Author: beighartman

Why me, God?

poetry

Why me, God?
Why do you always do this?
Every. Single. Time.
I don’t get it.
Of all the other people, why me?
It’s ridiculous.
Over and over and over again it happens.
It’s always full throttle forward,
Why can’t I get a break?
What did I ever do to deserve this?
Why me, God?
Why did you pick me?
Why did you choose to save me?
To infinitely bless me?
To give me so much?
There’s so many more deserving,
Yet I’m the recipient.
It’s not fair.
Why me, God?
Why do you always do this to me?

Vegetable Medley

poetry

I get to this point and I’ve nothing to say.
So what then, where to?
At least the sentence can end with a preposition; this is poetry after all.
But that’s not enough; there has to be more.
I’m aching for it: diagnosable withdrawal.
The way one would notice the absence of food,
or at the very least, the recognition of malnourishment.
Where’s the proof?
In the un-inspiration, complacency even.
Dragged out, beat down, by a lack of production.
Gears grinding in un-oiled oxidation.
Akin to exercising: tiring, yes, but in actuality, producing more energy.
Need a first step, ball rolling, build momentum.
Finally achieves kinetic.
The pen scrawls unabashed fervor;
some junkie who feels the high even before the needle penetrates his skin.
And squeeze: there’s the release.
Orgastic even—teeming with life.
Here, let’s make it happen.
Fertilizing eggs of miscellaneous; goulash of the brain.
Grow and hatch into something beautiful, mysterious, titillating, compelling,
Albeit doubtlessly incongruous.
But in some acceptable fashion be squared off and wrapped up with an ink bow
or spoken disclaimer, “it’s only the first draft.”
A neatly presented gift from the patchwork of my mind;
A quilt for your viewing pleasure.

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.

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.

Friday Morning in the Universe

poetry

I wake up late,

again.

I think there’s birds chiming from nests in rain gutters sloping off the roof.
But it might be telephone pole construction at the end of the block.

This window, blinds included, a sorry excuse for shade.
Winter sun blazes my unopened eyes like interrogation lights.

Sweaty. Smells like…. sweat. And stale spit.
Fissured lips, sandpaper tongue, copper to taste.

Paper due in four hours and twenty five minutes.
Won’t start before the stars and sun’s rump come out to play.

My DNA, stacked, circles the world a 100,000 times could care less
about removing hairy legs and atrophied cheese toes
to swing, stretching, jerking and groaning
like some prehistoric poultry: Eeeeyegeahhha!

With thoughts like, “How did the Catskills get their name?”
did a cat really kill someone and if so why didn’t they just
name it after the cat’s name or maybe it didn’t have a name
or maybe it’s the skills of a cat. Stupid.

Stupid. Stupid – what’s going on today? Just fifteen more minutes.
I’ll skip breakfast. Shower? No. I’m going to be hungry.
But tomorrow’s Saturday? Here’s to hoping.

Fallen Snow at Evening on a Plastic Playground

poetry

Vantage from the park bench surveys fallen snow like manna from heaven, raining frozen stars in promenade.
Sparks of spirits springing into step; orbiting fires spell majesty in constellations.
Grated clouds in the cold bring warmth, and a silence that I eschew and do not quite yet understand.
It adorns, gowns every vista in panoramic pageant, the bride made without stain or blemish presented to her groom.
But this bride of cold feet, indecision and logic soon tatters herself.
Countless footsteps in snow unknowing, tracking innumerable roads to sanguine eternities bending backwards to vaults and beds, stages and beakers finding steps to stairways, up mountains, ziggurats, podiums, passageways, pyramids; zenith ascensions and tombs.
Bare trees pronging branches like upside down octopuses, arching tines; a million fingers stretching heavenward;
One-hundred thousand forks spoking to the skies, waiting to taste paradise.
Every atom yearning upward, gravity shackles in opposition and the snow descends to cover us.
The Bible I read says you made all this, but how?
The scope to see is inconceivable, if only I could understand why? But who would you be then?
The demand for attention is indomitable; I’m jumping off the edge of me and falling into you.
The plastic playground, a Lincoln log cabin made life size:
with green plastic tiled roof, with red plastic cross beams, with yellow plastic fencing, with swirling blue plastic slide, with brown plastic walls; a menagerie of color.
And a bridge, bowing to the most tentative of pressure, connecting plastic palace to another plastic palace.
Swing sets: here, gripping tangible yes! almost, slipping BACK! there, gone, distant, lost! nothing.
Rings, rings, links of promises looped together, groaning to stay fast, afloat, and hold on to their terms of words and actions.
Built wrapped around one another, the weight of integrity, the dismay of compromise.
Whine chinking, frictioned, shrieking like witches cackling over cauldrons foretelling prophecies of fallacy; moving, but always stuck.
Higher! So much, not enough! Enough! When? Too high! Too high! The chain slags, snags, jumps, rattles, can anyone withstand?
He curses him, the air curses him, slaps cracked lips.
Snow soggied foundations, rubber and woodchips loosed on disillusioned endeavor unmatched by fallen snow covering hills in white stitches.
Every blade of grass illuminated in whited pencil pricks, competes with hungry moon.
Frozen in white, Lethe has forgotten itself: petrified waves, streak rippled statues, apocalyptic landscapes. Oblivion pauses.
The snowflakes smile, slide beyond, absorb sound, render me unto solitude and silence where all is holy.
The brave beauty of heaven stands naked; shades of ash transmute to linen white; transient, poised and everlasting.

Poem Titles I’ll (Probably) Never Use

poetry

“Compressed Carbon” 
“Afraid of the Dark” 
“Homegoing” 
“The Color of the Sea” 
“613” 
“Socially Adaptable, but I Digress”
“Rose Petal” 
“Some Trust” 
“Groups of Three”  
“Articles and Prepositions” 
“Why you have ten toes instead of eleven and other such oddities of life” 
“Albert and the Infinite Abyss” 
“Killed by the King of Spades” 
“Amoretti”
“Wink and a Gun” 
“Jumping the Check” 
“Never Met a Weekend I Didn’t Like” 
“So Constant, So Monochrome”
“Enstasy” 
“Learning to Walk (Again)”

Come On In

poetry

Am I in a place where you can step in and move?
Will I open the door when you knock,
Answer when you beckon?

Maybe I’m not prepared.
I need to set the table.

How can we feast if I’m not ready to eat?
If I’ve ruined my appetite elsewhere,
Hungering after stale and spoiled fare?

Sometimes I forget who I am in you,
And only remember who I was.
I need to set the table.

(Not a) Sonnet

poetry

Alas, poor Surrey,
you receive no credit for the English sonnet
as Shakespeare has stolen your glory,
and King Henry, your head.

Aye, now that’s the rub.
in homage,
I write in no rhyme nor iambic pentameter.
Call it the nonnet.

Keep Your Coat On

poetry

I imagine we won’t be here long.
It’s frigid outside, but even colder in here.
The windows have been sealed.
Plugged, tight, impregnable—
I imagine this visit will be brief.
Spider ice streaking the glass.
Mouths emit ephemeral clouds.
The temperature is falling.
The gray snow is falling.
Apparition preceding deception.
Numbness is rampant throughout.
These frozen hearts will succumb.

Love Is

poetry

Love is a heaping plate of food,
but hunger returns, and with it, more meals to prepare.
Love is a parking meter,
keep putting in, keep putting more in.
Love is a robbery,
demanding to hold up, reconsider,
choose carefully your next words, and
hand it over if you know what’s good for you.
Love is a pirate ship plank to teeter over,
tread oh, so, precisely, there’s no safety net.
Love is an enigma,
origins stark but untraced.
Love is a compromise,
swirling selfish and self-serving to selfless.
Love is variable x number of cows for your daughter,
no, love is about much you’re willing to sacrifice.
Love is slow release firecrackers,
spark, spark, sparking.
Love is a hardboiled egg,
cracking open heads and cases, peering in,
let’s find out what’s inside that mind of yours.
Love is a stomach ache,
fearful, gripping, slippery, stuck.
Love is a chasm, falling, falling, falling, fall to fill.
Love is “a hamster wheel.”
Love is oily, stringy hairs, not yours, on the adjacent pillow.
Love is a fresh wound that never heals.
Love is unknown, incomplete,
repeated, over, over, over, under,
says so much, can’t say enough———
Love is not ends of the earth,
is not ocean or sea.
Love ain’t no river wide nor valley low,
is not rhymes and lyric.
Love is not mountains or horizons,
is not stars, studs and is not planets
Love is not “let it go and if it comes back to you, love it forever”———
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things———
Love is soggy bathroom towels, unwashed underwear, unpaid bills, free sex, morning breath, oil changes, making ends meet, taking out trash, spoiled cheese, what the heck do you mean there’s no milk, wilting flowers, cuddled on couches watching reruns, dirty dishes, boxed memorabilia, running errands, bodily functions, toenail clippings, I’m sorry, enduring in-laws, remember that time, that’s not what I said, toilet seats.
Love is apples,
Love is oranges,
Love is gone all pear-shaped, poppycock, and popcorn
with M&M’s.
Love is full of holes,
we are full of holes,
cooked spaghetti in sieves straining liquids and sound,
something which is never quite defined, fingers can’t pinpoint,
so interminably tangled, overlapping.
Some days fatter, longer, short, severed, soggy, forgotten, overcooked,
slurped up with delight, to take some now, leaving leftovers for later,
the good with the bad.
It’s difficult, in love, to tell the difference anyway.

Distance

poetry

Season comes again.

Walking, air stifles breath.
Breathe, absorb frost.
Autumn, but it’s Winter.

Icy air—mindful—you.
Scent unidentified—familiar.
Wafted from north.

Leaves whisked by same wind.
Take this kiss, blown.
Stretch—reach Providence.

Remember.

Porridge Road

poetry

Famished, returning from the hunt,
Through the tenebrous stretch of forest
Into the clearing: Jacob’s bungalow in sight.
And from within, ambrosial delights!
The most decadent of delicious delicacies!
“That wench of a brother,” Esau spake,
“He’ll have a minivan in no time.”
But what hunger!
To discard birthright for a single bowl,
It must have been one hell of a porridge!
Though soon after, his appetite returned:
And “Call me Oliver,” he spaked,
“But I want some more, please.”

Up and Down

poetry

Hopscotch or leapfrogging
At once, sturdy on two legs, at another, teetering unsteady on one
Arms flapping headless chicken 
Over under over under, up top rock bottom, hair on fire.
Always why and never why.
Swings hinging back and forth chainlinks groan to glee.
Seesaws precipice fulcrums iambic meter
One foot succeeds its predecessor unknowing 
What heights and depths follow.
A rubberband, taut and slack,
Slinging emotions; elated and overwrought 
Deviation peeling grip from constancy.  

Awaken my memory; crisis or carousel, you’re near. 
But while he was still a long way off his father saw him 
You see me. 
When I’m distant, draw me close. 
Warm breath carries over sandpaper chin.
Let me listen closely to your words 
I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Synapses springing ethereal pulses between our bodies 
A father, palms as big as ribcages 
Trampolines me up and down, up and down
Moon bouncing on his belly.
A promise: Daddy’s here. 

On the Other Side of the Glass

poetry

You must have missed the memo.
It’s October 26th, but there you are
wobbling over the reflection of my face in the window—
squeezing out intermittent bleeped blinks of morse code.
Does your light keep you safe from the cold?
You must have thick skin, or exoskeleton, I guess.
Poor firefly, head south for winter,
go stuff your tiny belly full of firefly food,
go hibernate or go do whatever fireflies do.
Whir your wings feathery fragile to where the rest have gone.
It won’t get any warmer.