poems

thoughts need a way out . . .

Last Straw

6|7|24

My stuffing is strewn o'er the field
I am a tattered scarecrow
Flattened by life's whirlwinds

What to do?

All is open and possible
Yet I am numb to my choices
Face planted in the muds of
others' circumstances

Can't see horizon.

Must gather my dry straw reeds
Hem my ragged shirt
Sew back on my half button nose
And straighten my crooked neck

Scan the terrain.

Chasms of unknown
Meet gentle meadows of
yellow orange butterflies
I must avoid the rough roads

Need to transform.

Fly as seedling over rugged sharp edges
Swerve around the rusted metal tines
Skip the rotten forgotten harvests
That poison us into seclusion

Sprout soul wings.

Rise above others' quarrels
Cheap tries at pale domination
Breathe clear air above their
Potholes

Is it possible?

No predictions equal
fewer disappointments
Let the current carry
An honest allowance for

Survival.

Fraying Edge

9|12|24

I feel ignored
But due to him, not to me
A cool distance
Casual jokes
Unable to relax, it seems

He walks by quickly, grinning too much
Like a stage actor in a bit part

And I don't know what i think
And I don't know if i care

Is he hiding an illness
Is he adjusting to age
Hard to say
Hard to say

And i really don't know what to do
I've not given up yet
I still want to parasail the breezes

But it hurts like a dull thud
Like an organ pulled out of my chest
Just when i need light embrace

And he saunters by again, smiling
Prepping for his latenight talkshow

So, alone, i watch one more drama
Tentatively touching the edges
Of others' lives

Mazda

08|16|24

At my east coast starting line
Barely driven my new carriage

Tomorrow wheeling into a new
Destiny, unviewed open roads

As a free dove flits through gaps of
Stillness between jaybird chaos

I am spent, empty, ready
For refilling, refeshing renewal.

Three Day

09|01|24

I'm tensing up
Going on a three day
Not sure how I feel.

He makes me nervous
Rattling around
Can't think straight

Hard to create
Thoughts interrupted
Often

Yet...

Weekend of green
Calm couple gave us
Tomatoes in a box

Organic meals
Rolling hills, ancient trees
Glowing wildflowers

A blanking escapade
Away & toward
So he could rest

Not on an enteric tube
Without hospital blankets
Nor the doubt of counting days

Like a young puppy
His face pressed on the
New car window

Watching colorful shapes
Remembering boy days
Of frogs & grasshoppers

Back home he said 'thank you'
Had a drink then
Went to sleep

Helen’s lens

9|10|24

Her lens over my eye
Distorted my view
Blurred my hope of
A normal
Life path

A balanced walk
Soon becomes tilted
Cool steps tipped & tripped
in her swirling mind disease
Of psychotic shapes & tones

And my only friends were
the spiritually adept, the sensitive
From large house loose families
Or single parent tiny apartments

Every few days she was
an interruptive episode
A nagging call to a bossman
An poison insult at a neighbor
An insinuating letter to clergy
Or just stumbling to mow the lawn
After a half a goblet of sweet wine

And her jobs were gone
Her self-respect fragile
Her shame palpable
But unadmittable
For how can one admit crazy in her era
With a small daughter at your knee?

So i made up for her clanging
And clamoring mind games
I grew shoulders
And sharp wits by fifteen
Assessing each scene for efficient gain
Or quick exits
Often on alert calculating
How to not lose the little cape cod home
How to stay enrolled in school
And not be sent to foster care

But my agility made me too excellent
And angry at the loafers
The kids who got bikes
Just 'cause they had a dad

So I surfed life with a confidence beyond my years
And fears deeper than a young soul should bear
With grudges crippling me in secret despair

Where to hide her?
How to help her?
When to leave her?

How might i drag her
Screaming, convulsing
Twisting words
Eyes flashing...
As she swears she's fine

Time is in a vacuum where
Clock hands have splintered into dust
Where thick fluid glass melts
My view of the outside world

Even the counselors had no idea what to do

And now in the wisdom of over half a century later
And the ache of a torn & patched being
I hover each day in my essence
Looking over the cliffs of existence
As she ages
As they age
As I age

And I am beyond relaxed
Floating above circumstance
As I began so long ago
To survive

My strength diluted by her delusions

I no longer root for the nice ending
I no longer cheer for the obvious
I can't care how it turns in or out

Cause 'here we is and there we was'
Someone whispered yesterday, i think

Scraped

4|26|24

He jitters my nerves

Clinking clanking
Stirring whirring
Jostling picking
Open shut shut open
Doors tools utensils
Motors cords claptraps
Stomping stepping
Harumphing coughing
Shuffling jostling

Never quiet
Seldom still
He can't help it
Wired to move

My nerves?
Gone.
Frayed to stumps
Normal hope fading.
Always on guard
Screaming inside
Fetal position
Holding hands over ears
Can't rest can't think.

Earplugs? Leave?
That is the sad, old way.
Sick of having no peace
In my own place.
Sick. Pointless.
Losing me each day.
Fading away.

And the lawn is cut. Yay.
Yes, I am grateful,
But at a premium cost.
Soul scraped & grated,
Trimmed & bagged.

Revival

6|24|24

It becomes an enigma
When you no longer
Need to care
What people think

A time of re-examining
Motives and reasons
For doing, not doing
Thinking and saying

Asking 'why' rustles context
Rattling frame from baubles
Jostling structure from style

Leaving substance to withstand
Life's awkward traumas

Drawing a likeness
Singing a favorite
Chatting a tale

These are durable
During the storm

But who cares?
None? All?

What mattered before unravels,
A tattered windsock of
Yesterday's issues

Wrestling windmills is gone
Fencing gusts is pointless
Paddling against the current
Is wasteful spending of

Precious drops of energy
No longer easily regenerated

My existence isolates
Between specks of stardust
And vaccuous space,
Beneath the comets'
Rare surge of sparks

Who is whom?

'their' judgement melts
Past egos collapse
Aged ids deflate
Faux snobs reduce
To wispy hourglass grains
Falling without will

It is time to do without a care
To move without concern

Because there is no 'them'
'they' were blown away in the tempest

The few molecules I command
Must relax now in my
clear canoe's pleasant flow
In the riverforest's sun-speckled bath

To recoup and recover
To destroy despondence
To revive, repair and restore
The original pondering of
'why am I here?' and
'who might i be?'

This solves the new enigma

Clear bright weightless
In this fresh season of
Uncounted heartbeats
And unlimited potency

Penumbra

08|24|24

I'm finally ready
For a role that ended
In the last play's third act

But off kilter
In others' dreams

My outer shell & inner spirit
Are wobbly, shambled shadows

My focus, a triple blur

What do I want?
What do I need?

In a small box shaken,
My tiny toy pieces rattle
Loose, unattached

And I can't discern
My original form

Wants & needs
Are soft cloud outlines

Here, there & nowhere
Seen, unseen, dissolving

Yet felt beneath strata of
Others' dramas

To inhale stillness
Is my fragile calm.

Bryn Saga

4|8|24

As a ropebridge weaves
'tween ideas and technique
Sober hope crochets
Feeling and healing
Sinews twist, striving
For accurate aim

Spirit ! Meld concepts
Generate shape-shifts
Silhouette lime leaves
Beyond predicted
Circum-folly stance

New tendrils
Ancient vine

Our souls' voyage splits
O'er cavernous paths
To fiercely navigate
Newfound challenges

she + i +
i + she +
she + he +
they + we

Humming tunes
Barely learned

Spirit ! Urge freeflow
Past calculation
Beyond prediction
Let glowing lava
Cast bright auras known
To be imminent
Signs of futures bold

Framed eclipse
Flaming ellipse

Yet choreography
Of awkward cell growth,
This raging harsh surprise
Ambushes action
Paralyzing my
Hazy soulgaze

How do I dance these
Moving hoops passing
Shifting obstacles
In unfamiliar
Terpsichore?

Hard toe scuffs
Rough terrain

Spirit ! Calm anxieties
Warm her ecstasy
Find her balanced beam
'tween flesh and light and
Bright extremes in the
Path she will believe
Is hers to freely dream
In a day stream of
Semi-conscious gleam

Teach her to see
Whisper her needs
Help her to yield...
Heal her for real !

PostOp PreLife

6|7|24

Two days in
She is animated & chatty
At the kitchen table with her friend

I am beat
All muscles & nerves
Tingling sore, buzzing as they heal

Other she
Working remotely on the couch
Injured foot, emotional support sister

Second surgery
Is cancelled for now
She cried tears of relief privately
Scared of losing proper use
of her left arm

Sis & mom exist
Silently on the soft couch
As she shows her friend
New growth in the garden
Outside

Irish Knot

6|24

Was I just a portal
For this bundle of energy
Who hatched and ran from my embrace?

Ancient symbols that
Emanate from her psyche
Scare me

Her backyard a tribal campground
Echoing a land far away & long ago
So foreign at times, this pulsing soulgirl

She has but one image of me
In her home
Among dense walls of photos

But I hear from others
How she tells of me proudly,
of my music, art & language ventures

I couldn't have guessed
Always felt so sidestepped
Taken for granted
Unacknowledged

But a new relationship is forming
New skin under old scabs
We must be careful to let it weave
Not disturb or accidentally rip it

Patience is a virtue
Now practiced untangled
As we've unraveled
Waiting for threads of love.

Existir

4|25|24

I'm having trouble
Processing + perceiving
My own existence

Her sickness burning
The normalcy of hoping
For calm, better days

Teasing conclusions
That won't be easily mapped,
Breeding confusion

Leaving contusions
In my shaken psyche, bruised
Truths or illusions

Raising my eyebrows
Stretching my sore collarbone
I barely hear it

That whisper - that small
Still voice murmuring that it's
All right to be content

Within circumstance
That scrapes the edges of my
Personal galaxy

Inside this fragile
Satellite so used to bumping against
Sudden meteors

That voice whispering
Of surviving torrents of struggles
Through loving patience

I am hollowed out,
An earthen vessel emptied
For transcendent flow

Cleanse her molecules
Comfort her aching body
Renew her structure

Until we all can
Breathe in in measured silence
Then burst out in joy

Buzzing

4|24|24

I am overwhelmed
Emotions so spent
That i can't feel
But a big buzz

My chest is tight
My toes tingle
My lips feel numb
My fingers stiff

When your parent is sick, ok;
But not your child, no
Not your child

My sparkling unicorn child
My iridescent indigo bunting
My bouncing goldilocks
My frontline spiker

Is laden, is damaged, is afflicted

I am buzzing in my bones
My chest is pressed
My lungs won't fill
My heartbeat uneven

My keel is wobbly
Flight unbalanced
So hard to muster courage
To move and breathe
Strong when i am the

Weak one now
Seeing through the galaxies
Of spacetime spiraling
Beyond my comprehension

Kneeling in humble pleas
For healing, strength
And steady bravery
For all, for her, for all

She hurts, I hurt
Reverberating on a
Cellular level

Fix it now, we whisper
Fix it now, we speak
Fix it now, we yell

Until the vast void vibrates
The caring of millennia

Until the Creator concurs and

She is well again