There are the non-rhymes of indentured servitude,

like our darker shadows served up as a litany of disgrace.

The dog keeps eating his shit and it reminds me that

sometimes what we think is tried and true is merely

dying to escape and find its way back, unseen, to soil.

We cramp up, our innards telling us a hard truth:

lap up this fish water and eat the stale tree bark much longer

and the ground won’t know the difference between you and your vomit.

Bitter weeds entwine roots with the vegetables, rape them for nutrients

and laugh all the way to the bowl where even the Ranch Dressing

can’t cancel the happy devils’ rotten trick.

So, I guess we either get used to the taste of bitter herbs in the salad,

the indiscriminate odor of our own feces among the riches of earth,

or we remain satisfied to let it all grow up together.

Maybe there’s an accidental rhyme of dirt and sky, earth and heaven?

Maybe rhyme isn’t the point?

For my mother, Doris. You will always know where I live… 

She ate the fires that burned our feet,

but kept us dancing still.

An outsider to her own life,

she dwelt in the shadows with others,

unadorned, weary and unnoticed by

those who mattered most.

She was a woman of family loyalties

seen through the well-pictured mantle;

of a burdened sensitivity filtered through an indomitable strength;

of shrewd candor minted in the currency of honesty.

* * *

His love was real enough but

tentative, unsure, safe – he saw her

as through a glass, dimly; sideways, peripherally.

Though his arms were strong,

they were no match for her constitution,

mammoth by comparison; a roundness

of stalwart purpose swimming in a barrel of uncertainty.

* * *

Though his word was law, hers was heard,

and heeded in the hours, in the minutes,

in the places where we actually lived.

Wrestling one child with words, another with shrewdness,

still another with a ping-pong paddle

on which was written “for a better future,”

she forged us in fires not of our desire but her design –

on the requirements of character and truth.

* * *

Mirrors told her what they saw

not what she hoped for and always, just behind her,

skulked the injustice of vengeful time.

All the words nearly rhymed to songs sung

just a little out of tune; pleasant enough at a piano with a broken back.

Despite her stature, there was never any doubt

who stood tallest, whose shoulders were broadest,

whose voice spoke loudest, and whose purpose was sunk deepest.

No scars ran deep enough, no bruises blue enough

to raze this spirit from the earth’s deep places.

* * *

She ate the fires that couldn’t devour her…

You live your life in post-it notes

pinned to the outside of balloons,

shaved, polished and properly named

for your amusement.

Skipping through fallen leaves, all with names

of used to be friends, now just concerns,

you pepper your imagination with pretty bird calls

and nice stories with happy endings.

The bad people, the ones unlucky enough

to fuck up somehow are safely tucked away

in the soles of your shoes, right next

to the dried dog shit you leave for posterity.

“Come, love me,” you say.

“Come, watch me live,” you say.

“Why are you here?” you say.

So, I came and loved and watched.

Now you say nothing. Why would you

when life is a singular word with only two letters:

m, e?

Warning: not for kids! Oftentimes, the most inhumane violence done to others is that which we inflict through our passive-aggressive silences. Sometimes a punch to the face is easier than seeing the back of someone else’s apathetically silent head. I explore that a bit in this rather visceral piece.

My ears are ringing, ringing,

ringing from the deafening roar of stony silence.

Someone has been shouting at me for so long

without stopping,

never stopping,

ever.

The lids of my ears are pinned back

as scenes of your violent ennui pelt my psyche.

Ghoulish shrieks of the banshee gash holes in my bowels

and any remains of touch and sound lay shredded and splayed

on the table, once of communion, now of refuse.

Quickly, cut open my gut with a heated knife of angry words.

Split my head with the axe of honest, unimplied hatred.

It is more compassionate to watch another bleed,

their blood still wet on the tip of your axe than it is

to watch through a mirror as another

squirms and writhes under the torturers knife

of guesses, unanswered questions, pale assumptions, made up half-truths.

Like the wanderer, banished and scapegoated,

the unforgiven walk in barren, featureless landscapes

peppered with the memories of better days.

The shrieks of silence are so much louder

than the shouting of angry, cutting…but honest, words.

Wordless words spill out into the aether

through sealed lips, drowning in their own denial

of non-communication. Oh, I hear. I hear. I hear,

SO STOP YOUR FUCKING SHOUTING.

Your victims are only fed enough sanctimony to forbid reality,

deny context, withhold boundaries for the untold story.

The din of merciless words is quicker,

the pain, short; the gouching, swift.

Silent pain is relentless, without pity,

casting scorn through indifference,

hatred through unspoken speech,

unforgiveness through apathy,

vengeance through willing ignorance.

_

In seeking truth, you’ve become the biggest lie.

there you were scattered in ashes of light

outside of time’s ballooning source

the triadic perfection of unanimous singular gaze

eloping with butterflies light on the sill

and I am loving your loving our loving

there are no more songs fit to sing

where you lay dreaming your hair unyielding

to the moon held at bay too dim for your eyes

a cool and stut stuttering night bares her dark breasts

and draws herself up to tuck in the spindly stars

who point their bony fingers toward my love 

still scattered in ashes of light

Picture this