that's mrs. mediocrity to you

some days
my heart breaks four thousand times
and that’s all before
i open my eyes

heartache is the farmer of contentment
planting seeds he knows have little chance
of bearing fruit

if you want 40 plants you sow 68 seeds
and if you’re lucky you’ll end up with 50

think too much and you’ll always have just enough

but no one ever said happiness
was a permanent state
and no one ever said
survival was a given

we stand in a field of black soil
and cry when our feet get muddy

the rain will wash you clean
as long as you don’t run
and sometimes the sky has to cry
just the same way a mother
has to worry

have you ever tallied the scars
on the tree that shades
your bedroom?

missing limbs
broken branches, gashes
peeling bark

sap runs slowly through the veins
of existence

but every spring
green
new growth
insists on piercing the cloud
blocking your view
of the sun

and four thousand leaves
never seem
overwhelming

until tomorrow
when they’ll fuel the flame
you find impossible
to douse

.

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sometimes

life takes

a big old chunk

right out of you

.

sometimes

life traps you

in a rusted out

corner

.

go ahead

bloom anyway

.

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.

.

keeps me tethered to the anarchy of fortitude
and i am calm most days
as long
as no one looks behind the curtain

the robin sings at dawn and dusk
celebrating light and darkness
with the very same song

and i wonder
how any of us make it
through a night
that lets us

slip

through the grasp
of reality’s fingers

even dogs dream and
no one
ever told them they couldn’t

every morning
bird call becomes bell or music or
shrill-strapped screaming

but i always wake up

to this tree
this red breasted thrush
this half-hearted thrashing
against the weight
of a twisted
damp-mouthed

sheet

.

.

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here is the hardest word

not sorry

nor forgiveness

though both are solid rocks
in the shoe of living

but

here

you cannot stay
you cannot leave

you cannot sing yourself away

or back again

from the eternal sunset
of lavender libation

all you can do really

is open

your eyes
your heart
your arms
your mouth

drink it in

inhale

exist beneath this ever

changing

umbrella of now

here

listen

hear it

raining down

.

.

.

(title is from the song “Stand” by R.E.M.)

because

each moment holds its own redemption

each sunrise is a dare

each drop of rain was once a cloud

.

yesterday

this flower slept in a bed of mud

.

but look how pretty it wears

today

.

and a morning filled with birdsong,
windows open to a drizzly rainy day
wrapping me in a blanket of cool humidity

my garden is happy,
half clean and half beautiful mess
and this is progress

and just outside my window
i’ve planted
kiss me over the garden gate
right next to
love lies bleeding

which makes me smile
because i know which one
grows taller

.

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.

.

here, there, and everywhere

stretched too thin

and running in circles

.

i may be here less

or, as often happens when i need a refuge,

i may be here more

.

i hope to be sitting

out there

as often as possible

.

listening

wondering

dreaming

.

there’s always

a pencil

in my pocket

.

.

.

.

.

fight for the light

.

.

.

.

i stood in the sun
and watched a storm
circle north
around me

pulling clouds in directions
impossible to follow

thunder rolled beneath my feet
as i stood

still

planted in a world
refusing to acknowledge

bolts of lightning
ripping through the grey blue steel
of sky’s lost eye

there was no rainbow

but off in the distance

rain reached down
in gauzy
worn-through sheets

someone else’s
dirty laundry

left hung out
to rinse

dry

and petrify

.

.

.

is contemplation

e x  a   g    g    e     r     a  t  ion

the epic fail of epic

on a trip to Misnomer

any other name gets you to the same place

a beginning (seed)

a middle (flower)

an end (pod)

and you can’t separate any one of them from the other

without breathing in someone else’s perfume

crushing stem and spilling life

but you try anyway

again and again and again

and all the words you cannot say

(because i said so)

take root

in the cracks of cement

that line the path you’ve chosen

to pave with your rules

and your yeses and your nos

no!

but all you see is your own

vision

through those rose-colored glasses

of derision

mocking  the singsong silence

of the empty vowel left raining

from the mud-caked corner

of your tongue

.

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Linking in over at dVersePoets for Poetics today,
where Shanyn has us imagining poetry as seed.
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