The turtle’s shell would crack
Under such a great weight,
And my shoulders have long drooped low,
But I am learning to stand straight,
Learning it’s better late than never,
And never is a very long time.
Category Archives: Passion
Turtles All the Way Down
Liberated
My brother slashed his canvases
His scenes of earth in motion
Were layers thick in paint
Every coating represented commotion
So in the tumult of self-condemnation
He succumbed to but one emotion.
I dump my words upon my words
Hoping a new layer somehow conceals
The best in me, the worst in me,
The passion I’m ashamed I still feel;
Instead of smothering my inadequacies
Each word finds a new piece of me to reveal.
Letting your best go off to greet the day
Requires the skill to forgive
Perhaps there comes a decisive moment
When you have given all you have to give
And you must decide to slash your darlings
Or let them leave to let them live.
Heirlooms
My waffle iron is an old man
who groans as he bestows
dried parcels and dark stories
from breakfasts long ago.
My waffle iron is an old man,
whose joints creak and shake
and every lifting of his head
is another threat of break.
My waffle iron is an old man
though my children leap with vim
and run and dance along their way;
He can’t keep up with them.
Predicting the Inevitable
I should always
occasionally
write a poem on death
While mirth still dances in
my gut
and laughter kisses me
I should form a stanza or two
Of death riding in on
A pale horse to reap
So when the fellow offers me a ride
those waiting on foot
can read the crumbs left behind,
and say ‘she knew it all the time.’
Mortal Enemies
Sorrow used to come at me
With a sharp drawn in its hand
And stab and swing and sever
And I was naught to understand.
Then it knocked upon my door,
But I scarce would let it in
Until it crept off in the dark
It’s blade to whet again.
Now we meet as strangers,
Who recognize the other’s face
But can’t remember if in a dream,
Or in this wicked place
We once fought as enemies
Dealing mortal blows;
Sorrow’s, to teach me misery,
And mine, to cease to know.
Emotional Postcards
From the miles,
Across the sea
Of asphalt and tire
And melancholy memory
I remember you;
Nights we grieved,
And laughed, and hoped,
And, as one, believed.
Function is Beauty
Does the magnificent butterfly
Shedding her chrysalis
Shed also tears -to cry
Or reminisce
Of caterpillar feet,
Big lazy days,
Big leaves to eat,
Simpler, unsightlier ways?
Or does the pain
Of breaking free
Erase the stain
Of all that used to be?
The Speck in Your Eye
Your self steps in your way,
unseen to you, you trip again.
You’ll pull yourself up,
brush off your sin
and continue on your stray.
You hold dear
all the right ideals,
but sideways,
with all the wrong ideas
fixed askew.
You crave worship,
so you can tithe a tenth
to the Most Holy,
like spiritual rent
or dues.
Waffles
The coffee pot sputters me awake.
My children color while their waffles bake-
The younger one loves what the older one makes
So as a show of admiration she takes it
and runs away. They call me, the judge, to break
the disagreement. Pleading their case so I will slake
their thirst for justice, and I agree and forsake
My kitchen station- My mistake.
I restore peace then return for the sake
Of waffles burning, big black flakes
Into the trash- everything brakes.
We sit with what remains. We partake
Together.
And when these perfect days are over,
How will they ever be replaced
With anything but ache?
Stargrazing
I pluck the star from swirling deeps
The burn, the flameless fire creeps
like an epitaph unsung
across my lips, along my tongue
Scouring, devouring, I swallow it
down my gullet to my hollow bits
There, the swimming fever roils,
my pulse screams in my ears and boils
all the quiet, saner thoughts to death
With light and fire on my breath
I exhale and beg for rest, beg for time,
to digest the star I ate as mine
And when these tremors still, all slaked,
when I am well, when I awake,
I will gaze back to the sky
and wonder which star next to try.
viewingcamelot 