∴
there are too many unbelievable things.
it would be foolish to think they’re all real…
but this, i believe
though i cannot see you
when i search,
though i cannot touch you
when my arms are heavy
with empty weight,
though i cannot taste you
when i am famished by the day,
though i cannot hear you
when i strain in silence,
just knowing that you ARE
i am filled with hope
and thanksgiving
that is an unbelievable thing
and yet,
it is.
∴
give me the time
and i’ll tell you no lies
even if truth is the start of demise
but what was ruined, really?
by making things clear?
so we insulted identity –
we backlit fear –
for the shadow truth casts
reveals the real
shape of things
and when real confronts ideals
damn, it burns.
man, it stings.
but there we are,
at last
building with bricks that might finally hold fast
if we choose to build
-do we choose to build?
‘cause the same bricks that stack
can be thrown
and thus, stilled.
and then what?
what then?
we begrudge tripping bricks
for what should’ve been?
what could’ve been?
give me the time
and i’ll tell you no lies.
all my perfect shortcomings
come out through my eyes.
if you keep turning tail
when honesty comes,
you’ll never be closer
than the distance you run.
if you keep making truth conform to perfection
you’ll set us both up for endless dejection
(you can’t undo past with the means of suggestion.)
give me the time
and i’ll tell you no lies.
give me some faith and you might be surprised.
i’m broken, i’m ugly
i’m wickedly mean
but i also have heart like you’ve never dreamed.
no
i won’t live up
to a life you judge couth;
no
i won’t give up
not in the face of hard truths
i will fight to the end with all that i’ve got
i’ll give you all that i have
to buy out all that i’m not.
give me the time
and i’ll tell you no lies.
but i won’t live in fear
or under disguise
i will not reduce or embellish my size
so –
that brick in your hand,
though i put it there,
will you build with me?
will you foolishly dare?
give me the time
and i’ll tell you no lies
i will gamble my goodness
if wholeness is prize.
Dear Love,
Today I shall talk to you as though you were a person. For indeed, you exist as full and affecting as any human I’ve ever known. You, love, in fact, are so influential that you have caused us feeble people to rise up, fall down, spin in circles, and twist ourselves in knots trying to obtain you, or at least, to be near to you.
Dear love, I thought we should clarify your expectations of me, as I’ve been feeling a little misunderstood. For you, and in honor of all the amazing things you do, you may ask of me the following:
To endure pain. I will. You may ask me to suffer your absence. I will. You may ask me to feel elation. I look forward to it. You may ask me to feel dizzy and tingly and you may ask me to smile for no reason at all. I will. You may rouse me in the middle of the night and open into me like a star-crossed dream. I will acquiesce and envelop in return. You may ask me to laugh. You may ask me to cry. You may ask me to feel fear of loss. You may ask me to feel indestructible gain. You may ask me to plan futures and you may ask me to reminisce the past. You may ask me to fall into the present like a tidal pool and swirl in the intoxication of now. You may ask me to bend, you may demand me to break. You may ask me to stand still and watch and wait in held breath and wanting. You may ask me to wear every one of your colors in a messy kaleidoscope of flesh and bone, spirit and soul,
but there is one thing you may not ask of me:
to feel nothing at all.
That I will not do.
Not even for Love.
∴
it is possible for “home” to turn into
an odd conglomerate
of shape,
shadow,
and edge
wherein you do not recognize
the corners
and the rooms they round into.
they surprise you
as if you didn’t know they’d lead that way.
·
how strange old clothes can feel
once you take note of their fit –
an ease you accepted
as “your” size –
how long have they been so baggy?
was i always wearing them this tight?
how could i not notice the holes
that have worn right through?
you can see the skin.
·
did i put this here?
did i hang this on the wall?
did i decide this would be the best –
the right –
color
to see every morning upon waking?
i did.
i remember
it took so much of my attention.
i recall the effort –
the planning and sweat –
that it takes
to build a wall
and then make it so lovely
you forget
that it is
a wall.
·
well…
you almost forget.
∴
∴
i have a memory of peace.
it stands
like a worn out myth
in the face of tomorrow’s
new religion.
i wonder if it really did happen.
i want to believe it did;
for then i could return
to trusty spells
and old incantations;
i could conjure it
once again.
(couldn’t i?)
·
till the earth
and strike a match,
cook your aromatics,
tie stout knots in yarn and twine
and read
the old romantics.
(no. no, it’s not working, anymore…)
·
“believe again,”
i tell myself
“slow down,
it’s slipping past you.
you were happy here, once.
remember?
you were happy, here.
once.”
but our little gods –
peace in pieces –
die.
they return to marble and canvas portals –
paint and chisel relics –
where they give evidence of having been;
(or at least, having been possible.)
·
they send like postcards
from Atlantis,
like love songs from middle-earth,
writing, singing, temping, teasing:
“i am real like fog.
you come into me and wonder
when i’ll enter you.
but this i do not do.
i will elude and i’ll encompass,
i will beckon and i will shroud,
and there is no end of me.
drink my milk elixir
and swim my clouded sea,
but stay too long
and you shall lose
the real
in reality.”
∴
∴
i’m quite sure it’s better
not to want.
for if you want
you may miss
and if you miss
you may long
and if you long
you may feel an ache
that cannot be soothed
and you’ll walk around trying to undo
the want that started it all
like a knot
that won’t pull through
or let loose
i’m quite sure, yes,
it’s better not to want.
for if you get it
(what you want)
you may fear losing it
and if you don’t
you may dread the days without it
yes, it’s best
best not to want.
so i stretch a wool scarf upon my shoulders
like an old woman in her shawl;
it will keep the chill out –
it will keep some warmth in –
that’s all i should need –
yes,
that’s all
i need,
just –
don’t want.
∴
When he was a young man, Schubert was poor.
So poor that
he couldn’t afford staff paper.
So he spent hours drawing five parallel lines across pages and pages of paper
that he might finally ornament them with
notes,
melody,
harmony,
silence,
cry,
victory,
anger,
joy,
sorrow,
fear,
peace…
He had a friend who took notice;
I don’t know his name –
or hers –
(it could have been a her.)
The friend watched Schubert –
a man who could fly
from his heart to his mind to his fingers
and carry others on the wings of it all –
drawing straight lines
straight lines
straight lines
straight lines
forever.
So the friend bought him staff paper
and promised an unlimited,
lifelong
supply
of paper
with printed lines,
so that Franz could spend his time
writing all the life
that he laced onto them,
like little black beads,
telling stories and keeping time.
I like to think of that friend.
I like to imagine that he (or she) left a note
on the parcel of paper
that read:
“Please hear,
please listen,
please draw the dots
as they’re given to you.
The song you play
shall lift us all
and in this way
bring us closer
to giver of the tune.
and I shall hold the lines for you.”
If you want to hear him, I share one of my favorite Schubert pieces: Trio op. 100 – Andante con moto
∴
somewhere,
under water,
beneath blue,
in waves of light
i float with you
·
we’re weightless motion
making the shape of arcs.
we bridge one to the other
and back again.
under ice, we embrace.
there’s a vacuum of time
and there’s limitless space.
and in that somewhere,
there’s a peace
that comes,
so surprising and strange
like the smell of roses
on winters wind.
it fills us –
like only peace can fill us –
when we remember
that spring will come again
it must.
it must.
it’s in its nature to arrive,
despite the cold.
eternal green,
earth unseen,
bring me sight of sun.
for i can feel the roses in you
forcing buds undone.
give me thorn to prick my reason,
give me heat to melt old seasons,
and break the ice
in our blue somewheres
that we might shape our arcs again
in warmer, open air.
∴
∴
it is too often proved
that misfits and kings
are equally moved
by the strumming of strings
for the heart is unkept
by the titles we keep
and the roots of our spirits
are common and deep
strum mighty
strum proud
strum whispering soft
strum without waiting
strum now
and strum oft’
play into yesterdays that passed without sound
make musical ‘morrows come merrily ‘round
and look in the eyes of those you sing by
for they, too, are aloft in their tune
on the day we might raise our chords, combined
for both misfit and king
is no day too soon
∴
there’s an “us” in us that’s unfiltered and free
without worry of censor,
or approval begging plea.
there’s an “us” in us that’s the who we were made
it’s the who that may hide,
but can never quite fade
for it structures our shape and it details our feature
it distinguishes us from all other creatures
yet for something so real, we deny it’s existence
we block it’s release
we buy it’s resistance.
until one day –
and i hope that day comes –
you fill with your rhythm
like the beating of drums
and you step in the pace
that is coursing your veins
and you break down the wall
that was built with great pains
to protect you;
it didn’t.
are we so soft of skin?
what is it,
really,
that could ever get in?
with these walls and these fences
and with deadly defenses
we make our skins thick, impervious and stout…
but if we live in this lock down
how can we get out?
