Sometimes 2

poetry

sometimes

late at night,

i can’t stop thinking, wondering, pondering

about

what the future holds, where I fit

and whether I like that place much.

and all the thinking

gets me nowhere, except

to more tired in the morning.

Lala Ladida

poetry

My brain is getting out of hand,
a little gem of insight sprouts into erratic thoughts,
and I scatter and stumble into this big nothingness,
this empty space between my body and the ceiling.
The blankness around gains on me, and I’m feeling
blurry each passing day. So I bought

an amaryllis to rebuild my pathway to humanity
but it withered the next day,

a bird to cage down my fears
but it pushed daisies the following day,

a cat to obtain celestial graces
but it purred and asked me to go away

adulthood aka the fall from grace

poetry

once I was a star-eyed child
standing still
between a muddy earth and a glistening sky and
dream of fire and God.
I had not learned how to tip toe
I was lighter then,
and silence was still.

Give me a holiday without
holes beneath my feet,
clowns dancing above my head.
oh a holiday,
a holiday’s
scent of lilac and jasmine,
soft and intoxicating.

reflections on the imminent fatherhood of fellow amateur poet roger mugs

poetry

i cannot believe–

the same guy who shaved
a single mutton chop just
to see to if anyone would
notice (and then forgot)

the same guy who vowed
to wear black pants and a
white shirt for an entire
year (but failed because of a girl)

the very same guy who ran
nude with us across
Norlin quad and into the
shockingly cold night (after some hesitation)

the exact same guy who breathed
in the Pacific after we drove
to the edge of the continent to
sleep under Redwood trees (eventually)

–will soon be a father.

i cannot believe the guy who

shaved
vowed
ran
breathed

will soon be a father.

but i am confident he will
be brilliant (and quite the
embarrassment during her
teenage years).

the father to be

tomorrow at 5 am we’ll induce and by tomorrow night i’m gonna be a daddy!

poetry

red and pink
pack your bags
tomorrow you’ll be a dad

and notes scribbled on the back
of receipts showing your desire
to not lose even one word of
whats coming

all the people wondering why you chose here
to write it down

will words
can a word
describe the experience

new – not feelings or experience
LIFE
of mine!

no desire to eat
placenta
but oh to see her break
into the world the very first time

that very first breath
i want to see her

but much more
to kiss your head
to pray for you

i want to hold my daughter

26 jan 5

poetry

eyelids cower back to call on arms and brain but mind enough

curse your mom once your chin breathes and you find where you’ve been dropped

float or swim around you’ll drown or hit the wall

(tired or not)

but if you busy yourself going nowhere long enough to turn your head on purpose, even if upstream, you’ll soon enough reach one place: where you guessed and saw better and better

 

 

 

wishing for utopias from my dystopian world

poetry

24 years after 1984
and i’m still reading dystopias
because they seem the most true

I Want to Believe
That the world will be a better place
That everyone will be equal
That the future is on an upward course.

but no matter how much i want to believe
i can’t get past the lessons
that Mulder taught and the fear
that we are all mind slaves
caught up in our ideology:
capitalism
communism
what’s the difference-ism
if in the end
we are always wrong
in the end.

there may be no Big Brother prying around
but is America all that different?
there may be no Fahrenheit 451
but surely Fahrenheit 911 isn’t much better.
in our quest for a better world
do We inevitably end with a Brave New one?
or is it as Nathaniel said
that man’s accidents are God’s purposes
that no purposeful action will ever do what we intend?
after the Earth’s Holocaust
will everything merely be the same
in the end?

spring 4

poetry

hurtful in texture but not to touch

because imagination is the foreplay of experience.

i think therefore i am,

and i also trust all i can see,

and believe only what i can predict

all it means is that i’m embarrassed when alone

not guilty.

fresh sashes over empty faces,

both struggling;

patience and keep worthless once a martyr is announced value.

seduced by the supple taste abreast

i wander the waning wide-open.