that's mrs. mediocrity to you

which is not the same as the kitchen sink
because that would mean everything,

and this is just a window.

and just now, there is too much everything,
everywhere,
every minute.

i want clear blue sky and calm cool morning.

but it’s autumn and the colors are raucous
and speaking of raucous,
i’m missing those crazy-loud geese parties
down at the swamp
that aren’t happening this year

because there’s no swamp.

and i’m not writing because there are no words.

so i wait.

and winter will come and i will miss all this color
and wish for things I don’t have
the same way as today

and that bird in the tree,
that bluejay who spends his days
as a beautiful bully

and the monkshood just starting to bloom,
in amidst all the kisses that need cutting down

and this could all be metaphor
for so many things,
but it’s not, it’s all true,
right outside

this tiny kitchen in

this tiny house

this tiny life

half-invisible

portal.

.

.

.

.

on a small lake in maine

i found the color of departure

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(title is a line from Dylan’s Visions of Johanna)

the wind tells tales of emptiness
littering wide roads with leaves just released
from the captivity of decent living

beneath a sky gone grey with culture
an empty swamp sags with the pattern of destruction
heron filled and heron full on rotting fish and
stain stitched opportunity

and all the green has rolled inward, hoping for storm
or honest anger
finding nothing but dry heat hot
from the memory of august
balanced on the razor of reduction

the sun sinks red and rises false rose golden
as blinding answers dive
into the dusty hardheart crevasse of question
playing host to this catalog of possibility

while the distant beauty vulture
screams his mocking two-faced litany
of violent regeneration

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there is this heat you wear like a blanket

there is this weight you carry in a pocket made from penance

there is silence in the mist of white noise

there is sanctuary

hidden

.

.

.

and you wear them on your heart
like a badge or a pin
or a reminder to remember

you expose them
to the elements

harden them off

rub them raw

until they weave
their own shield of shadow
and eventually
stop hurting
when they’re touched

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.

.

my breath caught in the net of my throat
and the dance of a butterfly
held my tongue

and there was nothing to say except
wish you were here

and no camera
can take a photo as real
as my heart
pounding

or the taste of adrenaline in my
never-better peanut butter sandwich

or the way i couldn’t move
for fear my body would take wing

or the truth of never wanting
to come down

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digging deep through poisoned soil
seeking hope or refuge or both
and the flower opens
and we think pretty
but it’s all
just a matter
of survival

“this is not really happening—
you bet your life it is”*

hang your head
nod hello
run
stand your ground

i can’t remember

i can’t remember

your name
is
silence
or alice
or delilah

i can’t remember

and all you ever wanted
was bloom

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(*from Tori Amos’ Cornflake Girl)

and the call of a sky turned crooked

on a day that grows dark like any other

the sun always rises

the sun always rises

the sun always rises

she hears the whispers in the leaves of the tall poplar trees

she has blisters from planting possibility

she is a storm raging gales of regret

she is silent and patient and sometimes

she bends

ever so slightly

towards a house

filled with reflection

and polished

glass

.

.

.

or the belief, at least, that somehow
morning always comes with a sun bold or hidden
bringing new chairs to sit in
beneath a ripe old sky
and gnarled hands knitting hope
by the basket
full
of memory and knotted bits
all the stars you gave
away
and all the sunshine
you gathered

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.

i’m pinning all my hopes on you
tired of this ride and this blue tide and
this ancillary stream
of consciousness
you pull my way
every day
may
slips away
weeds twining
up parallel ankles
everything’s growing
and this mud is downhill shifting and
i’m pinning all my hopes on you

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