Worn Out

Yeah, I get this,
                 how
                the new,
like love,
surprises.
How
                time rides in, stale
but
                             seasoned,
war wounded and chiding
                                 and I'm hiding
                                        in bed
afraid
of her reasons,
             afraid to come to
                      terms with the gaps in last
                                                     night's landscape.
Bloodshot
                                                                   eyes
                                                                        squeezed tight
against
                                                                                       the halcyon,
deriding day awaiting,
writing letters instead
                                                                                                    in my head
to stave off
the
                                                                                                                 ache of the not many memories, still inflamed
                                                                                                                                  with regret.
The
                                                                                                                                        happenings
of which
           harp tired,
feeding me, aching,
still
gaping,
reminding me
how really worn out this
        really is.

There is a thought

There is a thought-
that we -
you and I -
are satisfied with
                                      struggle,
resist,
perhaps,
the triumph.

This
view
points,
merely at what we've seen, but not accepted.
With
                                     hardened hearts,
we reenlist, know more of war than
want of peace.
            Prolonging battle, we are enlivened
                                        when
                                        wrought with
fear.

We vow resilience but
contend more
with absence of crisis, adrift
          at empty sea.
Our
voices ring out promises of
death
and our faces stoic
       opposing fate,
we paint our
land with
        war.
Ships at night,
         we search
but not
for safety.
No, some other cause charts our course.
Unyielding, we force still waters part, little gods, we're sure, defending
                                      dearly,
choice and chaos.
Under weight of wintry beryl,
we splash through waves of our own making
when all we'd have to do is
                                                   swim
to shore.
What unreasonable wrath has
chained us thus to
                 think
we thrive most honorably amidst the
               billows?
When,
spent,
will we give up our fight
against
                       these slanderous enemies within our
                        heads?
For, pulled out,
in
grace,
we flee the open air and
                feign
                     need of shelter, rejoice
                     not in freedom but in the
                               refuge of some hole we've dug to
                                                       hunker down in,
shocked by our quick evasion of the void.
                                                      The
bomb dropping
                   is the
                            truth.

We are the infidel; faithless.
                                     So,
     dissenting from deliverance,
                             we are prisoners to hate.

The Sunday Whirl

                         
                                                   

of love

Inflicted, shall I embrace this
       thorn?  Bend beneath
       the will?

Infected, shall I resist
        this imperfection? Fight
        incitement? This
        tyrannous whirl?


Ardent bands of brilliance
                          light my
escape, and breathing humble
                   but emboldened
                   by embers, I find
                                     I
can
follow your
song.

Do you hear me?

It's only you, and I resist
                     and I
succumb.

Your hands know of this,
recognize pain.

I see
but won't believe.  I believe
but won't see.

Shall I persist in weakness,
                    take flight in
blindness or wait for sight?

Once much afraid,
                       I am in
                                need
of a brand new name.
That i might set forth also,
                   set like flint
my face.
Learn of love.

Write at the Merge

The Show Must Go On

My back relieves my heart;
                                       takes up the aching,
doing us
both a favor.

Carry on Tuesday

In between

Today,
the mother wakes,
late,
first light entered several hours past.

This is
new.
    What is not,
is the gaze through what is barely veiled,
    the petitions,
often bold.
The expectation.  Hope. The waiting.

Today, the youngest lies close, taking comfort.
                                     Comforting.
                                               

This is
not
new.
    What is,
is
the swell of gratitude at
the swell of the voice of the oldest,
                           carrying across
                                                        rooms but not walls.

Tonight,
the
mother welcomes rest.  Late. Sighs unwind themselves from every tangled daytime worry, failed plan,
unmet hope.
She closes eyes against silence, thankful for it.

And in between,
       in the seeming eternity of the day in day out mundane cliche of workload,
                                                                                  and only when she forgets, which is often,
will she welcome the abyss.

How can she be lonely?

The name held in mind, but not often leaving
                    lips,
near
as the ones
she
                                       treasures.

And somehow, still,
                          in this continuance, she loses morning, daily.
Striving, in the after of the bask,
                                                       she
loses,
also, sight and way.
She summons
         strength
but not the
want.
Not all the time.  Still, time lapses along with memory and so she recreates a semblance of
                                                                                      remembrance.
She knows too much and not enough.

Somewhere beyond the
                               threshold, beyond
                               the formless flicker and its flight,
                               there
                                                    is a promise to follow
                                                       away from the rise.

She knows this:
somewhere in the middle
is the beginning
and the end.

Some unaltered moment waits for notice.

If she could say what she knows not how to say, however slight,
    she thinks she
might find power in surrender, release
        from
        former,
and at
present,
she commences to remember.

The Sunday Whirl



                                                 

I don't know how
not
         to write in terms
of you and I.

How to
be
anything less than
honest.

How to curb doubt,
silence
arising anger-
crippling.

How not
to jot each thought,
compose projection or
      gather guesses.
            I don't know
how to stifle the white
hot urge, the surge,
but
it's been a while, and
I'll admit,
            the colors of
reasoning
bleed now, inquisitive,
and the unblinking
portrait,
cherished so
long,
seems slightly
         smudged and
slanted.

I don't
                know
if
                          I
can do this,
because
            the contract
merges contrast, and
blurting arrangement
of impression pales
with each terse
reminder of the still
life still hanging.
Blurring verses won't
make for unity, no
matter how
           hard I try,
or how high
             I bid.
             And
                  during
my worst moments,
I can see me caving,
         strung out,
         sanity fleeing.
                    Every
single thing
 I've worked so hard
for,
swiftly disappearing.
          It's not
right.
   Have I not
   groveled enough?
Free me from this
predetermined
   execution.
               I am
daring you to face
me,
finally,
for who I really
          am.
Forgive
                for love.
You're stalling,
building
brand new walls.
I know this song
by heart,
       and so
do you.
You know,
too,
I'm fluent in
apology,
but there's
a language of yielding
                       I
could teach you
if you let me.

The Sunday Whirl

true-blue

How the grass
                   still grows here,
                     I do not know.
High, and waving on,
waving on.
     It's the indigo
sky of warm
           which made it so, perhaps.  At least,
that's what I tell myself,
driving
                                        down,
even with an aching
beating
warning me in double time
to
                              turn around.
But I can't,
                                       and I won't,
till
                                                       I grasp,
clutching, what's marked.
           I want the complication of the raw to stain while I cull out what's undecayed,
because in the glass of liquefying
                                          landscape,
I see so much I never understood,
and I'll lay
                                                                                                                      low
in it,
all for you.
It's time
  to
    face the history,
             honor the glitter of imposing season,
state
                       the birthing and
                        give
                       tribute,
finally,
to the wealth which waited.
Without us.
                             Without you.
 I said it.
With.
   I'm leaving something out.
With intent.  I'm daring you to listen to the whisper of the rustling,
          to face the music of the space we once upon a time inhabited.
              Folly, maybe,
but the
swaying
steady,
still.
             It was I who staggered away,
                     shamed by morning.
                         And I'm sorry I couldn't stand.  I'm
                                     standing now.
Returned, alone, way out here, surrounded by the vacancy, but taking comfort in the possibility.
                         Because the wild needs
                                                   no reason, so I, too, will answer
                                                                            to the
glow of day,
heart
                    held out for rightful owner
to
                                            take possession,
risk but a challenge, and I'm true-blue as the surge this time.
            And loved.  So what else matters?

Naming Constellations

Miz Quickly's 
               
                                                               

For long lost

Finally,
         you spoke the words I've needed,
gave proper meaning
to the
language of dreams,
and I, for once, was
                             speechless, unable to voice the emotion
                                even

as

my mind,
propelled by thoughts exposed,
flew straight down to desire's cellar door,
 locked for years and years.

Volumes, written, unwritten,
 lay just past a closed past but
I stand
  so close, safe now, beneath
                                         the house of lies
                                                               I'd built my life in, carrying one small
                                                                                                                 seed, a token of hope, and there's somehow
    promise of growth,
dark as it is
in

the depths.

With a match struck to aid the hint
                                                      of moonlight offering, wiggling
                                                                         through slats, never filled in,
                                                                                                         I can see well enough.

                                                                                                         It's as
                                                                                                            simple as the turn.  The sphere remains.

I come for long
lost heart of flesh.

The Sunday Whirl
Write at the Merge