I wish you well

I'm looking at you, thinking about how I can't stop this
                                                                  spate of sound and how it's making me
wonder.
Wonder if, finally,
             I've gone stark, raving mad.  But I'm losing a little more light every day so I'm wringing 'em out and letting 'em dry.
             They're
flapping and fighting the wind but the fresh air is doing them good.
        I'm not about
                                                  to rescue them - or you.  This time.  I'm
watching from the window and I'm writing you a wish for this forthcoming year.  I'm feeling the contour of the former and the finished and the figuration of the edge
 of
  forever, the scarp we stood on, not
                                so long ago.
                                            And, then, your lack of any of any
                                                                          kind and your silence and your superfluity and all
                                                                                                                                  the wrong moments and near misses. I'm recalling how my fingers traced your wound and how I knew I'd  leave another and suffer one, as well.  I'm envisioning the abundance
arched above
your absence.  I am questioning your innocence as well as mine.  And I'm remembering testing
       the integrity of your infrastructure, one foot weighing each rickety step leading up the spiral
                                                 curve of impenitent insistence
                                                                                    and the house of intrigue, completely
                                                                                                                         crashing down but safe and home, I'm noting, too, your silhouette still
                   hanging on my wall. So, I'm editing, now, emotion and offering you, instead of hope,
 the truth and I'm telling you,
                                                                             I wish you well.


Write at the Merge

Moirai

The stars deliver the news of night's
          arrival.  Elpis
                           sinks
and ice, intent to trap,
weeping, swiftly throws herself upon the creek.  A murderous plot, killing ripples.
    It hurts.  I tried
            to touch
you but you veered - a tangent
maneuver, or so I thought.
                           The part may have been mine.  In this face,
                                                                I'm thinking of the curve of
you against me again.  The way
you might write an account
             this way of warmth.  I don't want to
                                  retrace the line, return to point.  Just in this aftercourse,
make love in collision and thwart
                                     the truth of these moments. Trust less an issue, anymore
                                                          Surround me with sadness-it's more real.  Eye me into flesh.  Strewn
                                                                                                sheets consume
                                                                                                                  me,throw off grief.  It's human.  Scour later.
           A flame to heat, get drunk from, brood beneath.
                  My tears are useless here.  The pop of a secret knowing soul sky
                         emits the rumor of rain and before you see it,
                              torrents melt the cover and I'll float.


The Sunday Whirl

Cloudburst

The surprise of your laughter- head thrown back, eyes grooved.  Really laughing.
Drench me in it.
             It's new to me.  Or if
             I knew it once, the marvel resurrected like those women clothed in rose.
 Another gift.  I find them everywhere, wrapped with
             thought.
A scavenger hunt for joy.

Poetry Jam

Formerly

Rapid, pounding out the
               news, betraying, yet keeping
                                                  pace with yours.  Beyond bruised, it's shockingly
                                                                                  still able.  If I
could,
I'd hurl it across the room-
at you.  It's yours, anyway and
          I'm through with it.
          I've outgrown it and it makes it
hard to walk - or talk.  Or breathe.  Not so rare.  But the
insistent rustle of whispers in the
curtains who saw it all still haunt this house, like the bells tolling with aurora, announcing the arrival
            of times past.  And the spasm which is each current moment
bursts to break it still,
                            little pieces of star. And it seemed once that I
would cease to live
but that
proved false.  The
       enigma of falling,
recurrent as
            the clench of seasons and so take flight,
            these feathered believers as clouds first blush then give way to an
                       again spacious sky.

The Sunday Whirl
                                                                                       

Until

She
sighs.
 He stares, submerged, into the mirror, slicks back his hair
                      and the  moment of what could have been, rushes past, an
itch lapsed.
 Unfolded in the time it takes for him to primp, her desire laid out aches the bed-an ocean of
                                                    all marriage
                                                        mystery. Her eyes now
                                                                reflect the
glassy void of his, the milky promises
   seeped to spilling are the whites
and the once blue of
                     infant hope, now tragic as the state of constant solitude  in company.  Heaving her
body upward, she returns
                             to laundry to lighten the load of all unwashed
                                                                                        sin,
within.
"Listen," he says,
 his voice a blast of what's broken
and she jumps
 to have to.
 She
    turns
and gazes at his soul,
wants to take
                     a paper towel and Windex and scrub until visibility
                                                                       becomes a possibility.  "Top of the list, Sweet- laundry.
Socks, please," he says, halfway out
                                                   the door now
 and she sighs.


The Sunday Whirl

A sometimes silence

So, if
     I gather them in the hammock of my honesty, and we swing softly
           to
           the hymns of tales told in truth,
would that be alright?
If the messes gather during
                              day while a sometimes silence
                                       interrupts the
                                         more often heard tattletaling, marking its
                                                                            insignia with a lead stroke of drawing and I take
                                                                                            the time,
while it visits, to pen as well, imaginings of evenings of explanations and understandings, the brood, seated in a circle, while I bring You in?  Forlorn without them, I miss them while they're here because the sand drips
faster than ever,
 forks are forming,
frost is coming
and I don't want to
find it gone.
       The clash of age hangs in the balance, hewn on the
          heart of the home.
Manic Mondays
play relentlessly and I remember in a Sunday the peace we knew before. If you fuse this prayer with grace and new mercies, we can make it. Drive desire in, and give me calloused knees to kneel on, so that I won't
                  waste this time.
                    Affair alarms
                    a signal, the chores wax but I wait and still,
 find comfort in the story of a woman of desire,
wonder if she had children, if You knew their names and I know you did.

The Sunday Whirl

the gift so beautiful that eyes can see

I take notes on my thoughts, in the car,
 outside the grocery store,
jot
                                               them down on a previously important envelope.
 Or I take notes on half-
 on some
        of my thoughts, arranging them like a composition of music,
 I write about an author I was reading a year ago, this new, shorter
                                                   story woven with
                                                   similar theme.  I hone my words in, focus on,
                                                                               not necessarily,
                                                                                  the battle
                                                                                       between good and evil but the
perplexity at the
notion of it.
     I think of the author's words, then and now,
                                  shaping thoughts into questions posed for future generations,
 but more than that, I think of the craft produced and bestowed,
                                                                                            designed
to prompt another story.
 I cast off guilt of self-indulgence.
                                    I am happy.
I am delightfully entrapped by another book.  The paradox of savor and rush.  Each page holds a sweet
                                                surprise of sentence
                                                so I earmark
 because the book is mine.  
I taste the
formation of style and
       artistry, circle the words on the mind
                    of my tongue, dizzied by
simple brilliance.  How do writers do this?  Mix things up,
shake them around, piece them back together
         to stunning bloom and perfection, fold them into paper airplanes, fly them
             so they land, new and pleading, true and provoking similar thought,
                                                           rolling at night,
                                                                      tumbling to
                                                                            be remembered?
And in the fog of the midst of a good book, I walk, groggy, content, prolonging moments.
A state known to
    travelers of this sort,
jet-lagged from world lapse.  What if we stayed, appropriating time,
nibbled all
         day, words for nourishment, long and fruitful, abandoned
                       short spurts
and pictures of
                    feasts and dined
on the delicacy of story?  Quit summarizing and glorifying 'to the
point'.  What if there was never the need to place a loathsome
           word like television in a poem, if the contemplation of throwing the object out
                 discarded the word as well from our vocabulary and our homes.  We'd learn enough, I think. I'm
 re-collecting wonderment in people, cooking from books, recipes for ripeness.
                                                                                 Shamelessly plotting the
                                                                                                     outline of
returning to a changed outlook.  I'm thinking of homespun yarns and origami and tables of skilled, wakened artists,
gathering colors for their words, their wealth of wisdom growing.
Because what gift better from a mother than
                         this love transmitted from The Word, to the
                                                                       words that carry and heal, remind, bring peace and belonging and purpose, that ache from honesty, raw and exposed, trickle
                                 to
                     teach the
power of life and
                        death, the responsibility so huge but the
                                                                    gift so beautiful that eyes can see new loveliness in shrunk, wet flower petals left on a bathroom sink,
                  so precious you almost can't bear to write it down.