Poem of the Month - January 2019

  ( a spill and scrub )  

 
When we first met  
After eyeing each other  
Like two hiding out in the open  
In the local library  
While thumbing  
The pages of our poetry,  
 
We both were thinking  
The same thing, weren’t we?  
I know I was  
As I’d study your face—  
A seemingly aloof expression  
That wore glasses.  
 
A barrier to hide behind,  
Or keep me at a distance?  
Intimidated  
For all of a day, or a week,  
Feeling less than perfect.  
So all of the above applied?  
 
The passage of time  
Would reveal what you saw  
And thought  
While the stalemate lasted,  
Till I barged into your life  
And your shrimp salad.  
 
I proceeded  
To chat you up  
In the guise of a critic  
While deftly spearing the salad  
And deconstructing your ink:  
A sonnet.  
 
I didn’t know a sonnet  
From the hole in my head!  
But on and on I went,  
Cleaning you out of shrimp!  
You were bemused,  
And accommodating.  
 
You’d think I’d catch on.  
You weren’t concerned with  
What I said,  
Which saved my bacon  
Once I realized  
I was an idiot—  
 
Advising and suggesting  
A consummate poet  
Of the Sonnet form  
How to edit his ink;  
Me, a writer without a clue.  
I humbly gave you a small bowl.  
 
With head bowed,  
I profusely apologized  
For the clumsy repairs I made.  
‘It’s beautiful all the same’,  
As you slowly  
Turned it in your hand.  
 
 
 
 
 
Kintsugi, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

This sounds unreal
and I blot out my options,
I have wanted to feel
and felt it as it passed through me for years.
And in that moment when the tea-cup left my hand
I remembered knowing.
And in feeling through my options I picked a hard line
that I am now sowing from.
To draw my clouds on
and cutting through their material bits softening.
Inside the rotten machine,
left to drown,
but instead raising out of it to sit
on rising suns and place bets
on the color of sets.
Who sink down to deep oceans
and rest in golden chests
at the bottom of steep slippery slopes.
It's no joke,
how the sea-critters crawl around
with immense pressure.
And how much air there is
to push between us before touching.
Tips of fingers on ceilings,
holding a pose for others to know.
And how can things get this funky?
That bass just knows how to flow
and make an ambush on stillness.
Let me sit babbling next to your brook
and cripple down the creek
for the time to speak.
See the jets go past
and seek the shady nooks
inspiring characters, who cave.
Popping out of fairy-tales on bike trails
while it all just is and revolves naturally
as jazz is.
Passes through me for years.
I have wanted to feel in love.
Which is not outside the front door
or down the street.
It can never be beat,
from the dark corners of our mind.
I seem desperate to try
to keep this rhym
so let me repeat
that I have felt it pass through,
me.
>*
*<>*
<*
Seeing the arrow landing in my hand
while venturing into a thicket too deep.
Sorting leaves into neat piles for pickup.
Never to look up for parting clouds
that separate down to wisps that wander.
After skipping, I sink these feelings
and ask how the psyche is
while hanging upside down
and eating nothing
but apples.
We are gardeners of the mind,
anticipating the end times,
and learning to balance
every second of hysterical chatter
with meaningful happinstance.
Guy crouches by the gutter on the side of the road
reaching in his bag for substance,
his fingers find a hole.
You do not have to search hard,
high and low
to find what you love.
It is what you know
and where you go
in your sleep.
We both understand our inner animals
that choke and swallow the sheep
that surround and scatter in despair
that we share while the world keeps turning.
Snow and rain combine over brick and cobblestone.
Your feet step onto intricate symmetry,
Realize where you are hypnotized and you are lonely.
Empty but full of thoughts
pouring over and out onto the streets
not to become another brick in their wall or sidewalk
so you go to wonderland and follow
rabbit turds instead of sheep tracks,
meanwhile the wild geese fly overhead with magnetic focus
on their migration of puddle hops.
Take a bite of the mushroom before turning out the lights.
Join the animals in this kingdom of confusion
and misleading illusion,
where self stares into self for hours
that feel
like days.

She breathes
Her breath is life
With each lung full
A heart beats strongly
In the emotions of love

A soul laments
Where passion dwelled
Seeing through eyes of fire
The truth of love
Imagining her lover

The shaping of moments
Between connecting beings
Her heart feels more alive
Finding a smile that was lost
Welling up with happiness

The beautiful entity of love
Touching her senses
Electrical shivers
This is why she breathes
To share her heart and soul