Moldy

Maybe you shouldn’t have looked in here, after so many weeks

or months? to find your friends talking about God knows and eight or nine expired poetry challenges, that feeling

like skipping church for a year, then sitting in the town chapel singing Christmas carols with strangers—

didn’t you want to cry? and didn’t you stop yourself, a disciplined no? but listen, I’m telling you

yes: find what’s worth saving, a fresh heart beneath all that must

 

A long-lined acrostic dedicated to the long-neglected crew at Yeah Write.

let’s muse on the gray areas

waiting for Great Beauty to fall into my lap

Once more, with feeling

It is precisely this time, more/less
the pit opens, not underfoot
but close enough to catch you
with tricks of sunlight/shade
fallen leaves, sharp red
beauty, failing—
you can’t help
but glance
in

I wonder are you thinking

about me
there has been
silence
not long
enough to wonder
if I’ve been abducted—
despair or her more torpid sister
first tangling thoughts
combing out knots
and second
guessing

 

I was struck by this line in Julia Cameron’s The Sound of Paper: “I was in cynicism, which is despair’s more torpid sister” (p. 6).

Same Old Story

The devil had me by the throat
that summer—no not by the throat
but yes by the throat or why
could I not sing
or sleep for thinking
he had me by the wrists
these idle hands

Why should you gain the whole world
and forfeit your song? Contentment
elusive as that hummingbird
just there in your stillness
and gone

The Same Darkness

We’ve tried to measure this pit
pace it bit by bit
and examine, and not fear

its black pool. Could we submit
trammel soul to fit—
nothing? For nothing wells here

we slip, fall, fail again; quit
strife for dark (fine grit
of hope chafing deep, unclear)

 

An asefru for Yeah Write’s June poetry slam.

Reverse Psychology

Having given myself permission
to not write
the words don’t spill any more easily

Having given myself permission
to despair
the sodden emptiness doesn’t evaporate
with the rising sun and rose-colored framing

Having given myself permission
to keep my thoughts tied like old letters in a box

Having given myself permission
to stick to what I know
I find the cat has run up the tree
into the highest thin branches
of the thankfully not-too-tall redbud

but I would still need a ladder
and stretched arms and faith

Breathe

(trees) do not
ask why are we here
stand bend-not-
break stoic
(bud, leaf, fruit-flower falling)
year by year by year

A tree-themed shadorma for Jane’s weekly challenge.

Unzipped Triolet

If I could just unzip the gray
to find blue seas behind that wall
and perch there, wondering, not afraid—
If I could just unzip the gray,
dive clean in sunlit blue-salt waves,
no fear of drowning heart-hard, small—
If I could just unzip the gray
to find blue seas behind that wall.

Inspired by Margo Roby’s picture prompt, with thanks to Jane for bringing the triolet to my attention.