As morning reaches where only night had been,
dew once more settles on the brittle earth
and breath returns to one,
so all can breathe again.
The living days
You turn and look at me
maybe for the first time
or the tenth, or the thousandth time
only to see what you knew you’d find –
a man looking back, whisker’d, aging,
eyes a little dimmer but still aimed at you.
I smell your morning breath
and think to myself how perfect,
how expected, how perfectly normal
and good and welcome.
The first kiss is always best
in its unnoticed awkwardness –
maybe because of it.
The shear warmth of your body
reminds me of our shared need
for presence and company and comfort
unattainable in the strivings of our days
but remembered in uncounted moments
spread over time and times and time again.
Our sagging bodies remind us of life
lived under common skies, the unexpected usual –
and it settles into me
in a kind of daylight reverie to what is.
We make love or something like it,
and vaguely remember the youthful bump
and grind of the easier, less calendared moments,
and scoff at our glorious, happy failure.
The pieces were better, stronger, truer
but more anxious and photoshop expectant.
But this is better in all its effort
and planning, and untelevised humanity.
These moments are charged
more insistently by words boring
and daily and dull, but real
and good and dressed in old pajamas.
It is the harmony of music left to
routine and chance and time, the choir of songs
sung to the easy marching hours
and resting nights full of the brighter
skies of want made less
in the beautiful tedium of the living days.
Just about the time
Just about the time your legs give way
from under you, having danced all night
at a long-awaited wedding
Just about the time the advance
comes on your salary, welcome chicken
scratchings held up against a pale and hungry account
Just about the time when the last,
tired rays of sun enfold themselves
in blankets of shadow
Just about the time your increase
first parallels the centrifuge
of your necessary debts
Just about the time you roll off
your partner and unmeasured
breath matches the sound of contentment
Just about the time the needle drops
and a tiny arm caresses out music
from the dark groove of delight
Just about the time the robin sings
long enough on your lawn
to notice you noticing her
Just about the time when it’s no longer
just about the time
Then, it is enough
Spring on Ash Wednesday
I should probably just write a new Ash Wednesday piece. But, hopefully there is still some charm and comfort in the old as well…
Ash Wednesday has come round again to spill forth her penitent goodness. I first posted this last year on Ash Wednesday. Let’s walk the Lenten road together.
Begins again this Springward journey;
rebirthing all that once lived.
Trickle again once fickle brook and stream
sickle sighs yet in repose, sleeping still.
Earth, sore and Winter-stiff, seeks, sighs
stretches out skinny arms of want.
Her cold, hard bosom births not what soon will come
e’er the Sun’s hungry mouth suckles,
fills his lusty gut on hopeful barrenness
feasting on milk of timeworn, weary passage.
* * * * * * * * *
She forgets not the suddenness of late
and sooner dark, splayed upon a fine, greenness
come for to spite the buds of transforming light
bidding death where life has yet to emerge.
Warmly insistent she speaks, sharing her story
poured out over the long-shadowed land.
Bring such…
View original post 106 more words
Perhaps I sat
Perhaps I sat too long, feet dangling
from the troubled wharf as the gulls
committed their noisy intrusions?
Perhaps I drank too deeply
of the preening dew, her skin
stretched wide upon the grass, wanting?
Perhaps I met my match
in the atrocity of a Herculean day
held up beside my pallid, frayed self?
Perhaps I gawked too lightly
into a pinafore sky, turned inside
out against the paling hours?
Perhaps I missed the voice
of shadows winding, deftly
pointing out the obvious?
Perhaps I was surprised
at how easy it has been
to see nothing in everything?
Perhaps these questions merely distract
from the gift of just sitting here?
_____________________
Photo by D. Legin
China-cup chats
I’d thought about this once,
maybe through lakeside footsteps in dreams.
Maybe when stride met stride with yours
and we studied the smile of blue hours.
We grew fat with the memory of tabletop
teas over doilies and the speech of saints.
Would it have meant as much
to begin each sentence with as little
common understanding as possible?
Or are we just better at
straining China-cup wishes
through soundbyte chat,
writ large on Tupperware souls?
Whenever we were brave to upset our apple carts
at street-parties, temple gates, church halls, downstairs rooms,
full of happy smoke and sure-talk,
we made for ourselves cider from apples –
handshakes from hellos, initiatives from invitations.
In the dimness of the post-potluck hallway
we had the best things to say.
Things left until after we’d crystallized our consciences,
codified our spaces, tallied our victories,
counted the offering;
edited our truths –
things best left in the hands of friends.
Those without agendas, solutions, or any big ideas –
only names.
d.j.t. and the language of impudence
you carve away your slabs of inconvenience with silver spoon,
handed to you in confidence that you might
earn your own pottage.
through flared nostrils, you billow and bluster.
a pall of disagreeable swagger
posing as fortitude – your aftershave.
middle-pack crow at best, your squawking tenor
makes ears bleed that otherwise wouldn’t bother.
but loudest means best when the bleating flock is
only a cover for the finish-line break away.
child-wound-daddy-talk, shoulder-chipped, posture-power
harumphing with front-seat view, proxy-driving
from the back-seat limo of puppet-kings,
where you learned your craft.
too big the metaphor
for too small a man
so big a tongue
for so small a deed
a borrowed empire built
on a ground of smoke and lies and bones of the poor
it makes bad wine from old grapes your gardeners never drink
carve away the dross enough to secure your shiny tale
but never let them see the fear you hide through shinier grin.
mirrors, over-polished, well-lit, world-weary, familiar,
you cannot look away – an honest pairing, your truest friend –
they always stay quiet when you gloat;
at least they wouldn’t deny your rightful place
among the great, the dress-for-success, self-made (apparently)
emperors of steely resolve and art of the deal.
the golf course cathedrals where gods of industry
find reprieve from the weight of their own misdeeds.
the art of misdirection, sleight of hand, deftly removes
what others need, replacing anything too easily overlooked
while we look the other way.
stuffing faces in your pockets, names under your lapel,
souls with dirty fingernails and hungry bellies
whose sweat fattened your wine cellar
whose tears fattened your belly while you robbed theirs.
whose unsightly color and ungodly language
builds your fortune
justifies your hatred
explains your anger
baffles God.
scratch and sort, smile and sign away the lives
of the lesser than
those too insignificant to see, but dangerous enough
to uncover your tiny horse-blinded life
dripping with Babylon pipe-dreams
Caesar’s gold pajamas –
Herod wiping out a generation for fear he’s not first –
the screams of mothers to drown his madness.
her glance was never a look in your direction
she had no choice given her job
she feared your hunger for pussy and the shamelessness
required to step lightly with a conscience that weighs nothing.
and for all that the world is still too small
the job’s in the bag
but the cat’s out of the bag
and your hand is overplayed
masks are wearing thin
time and truth tether themselves
drawing the rope across the chasm
between your rainbow of lust and a bog of emptiness
just in time to speak the one dark word
still hiding stubbornly in your closet –
insignificant.
