Reckless Poem About a Flower

You are a flower
at the mercy of the sun
and are the center of the clouds
rotations
or
is it
that you believe yourself to be
in the center of the sun's rays
and beg for mercy
from the clouds
who periodically
reign down
with relief?

How do you stand it?
-all the time-
your stems straight up
with a head of petals,
such an ornament
is no light weight
to carry.

You can't run away.
I'd uproot
if I could,
but that's a lot
of shoes to find
and fill.
How does it feel down there?

Which is better:
The rain falling
and sliding down
your green cuticle
or having a shower
of water
that directly sinks
down to your
varicose roots?

I am a flower,
not a rose
or a golden sunflower
or any one of those
species
that like to catch
people's attention.
Call me a bush
or a shrub
and that's what
I am,
but I am not

I know nothing
of the flower
as I separate
it's young body
from the black
partitioned container
-it knew nothing
more of the world
than that,
by the time I
dug it's hole
-it's new container-
into the ground,
watered it
and
surrounded it with
soil.
Does it know anything
besides
itself
now?

Would you tell me
if you
did?

I'm not a plant,
but you are a flower
and I wonder about you
-too much-
I am thinking
and writing these thoughts
on the bone of my brain
while driving.

You are you,
being a flower,
and I being me,
am speeding down the rode,
because I forgot
to slow down my questions
and ask you simply
about being a flower
when I had the chance.

From the Porch of an Old Plantation House

The white tips
of the high
green grass
bend in the breeze
of an
otherwise still day.

It's you
running past
and through
that bends the tops of the grass
in prayer
"God, please don't let her leave."
or
was that what I said
as you ran away through the field
after the clouds
you said
looked so free?

The skin around my elbows
itches
from
the tops of the high
green grass.
I chased after you,
but you never looked back.

I am reminisient
as I look out on the field
behind the run down farm house
we called Home.
The high
green grass
with its white tips
still shows your path
Out.
I'm tempted to once again follow,
your indentation
in the bent over grass,
but I need to start fixing up this place
so if ever you are to turn around.
I'll be waiting
with a plowed field
and bouquet of grass
to welcome you
to me,
at last.

Black Ice

There is a snow plow
in my mind.
It follows the routes
carved out
along my cerebral cortex
catching thoughts as they fall-
pushing them off
until later.

I've asked the driver
to kindly give me peace,
but the storm keeps
getting worse.

Snow drifts back from it's piles
onto the icy road.
The truck runs out of salt
-I'm sliding

My head is a snow globe.
To shake away a thought
is to let others loose
in the whirlpool
of consistently gray matter.

It's gray outside and in.
I sip tea to keep me company
A few blankets keep me warm,
but my brain
is far from being thawed
by the fireplace.

I am stuck in a crystal palace
of fluffy imagination,
icicles,
and slush.
How do I keep my footing
watch my head,
and stay dry
in such a blizzard?

Exhale and some thoughts
leave me
-"Water vapor"
I think-
and the snow packs in tighter.

Do igloos collapse?
What is the best advice
you can give me,
for out running
an avalanche?

I know how to ski,
but I lost my courage
hearing the sound of ice
cut against
strips of fiberglass.
I imagine all types
of tragedies.

I can't even skate
if the ice
is beneath feet of snow.

The snow is up to my waist,
and past my shoulders.
It reaches over my head-
Slowly my body
succumbs to the cold.
One last,
conscious breath,
and hibernation will replenish
and restore me.

Closed Eyes

He called her nose a peak.
She never knew
amorous nausea
until
his finger traced
along her bridge.
Instead of falling
in the water,
his fingers kept their balance.
Distantly, she heard him
discovering
a valley.
He rose out of her
be-freckled depths
to carve a gentle slopping plateau
along her forehead.
There,
his finger pressed
against her mind,
and there the imprint
will stay
until the sun no longer wakes.
Even in the darkness,
she remembers.

the condition of a moment

haphazardly hanging
on the last syllable
of a drawn out deposition,
without space
or time
to think,
bodies rush onwards-
though some may stay behind.

for a mere instant
it is the be
in being
that links us to gravity
and roots us
to the branches
of our longer times.

i have yet to understand
spontaneity.
though fighting
the one force
that does not bend
to the whims of political minds,
i now see
as stupidity.

everything has it's past,
but neither the desk chairs
nor the plastic furniture
resort to the reconstruction
of their ghostly elements.
they are your weight
upon your sitting,
and they are the air
upon your standing.
they are,
what I have trouble being.

momentary.

Hypnotism

I object to your presence in my head.
It’s nothing but a fool’s game
that you’ve taught me.
You secretly laughed
While I listened
Acted
Waited
Spoke
I learned to play along
Not as participant,
But as a piece itself.

Now you’ve caught me
Hanging on monkey bars
Higher from the ground
Than I’ve ever hung before.
I’m smarter than you know;
I long ago realized
The clouds wouldn’t catch me
If ever I am to fall
From this height.
I learned that,
When you had me jumping
In anticipation
For the next round.
I skimmed the sky
Not that long ago.
It hurt
When I grazed the roof.

Love is unconquerable
Words from a master
Of an ancient art
Cannot quell a hunch.
The knowing
And unknowing
Of all that is following distantly-
Yet embedded so closely-
Does not obey
The wants and wills of humans.
It’s allergic to this game,
And my body pays
For the mixture.

Love is a word
Like paper,
Only nobody has made it
Tear-able like the pulp of wood
Between two anguished hands.
There has yet to be a scientific breakthrough
That let’s love be engulfed in
The belly of a flame,
Not even a scavenger
Can pick at the remnants
Of love
Within the refuse of a soul.

Get out,
And leave be
My essence in its contemplation.
There is no cure,
And maybe even
No ailment.
That’s the beauty
Of shapeless things.
We never know,
Except what we imagine.

I believe
In the black
Shapeless form
Of unrequited,
But it isn’t solid.
I walk ahead.
As I pass
Through the shimmer
That isn’t quite
Color
But isn’t empty either,
I see the silhouette
Of a man
And his burnished gold chain
Fade.
Slowly
the amulet stops
its swinging.

So You Want to be a Writer

If you like your sleep,
don't bother.
Writing doesn't have the courtesy
to let you sleep.
You might as well,
get addicted to caffeine-
stock up on tea bags
and instant coffee-
for the nights of anxious words
that lie ahead.

Get in the habit
of eating your vegetables.
Writing is about endurance
Didn't mother always say,
"Spinach makes you strong."
It's true.
And like artists
who go on painting fruit,
writers can go on
about their broccoli,
and the readers never tire
of its green florets, veins, and valleys.
Also, since Americans
stopped endorsing
cookie devouring creatures,
they look forward
to anyone who successfully
makes a tomato entertaining.
It's the health department
you ultimately must win over,
with your pure and clean
stream of consciousness.

Write until your feet hurt.
This will happen
long after your
hand starts cramping
and maybe even after it goes numb,
but at least then
you have the assurance
that you wrote for
a good long while
and of that while
something had to be worth
sharing.
If you still
don't have anything
except the name of your sweetheart
scribbled over and over
across pages and pages
of now impure pages,
then you'll at least have a story
about how your feet
almost fell off
that one time you sat writing.

Finally,
if you must succeed
you'll stop reading
-or listening
as it may be-
to this rambling poem
and transfer some thoughts of your own
to whatever medium you choose
before this
stanza
ends.