Tag: love

To Sons and Daughters

on By

To our sons or daughters, 


You have nothing to be ashamed of, whatever it is that they mock you for, it is also them;
There is nothing that belongs to you that is not also theirs.
The streets are hungry and the alleyways hungrier still, and you will find in your own way that language is only yours and that miles divide us what is right here next to each other.
So don’t be afraid to stand on your own. Don’t be discouraged that they have what you seem unable to possess; if it is possessable at all you too already have it.
Whatever it is you fear that you are, in solitude, alone, know that it was made right here in the interconnectedness of all things, in this world.
Whatever you fear you have made others into, know that you have that capability and choose to make things well;

your pain is their pain, as their pain is yours. 

Soup’s for Lunch

on By

It’s lunchtime and here i am sitting in my van
parked in a grocery store parking lot, blowing my
nose in a used napkin. A napkin previously used to
blow my nose. Homemade vinaigrette sits on the dash

in hopes that the December sun is heavy enough to break
through the overcast and liquefy the coagulated coconut oil.
It won’t. And I realize that if I were sitting in my
Prius, instead of my work van I would satisfy so many
generalizations right now, with my pony-tail, writing
poetry, drinking kombucha. Maybe I don’t need the
Prius after all. Maybe the Prius needs me.
And the high-schoolers yell at each other across the
parking lot, desperate for attention, and the stay-at-home moms sit 

in their vans, just a little longer, enjoying the silence that comes
from an afternoon car-ride nap. If i listen closely,
the traffic swells become fingertips of the beach, trying
to pull me back into her, while the douglas-fir gently wave goodbye.

All of these

on By

All of these receptors are also transmitters

Wave after wave
lapping at this molecular
shore wishing to be dust.
We’re gathered on this
family bed playing at
making each other laugh—
her joy and his excitement
have no lampshade.
We watch each other learn
from each other, still these
voices echo into some distant
future where caves have not
yet been painted.
I’m gathering all of my attention
in order to try to give it
to them, yet the best I can
do is tell myself it’s not
enough, and they don’t think
so, but they do think something
is missing. They know it
and show it in there timidness
which is just questioning
acceptance. Self-righteousness
is innocence refracted.
In my head the next morning
the scene is something like
the end of the world
and we’re bunkered in a cave
instead of the bed
and I’ve got my arms wrapped
around them trying desperately
to apologize, to make amends,
to comfort them and
I’m singing in my head but
crying while rocking back and forth
while plump, fat raindrops smack the
windshield and I realize that all
of these receptors are also transmitters
all that receives also gives.

Sunday Morning Reverie

on By

I woke up this morning to a wrinkled
face in the sheets staring
back at me, mouth open in sleep.
I thought maybe it is the sheets
memory of you, and this its performing art.
Or is it my performing art and the sheet my stage?
I like the way you look when you’re sleeping,
because I know you won’t be asking me
for something, at least not anything that
I’m not already willing to give.
If I try to whisper into your ear, or
where your ear should be, would the words animate
the bedspread, get it to do a little jig?
at least that’s what comes to mind
in this morning reverie. I haven’t gone
outside yet, but I know its likely to be
peppermint and whiskers. Like in a dream that’s a
memory of a dream, I slide further into
the covers and wonder at what it might
be like to stay in bed all day. Blanketed
by crow haws and blind-filtered light,
and the answer comes by the way of cramps
and a runny nose. And I sneeze and the sheet-
face is covered in snot and spit and now
it really starts to get real, I’ve got to jump
out of bed, otherwise the day, like this poem,
would have no point.

Canvas

on By

Don’t run my love
don’t run from
that quietude, embrace
this silence — without
it our voices could
not carry, let it be
the canvas on which
we paint our lives.

Take this cell for example. Its birth is violence, its product; beauty. Can you keep it. Can you hold the bursting. Hold it like the flame. Hold it, it’s yours.

The thing I love

on By

the thing I love about futballers is that they’ll keep running at and trying to beat an opponent, they rarely give up.

It’s amazing how quickly and easily their joy becomes your joy, your joy becomes my joy.

Leave Don’t Leave Me

on By

How was it that your skin and my skin got wrapped up in these melodies. Vibrations. Incantations and memories. I can feel you now, closer. Can you feel me too? We look to the sky as if it holds our meaning. You are like a ladybug living in the creases of a door jamb, who may not ever know the full breadth of the sky. Still we wonder why. With your look and my hook we fall back into each others skin, drifting, to our own rhythms. Still, the way forward is back and we’re always trapped, trapped, trapt. Still. Your eyes and my lies are like oceans of sky and we are creators of clouds and rain and mountains of waves. Leave. Don’t leave me. Bleed. Don’t need me. I do not get lonely, I am lonliness. I hold you in my caress and it’s always me me me. Leave, but don’t leave me.