk the streets
Even in the good neighborhoods
It is an enforceable infraction
It would be safer to protest it
Through self-immolation
Than peaceful assembly
And I yearn for touch

The pursuit of happiness
I wish to forge my livelihood
To seek my fortune
Through gainful labor
But I must Drudge
For I am essential
I am needed, the highest honor
The greatest utility
Essential
Like the feed to the cattle
Or the cattle to the butcher
Or the meat to the meal
Or the coal to the fire

The free market is free like the house slave
Mercantile medicine
Where wealth buys health
And work is paid for an illness
And borders are outlined not by fences but by offenses
Our dystopia was a leg that had fallen asleep
And we stopped noticing until we shifted our position a little
Put weight on it, walk away, you were always just going to fall down
Keep sitting
Stay right there
You were never going anywhere

You must never rush out on the meadow
Where new hunters hunt with new rifles
Rifle through paper and plot schemes
Plots to be purchased for building schematics
Not for meat, nor pelt, no sport do they take aim
But for the wood itself
And there can be no wildlife without the wild

There might be danger
From blades that cut
No, not through the body
But through the oaks
And into the Earth
That cut us off from hedge and growth
But never cut into profits

Out there, we’re unprotected
No shade from heat
Nor break from wind
Neither does the water slow
We are visible and naked
Subjected to laws we never crafted
Laws of nature and of the state

The meadow is wide and open
Clear cut and level
Nigh onto dead
Home is extinguished
There is no safety
This is no longer ours

There are no trees or bushes to hide us
From harm or from elements
Privacy is stolen away
Where scaffolds formed from our trees
Support walls holding open windows
Which peer out over our lost kingdom

So, we have to be very careful
Lest we like the land become conquered
Colonized and gentrified and homogenized
Our home has become the gun
From which bricks fire like bullets
To strike us down
You must never rush out on the meadow, Bambi