Day: February 9, 2011

Visions

poetry

You are: here.
Unseen narrator: the ravine lies before you
and it is narrow.
Walk through, the path is present.
Do not wander, do not touch.
The walls, they appear as stability,
as opportunity.
They are distractions.
You must discern the difference.
Stay vigilant, focus on the task at hand.
Walk through.

When the walls end,
you will have come to the other side.
To: a valley of efflorescence.
A verdurous mountain rising.
in the vista’s breadth.

He is in the mountain.
You will meet him there.
But the people are in the valley.
Life more abundantly awaits.
Go: there.

the interweb is a magical place where anyone can be an idiot.

poetry

we shed the chains of social construction
and willingly stand before others in our
much-too-holey-briefs, and curse with
words we’ve only heard on animated television
shows because at work i’m to be respectable
but here, in this magical place, i can be
anyone.

my chosen character is a 13 year old idiot
i call [SoB]haNk451.

on the whole thing about living

poetry

my life would read like a red cross
volunteer straight out of a brief
bio in readers digest or a lifetime
original movie. everything played just
right and everyone cared for in
just the right way. but really while
i’m tying the bandages around this guys
leg, or helping this old lady across
the street . . . while i’m scooping
poop out of the clogged septic tanks
or de-toilet-papering a house for a
neighbor, the whole time my head is
in town. at a pub where i plan to go
the moment the sun hides behind the
mountains. a place i know where i can
climb inside a bottle, hole up, and soak
into every pore, the brewed nectar of
the fruit of the earth. enjoying life and
joy in a bottle so many others are there
abusing. just waiting for the day to break
so i can hop back in my thirty-year-old
chevy truck and head back to do
it all again.

Winds of Change

poetry

There is a place between where I was—
Geographically straddling home (and where home will be)
Intellectually flailing at what I know (petrified of what I don’t)
Emotionally committed this cause (a compelling enigma)
Romantically ready, so ready (so far from prepared—but ready)
Spiritually tender and ready to be transformed (more than I can imagine)
And where I am going—

Like a flag buffeting in the wind
Declaring an identity which has been attached to another foundation
For as long as memory recalls

Flings loose

Willingly—terrified.
A movement begins.
This house grows wheels, bears the weather—no apologies, howling.
Purpose served, shingles tear up, await replacement.
A new roof—trappings intact.
The old precedes, but now concedes.
One is silver, the other gold.

The summer storms usurps a leaf from his stagnant perch
And for a moment—though turbulent and unknowing—
Deposits him to transformation of life yet untold.
Greatest mystery with only the promise of a seed intact.

Change and I have never seemed to get along,
But if it’s like they say and, “opposites attract”—
Then I suppose I’m right where I should be.

The Only One Worth Living

poetry

He was a Career Man
and a Red Cross Volunteer
and his life read just like
a bottom-shelf dime-store novel
with all the characters stuck
in all their own little worlds
and the two-tracks tying their
countryside together would freeze,
every winter, and split,
right at the seams,
but he drove a giant pickup truck
and didn’t abide by snow-drifts
or stuck tires, and the folks he knew
hardly knew him at all, hiding
behind kitchen cabinets and
dead-locked storm doors. No,
they won’t be joining him.
Not any time this lifetime.
So he drives to town each night
and crawls inside a bottle,
waiting for the dawn to break
it open so he can drive
back home again.