poetry – Page 39 – Poétique

Returner

I am the harbinger
For those around me I seek the message
To return with what happens outside
Of the village we live in Mon Dieu,
Je suis vieux, je commence à être aigri !
Says the man who cannot stay up
Past midnight or wakes up with
A dehydrated tongue and warm brain
Will he be lenient with himself he asks?
A debt of treason to behold yourself
On the shadows of your heart
Without the clever memory
Of recalling that we are not only
Our thoughts from today
We are also our memories of tomorrow
I woke up yesterday believing
There was one way to do things
But today feels like the body is
Vibrating at a different frequency
How are we surviving and in what color?

Curiously displaced he pushed his way
Out of the sadness and nothingness
Into the reason for continuing on
Without the pressure of something
Coming up behind him
Was it an echo effect of a past lover
Of the silhouette of some other
Emotion that was hanging in the air
From time spent in old bars
That had seen the life of writers like
Kerouac and Ginsberg?
If their ghosts were keeping him company
There was no need to disinvite them
Some say it was only the sun casting
Shadows on his back before the return

Resistance

Stubborn body obstinate soul
What happens when we don’t
Want to budge are we resisting
Or listening to our best selves
Frozen feet no need to meet
Someone in a rendezvous
If the destination doesn’t appeal
What’s the point of showing up
For bad dough when there’s
Delicious bread to be had
In some other place on some
Other occasion in the listless abyss

Phones ringing should be unplugged
Or at least turned down so that the
Sound isn’t trying to bait us over and out
Who’s calling? I don’t remember
Making a phone date or even
Giving out my number huh?
Someone has it but when did they get it?
Funny how they always find you…

One might think the goal was isolation
When really the concept is a peaceful moment
He wasn’t trying to get away from humanity
Only to break free from the reality
That there was nowhere to go where
Someone wasn’t anymore
That’s what they said without saying
Anything at all and the tender thing was
Always waiting for the best one
Even though there was no regard for
His feelings before or after
We didn’t have to drag it out thankfully
The right one comes along when it does
Something about letting sleeping dogs lie

Junkyard Heart

People maurading through the streets
Every dance floor in the city
Has seen his feet seagulls cry
In morning light and ferris wheels
Are tempting stories of making out

We aren’t going anywhere
But we aren’t children anymore
The water is only one hundred
Feet away and the dream of
Remembering how to kiss a stranger
Is an easy one to stake

In the tree there were so many birds
Small and large tiny ones too
I was chasing insects up the bark
To feed them all when I noticed
That their size was comparable to
Some of the smallest fledglings
At first I was nervous that
The bugs might score but then
I witnessed the birds enjoying one bite
After the other they were winning!
Had it never occurred to me
However that everyone needs to eat?

The wharf was kind of perfect on
Mornings like these observing
All the wildlife filling up their gullets
With a cool drink of rainwater
While nothing stopped the harbor,
Ever pressing courageous sensitivity
Was showing up at every corner of his heart
Starting from the north point

There was evidence of a struggle inside
But the gentleman driving the vessel
Hadn’t quite given up on the want for
And desire to abridge his destiny in love
When his brain came to it was
A waking life of friendly misbehaving
That enticed a little memory of adventure
Something he never quite gave up on
But somehow lost sight of in his masonry
To build a safe home inside his heart

Ducks

He was forgetting because
Change was pretty stupid
After finding the formula
And being perpetually bad at math

No one stopped to ask him
How things were coming along
Everything looked so put together
Peering in from the outside
There was no need to wonder
If it was working just how he did it

Maintaining a smile while
Keeping the peace he had
Perfected his ability to find reverie
Stepping around, not beyond bounds
As well careful not to mince words

No more questions to others
About how people end up so guarded
Now that he was older the reason
Made presently obvious
Yawning was even a pleasure

He could see the grass crawling
Up in between the cracks of the sidewalk
It felt like nature was winning
In some way though the human intrusion
Was grossly apparent

No lobbying for amnesty
Just a brush on a canvas
Chatter from any bird
A duck’s quackery
Could answer his call
In the lifelike pond he faired

Morocco

Tenaciously pulling at the heart
You can hear the echoes of
An unresolved clash
And then the all encompassing
Hammer comes down
Like a steel blanket
Over his head

When the rules start changing
The arrow seems strategically pointed
Always at him even though the intention
Is for everyone it feels very personal
But the boundaries are for everyone

The art of ignoring is a daily practice
Breathe in, breathe out, ignore
Don’t do this, don’t do that, ignore

It’s like there’s a timeline ticking
Just as the months of the seasons
Go round and someone realizes
We haven’t issued any new warrants
In awhile or we haven’t exercised
Our rights to relay innocuous notices
For quite some time let’s annoy them

Meanwhile the neighborhood is
Actually getting worse and the trash
Keeps accumulating but the focus
Hangs on policies and procedures

His intentions turned to assume that none of it
Was for him though the best thing to do
Always seemed to comply that’s why
Writing it out and licking a stamp
Behaved in such a necessary manner

Not like living in Morocco where
Almost no one cared about what he was doing
How to be living, just that you are
How to be breathing, just that you are
Here in America we are free to live
Under someone else’s tirade
Under someone else’s laws
Understanding all the rules
More threatening paperwork

It’s a brigade on the way to ignore
If we wait long enough
Something else will clamber

The pushback is to exist

Absence

We search for meaning in words
The tongue touches the ground
He thinks he understands
Human emotion

Many winds pass into
His mind like answers
To questions he has
Been too afraid to ask

Salt tastes bitter
If the wrong ingredient persists
No one controls the
Rapidity of the equator

Sensory overload is
Fuzzy like the bellies of monkeys

Strings

You use your heart to decide
Not the argumentative brain
My heart math says the most
Meaningful color is blue but
Even mavi is empty if the
Interpretation leaves a blank space
On the vertical line
We’re sliding down
All the way into the
Definition of gravity rock bottom

Lights dangling half broken bulbs

What clarity lives on an
Open counter where the drinks are
Being served but not enjoyed
More questions than answers
I smile at the catechism

Interrogatory harmonium
We wish for light years to become
One trip to the corner market

This will be the last time
Maybe the change is the price we pay

Roadtrip

Everyone has to be awake
In a unique way in traffic
A collective consciousness of
Being aware as an orchestra might be

I noticed the little red trees
Sparingly they were positioned on the
Background of a hill that reminded
Me of a roadtrip I took once
But the weather was not the same

I’m sorry that I couldn’t stand your heat
In many ways we were perfectly suited
Such a familiar face I can almost see
You everywhere like some anti dismal
Gesture of a once treasured canvas
Awww, suppose we always ache
For the sweet natured side!

It wasn’t like I’d never heard a woman yell before
More so the act was something I was
Trying to escape or run away from
I’m not sure that I intended to completely
Isolating myself from you; but my body
Always knew there was no guard
From a woman who screamed like that
Tantrums for adults one could say

In the resistance the push back was
A bit more like attempting to sing
Something I’d been practicing as a soloist
To a woman who was truly unable to
Appreciate my identity so the voice
actually fell flat and she mocked me
A bit by not staying to share her opinion

Really trying to do your best is
A bit like purposefully failing yourself
Without actually knowing that you
Might have been better off with
A performance that was worth
Much less in your mind
A note I wrote down permanently
On the inside for safekeeping

A little of this and a little of that
Built up overtime and though I
Felt resistant to the storm at times
I had only myself to keep me warm
Or take the brunt of dissolution

What a beautiful shame to be
Surrounded by such adversity and
To also misunderstand its love
I always said thunderbolts and lightning
Were better for the theater of heaven
And dramatic bitching so much
More divine to take in on a silver screen

Even though she was on edge
Until we got home;
Car rides weren’t completely unbearable
But they sure did leave a mark

Scoreless

It didn’t really matter after
A few days had passed
He turned the corner and
All the leaves were upside down

One gust of wind was just enough
To perfectly land them this way
Belly up the rest of the night
Must have been quite a sight
But the remaining plants
Weren’t saying anything yet

And then he heard someone holler
beyond the property line,
“In order to survive, we steal and we thieve!”

The texture in the air brought back
Memories of forgetting how to
Wake up regularly as if the
New day was the only thing
That mattered and no one
Knew how to keep score

As before life became like a card game
And we were all tallying our wins
Attempting to excuse our losses
When the best part was just
Experiencing it all by calling
An old friend who understood
Him better than the rest of the world

But he hadn’t had his coffee yet
Because he no longer drank coffee
And thus this made it complicated
To have the first conversation
On any dog walk because momentary
Silence was required to be
His whole self again but this was also new
Like keeping score so the decision
Was necessary to be made

There would be no more adding
There would be no more subtractions
He would only be

Hopscotch

Wake up and the point is moot
What a relief no need to harp
Or uproot any more of that
Ridiculously obstinate tumbling

Found a rock in the street
I’m convinced that it’s magical
Powers will carry me through
The rest of the week rain or shine

Hopscotch chalk is melting
On the sidewalk underneath
What’s left of the pale green
Tree moss and pine cones
Rolling around like the neighbors
Kids did late summer

Winter is bringing a peaceful
Blanket to cover the chaos
Of people shouting obscenities
One more concert of roses left
To behold a chorus of color
Emboldened by their last
Opportunities to celebrate romance

Squirrels hanging upside down
Like bats in trees for the remaining nuts
The neighbors dog is still barking
Fixated on the possibilities
Of something’s to come apparently

A toast for tomorrow’s unpredictability
A magic punch for everyone to drink
I love the way the traffic lights reflect
After a downpour in the asphalt streets

No one likes the construction
Holding up everything especially
After a good nights sleep