"Those were hard things for me to come by, and I offer them to you for what they may be worth." - Toby Wolff



Friday, March 30, 2012

Poetry Wall


It came in sections, as most things do...donated from there, purchased from here. Drilled, painted, squared and hung. And what I thought was going to be the most comforting and beautiful thing, looked rather helter skelter, and my mind just cascaded around the edges with no intent of joining in. So I uprooted anchors, and hauled it down the hall, where it is in a somewhat more manageable chaos. It beckons without imploring. It rattles, but causes no deafness. My poetry wall stands at my entrance and exit, which just about sums it up.




Sunday, March 25, 2012

What is Strength?

What is strength?

It is a candle from which both ends might be lit.

Is it strength to show pain, or to hide pain? It is strength to pretend, or to tell the truth...to protect, or to inform? It is strength to move or be moved? Is the surgeon who cuts, stronger than the patient who is cut? I wanted to be strong from both ends. It takes strength to face giants. It takes strength to be a giant. It takes strength to be a disappointment. It takes strength to be disappointed.

If I'm doing the best I can
and I burn up in the flames
how will you label my ashes?




"Before the Truth will come to fill our eyes
The wool comes down in the form of fire
And when the the answers and the Truth have cut their ties
Will you still find me
Will you still see me
Through smoke



I was born in a house in a town just like your own
I was raised to believe in the power of the unknown
'Cause when the answers and the Truth take different sides
Will you still find me
Will you still see me
Through smoke"
 - Needtobreath

Monday, March 19, 2012

Intelligent Design




I crossed Dallas twice in one night.
Sometimes strange things happen
surreal things
like Dallas in the middle of California
and my stride stretching across state lines,

like that night the rain
pounded its tiny fists against the windshield
and somehow
at the height of midnight
went silent.

It made no sense
to see the rain lose its muster,
and all it took was one degree
33
32

such a delicate balance...
we forget
there is Laminin
and one misappropriation of the chain
will cause our structure to fold.

In all that is unknown
and questionable
outside the norm
as if ever there was such a thing...
there is this glue that keeps us
together enough
that a silent rain
is not an oddity at all.

It's just snow.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Tears in a Vineyard




She held my hand
within the space he left.
She laced her fingers in mine
and after this long absence of flesh
I didn't care what others thought
or if it was appropriate.

Girls hold hands,
at least I heard they do...
and I wondered if I had ever done it?
Based on raw emotion
I'd guess not. Not this comfortably anyway.

But she's a rare gem.
She really shines, you know?
And only God knows the buffing it took
to ease grime into such a glow.
Well...I'm guessing she knows, even better than God.

I lay myself in the tall grass
as it bent the edges of a vineyard toward this
empty shape, of what was once considered a woman
and by many, may still be...
but the wild flowers know there is reformation
and school is in session.

Don't know as I've ever lain myself in the tall grass
and watered it from a lacrimal lake,
but it was good,
like a good death.
A right thing. And so few things these days are right.

And when he came to find me
I was embarrassed, lying there
in the field I soaked.
But the grass stood taller, having been nourished,
and when we waved good-bye
I thought of life as a circle
and I, just a bend in the reed.
.
.
.
.