∴
there is a beetle scrambling
out of morning sun,
caught off guard
by the coming of day.
he limps
on clumsy legs
and wobbled gait –
as if he were made
of newly donned prosthetics –
to the wooded inlets
of manicured shrubs
and the hosta
that promise a shroud.
he made it.
before the birds and the heat.
and i was glad.
and a breeze came by
and kissed me
on the cheek.
∴
∴
having been happy
once
brings no peace
to present discontent.
rather,
it looms
as a weight
that by age
or weakness
you find yourself
suddenly –
surprisingly –
unable to lift.
and the future forecasts itself
as a surmounting
more
with less and less strength
to master it with.
“take heart.”
i’ve been told.
but where,
or to whom,
should i take it?
what ipecac affects
our daily dose of poison?
what priest absolves the sin
we defend?
what doctor would bind –
and bind again –
the affliction of the afflicter, infinite?
there is no kindness left in me.
i have spent it on falsehoods
i’d give anything to believe in again
and on a faith that has flown,
carried back by the angels who brought it,
leaving only memory,
as faint as a dream
that dapples in daylight
until gone.
∴
∴
i imagine i know
how the wild rose grows
in random ditch
and unintended.
i fancy she flew
to the seclusion she knew
would leave her to grow,
unamended.
∴
∴
i held
i held the sweetest smells
like bouquets in my blood
in the dim and sacred corners
where one keeps
the things we must not forget
but must not also touch.
i stayed
i stayed like a pearl
and cloistered me in muscle
to be hidden.
to be sure.
that the sand i had been made of
did not make castles with the crowd
and wash away –
away.
i meant
i meant to have been used
in charity
not minding
constant scarcity
and giving
all the worth of me
to holy, hurting feet.
but now i sit
in alabaster bits
and wonder if my housed
was any salve at all.
i wonder,
upon whose senses
i have spilled
and whose purpose
have i filled
and where is value
for the reaping
when all my wealth
has took to seeping?
o, clamor
i clamor to contain
this precious, ruptured vein
and hold –
please can i hold it all –
again.
∴
∴
it is the past
that has penned this day.
with punctuated
dits and dash
and coding what’s to come.
i am dispelled.
it has found me in the lines,
repeated
over
and again –
echoes etched in endless scroll –
unrelenting pen.
i have said these words
before.
through countless letters,
ever sending,
bleeding inks
and turning leaves
i write to write
a happy ending.
∴
∴
press me up against the pane
that my periphery does not distain
the vision i see before me:
i love.
despite all this angst that pulls me down,
amidst all the distractions that life abounds
if i could only but arrive
to that far off place –
but not so far i cannot see –
where i could love you
and you could love me.
∴
∴
i would not have heard it then,
that life outlives love
and love inlays too lightly
on the mantles that we carve.
we modern men,
who carve to make ourselves known,
knowing all the while
that the cleaving, cutting comes to nothing
but the whittling of wood.
and rare is the relic
that has time’s bruise
withstood.
what if we had whittled
where the want of our souls stayed
and worked upon the songs
our hearts wished they would have played?
i cannot recoup the time.
i cannot carve so straight a line
that would convince me –
satisfactorily –
to keep the chisel to my breast
for in this work,
there is no rest.
∴
∴
my entitlement to misery
is the deed to my demise.
and gain would i the ground to wet
with fruitless grounded cries.
the trucèd lands of kindness
must till into my heart
that bearing once where barren bored
becomes my sacred part.
give me tools to do such building
that sturdy make my frame
and on the peaceful sands of promise
may i re-etch my name.
∴
∴
it is easy
to hold love
when love holds you in return,
and to turn it out
when by it
you’ve been burned.
this lover is a child
that plays fetch with puppies
and returns in tears
when young fangs
indiscriminately flash
and break their tender skins.
it is a volley
of fantasies
that entertain
as long as the ball
stays in the air.
it is not so easy to hold love
when it whelms
under these wild waves of days,
housing treasured cargos
of worth and promise,
and history –
those watery pages of yesteryear –
like a leaden ship
on ocean’s floor.
still hull,
still full,
the hold,
the hold,
is moving.
∴
∴
i have been a Daisy
to a Gatsby
and a Georgiana Darcy
more oft’
than i’d care to say.
so fit my boots
for different soles
that may i might
my own player play.
for who am i
in a story of love,
whose pages
are midway turned?
let me ride
my own white horse
and be who i’ll be
in love
with heartbreak’s merits earned.
∴
