Leap

Stumbling with blind eyes
Bleeding into warm valleys
Fedding on lilies and poppies
I thought were yours
Til I was gouged and gorged
On misplaced love
Oh what this world does to us--
Have you eaten of these fields, too?
Oh, love what has become of you?

Healing like humility
Drips from the nose of a turtle
Slow and imperceptible
Do I have the patience
Or nakedness of soul
to hold on and ride
this ride so slow
to me, to you?
Oh Lord, do you?

Oh what is Time to us?
How many times have we
followed the streams
past the borders
of our secret being
in and out of the veils
of this world
to die and be reborn
from mingled tears
and glowing limbs
When we needed
Oh how many times
have we disappeared
In and out of each other
When we needed

Leaning over this overpass
how startling is this sudden darkness
Falling each day like a foresakening
Twinkling ants announce their importance
What is I strain to see in the distance?

Is it grief or joy that you walk on?
Is it joy you walk on?
Is it I that waits for you
Or you for me?

And if were to you to leap
would I you ourselves meet
in a shared net of suspended light
or be just another madman taken by the night.

The Kids are Alright

Kudos to a couple of fine writers and humans who've been strugglin' with the self and the expression of it:

An excerpt from The Kid

....I couldn’t finish anything. I had broken something inside. Although I didn’t let that stop me from continuing. While the skeletons piled up on my writing desk, I blasted gobbets of prose from the cannon of expression in every direction until the walls dripped with viscid bits of mind. Nothing whole. Nothing complete. No masterpiece. I had become Frankenstein futilely trying to shock rotted expression back into life. But without a drumbeat, without heart and the come of play, my creative life (my world at the time) became a cemetery. Sure, I had reclaimed my sanity, and was walking on solid ground (psychologically speaking) but I wasn’t living. All that mattered was the work, the grand plan and to hell with the rest of the world. I became a ghost to myself......'

And Dainty, who stopped writing poetry after going into the heart of darkness via Ground Zero. See her wonderful poem Life Breaks Through.

Let's hear it for Jeneane

Jeneane Sessum of Allied has culled a collection of her poetry taken from her blog, called Running Out of Rhyme.

Don't miss it!

Here's the powerful voicelessness (which she didn't even include; perhaps we can persuade her to)



voicelessness

1. -- The Loss

He went from me
in silence.
Red crayola in my hand
tired legs rest softly on a
dark blue matt in
Mrs. McKlusky's
kindergarten class.
Handmade shamrocks
stuffed in a brown
paper sack
rest on the seat
between me and Marvin,
we kiss on the bus
all the way home.

Carpeted steps
cushion my climb,
My mother a statue
guarding the white painted
door
to his bedroom,
closed.

Slowing now, taking it
all in
she is never standing
just there
The door is never
shut
like this.

The quiet
in her eyes
is like fire.

Her hand reaches out
opens, and I give her
the bag of good wishes
watch them
disappear behind her back
a flood unseen
rolling over me.

My aunt waits
in my bedroom,
sits softly
on the quilted bedspread,
pats it three times
making a seat for me
next to her.

She tells me that
God calls us to be
with Him,
needs special people
sooner, not later,
sometimes
and I am
already praying
to be ordinary.

I say, my father's dead.
She nods, yes, says
you can cry if you want to.
The TV downstairs
breaks the quiet
and I say no thank you.

My mother waits
outside my room
I hug her skirt
she puts a warm
hand on my shoulder
says this:
It's just you and me now.
My knees buckle
thinking that my
brother and sister
must be special,
must be dead too.

Not dead, but
not the ones who will
light my mother's tired eyes
gather dreams for her.
From now on
this is my job.

I ask can I go
outside to play
she says no
we are in mourning
we stay inside.

Every memory
ends somewhere,
the fits and starts
of remembering
protect us from
too much too
soon.


2. -- The Burial

I am inside my body
then out
then in
out.

They send me away
for the funeral
the long drive
my grandmother
at the wheel
more quiet and stillness,
they don't let grief
touch me.

The Illinois night air
under a bright moon
lights fields of wheat
corn and soybean
as far as I know,
lightning bugs a fireshow
and the fresh smell
of cows in a nearby pasture.

Asleep on the side porch
in the house of an aunt
I hardly know,
everyone agrees
I should be
around other children
at a time like this.

My cousin camps out too,
five or six years older than me
with sun browned skin
a sandy haired farm boy
who notices
my loneliness.

In my sleeping bag
he comes to me
helps me unzip
tells me there's
something he wants
to show me.

I say what is it
he takes down his
pajama bottoms
reveals what I've
never seen before
stretched out
into the cool night
air.

I think what is that,
and ask him.

He says this is my dick
and it goes here
he lifts my nightgown
points his finger
to my panties
the spot between my legs.

I say really?
He says yes.
Let me show you
how this goes in there.

I say I don't think so,
look around
no lights are on
in the kitchen,
the dimness reflected through
the glass pane
tells him the grownups
have gone to bed.

I promise you it's okay
he says.
I do this with all my girlfriends.
At six I wonder
if this will make me
his girlfriend too.

No, I don't want to
I tell him.
Please he says.
Let me just put
it in and then I'll
kiss you here
and he touches
my lips.

I think
that a kiss would
be nice.

I say, tell me what
that's called again
and he does.
And this, I ask,
he tells me.

So I say,
just once.

He brings his stiffness
inside me,
I notice it is hot and cold
at once
he moves on top of me
says, you see?
I say, yes I see
and I wonder when
he will kiss me.

He never does.

When he finishes I ask
is this how it works?
He says yes, this is
how it works, but you
can't tell anyone.

Why, I ask.
Because we would
get in trouble he says,
now hush.

I say Oh and
go to sleep
wondering
what I did.

When the sun comes up
he takes me in the kitchen
breakfast waiting
shoots me a look
that says don't
you ever tell.

I can't eat my eggs,
instead look around
to see if anyone knows
but they move
in a regular cadence
around the kitchen
and I notice that
the clanking of glasses and plates
and forks and knives
is too loud.

3. -- The Lesson

Back home
nothing is the same
my mother tells me
we are moving
my farm, my woods,
my trees, my boulders,
the snakes that surprise
me underneath them,
my cats, the worn rope over
the hay loft just
right for swinging
my barn, smells
of hay in the early
morning,
they won't
be coming with us.

I say, what about my pony
she says we can only
keep one horse, your sister
should keep her horse
and share it with you,
my sister tells me
I'll take the head
you can have the tail
and I say,
okay because
there is nothing
else to say.

I grew up
without
a voice,
in a room
crowded by
silent memories
stuffing down words
as deep as they
would go
afraid that
they might
tumble out
and with them
the tears
that never came.

It's A Wonderful Life

Wow. I'm overwhelmed by the comments, emails, calls, bloggin' of me.

I'm stammerin', stutterin'--feel like Jimmy Stewart in a community full of angels.

It really is a wonderful life with you fine people around.

May all our days be filled with Capra-esque wonder, with bigger-than life Texas moons and Hollywood sunsets that lead to everlastin' twilight.

Thanks, y'all.

And in the immortal words of Richard Pryor: 'You know I'll be chasin' yo' ass tomorrow.'

Night, John Boy.

The Big 40

is here. Happy Birthday to me.

Forty Winks

Forty comes like forty winks
What a joker is this silly thief
Fleet of foot but not so neat
Leavin’ prints all over my glass
Fillin’ it half-full more or less
With ghosts that rattle and mock
All my illustrious thoughts

Ghosts of me, ghosts of you
Ghosts of all we thought was true;
And I know it’s not you I really miss;
Rather it’s myself I guess
And the little Prince within
Who once whispered in my ear
You know sir, I’m still here.

Or maybe it was how the light on your face
Revealed us in a certain state of grace;
O failed relationships, failed love!
How can I blame the seeds of
Something so perfect.
I’m one poor horticulturalist!

And now the waters do flow
Tellin’ me how little I really know
Except that only a fool would want more
But I would gladly wear the horns
The bells and tights and all the rest
To end this mournin’ for my self--
A seagull beatin’ against a wall
Of an everchangin’ elusive now.
And to hear the Little Prince whisper
Once again: I’m still here.

Emily Dickinson waits on the corner
Drivin’ the buggy of mortality
Don’t know if she will wait for me
Or if all really is vanity.
I’ve lost all sense of time and place
Tired of myself and the human race
Tired of words and symbols
Tired of tryin’ to escape myself
Think I’ll go down to the panty raid
Wrap a few around my head
Do cartwheels in the street
And scare the hell out of Emily!

Forty comes with forty winks
I laugh at you, you silly thief
You laugh at me, we laugh ourselves to sleep
And though the glass is half-filled with grief
I’ll listen for the sound of the Little Prince
Who seems to be whisperin’ in my ear—
Ah, sir, I’ve always been here.