The Illusion of Safety

    

            “How charming,” Alturis said, laughing.  “But now you must come out from under there.”

            Peering up at him, Megan returned, “Why should I?”

            “For a lot of reasons, most of them mine.  And for some of your own as well.  Aren’t you a little bit like a fish in a barrel right now?”

            “You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

            “But you won’t have a chance to escape unless you come out.”

            Megan frowned.  That was a good point.

            “Besides,” Alturis added, “you are much too old to be hiding underneath the bed.”

I want to learn to cry once

more

I wonder if I even could before

I reach for your sky...

The Ballad of Love & Death

Let me tell you what I know about

my broken heart

this is the rhythm of it falling apart

toss the stones in the river because

we are

we are coming up for air again

What did I even know about

guilt and sin

all of the dreams that

I was dying in

it was a curse it was a blessing it

was utter nothingness

until it skidded and came crashing

home

No telling how the earth will

record this disaster

whistling dixie in the wind

as if I had the answer

            ballet with fractured form

tripped up by vengeful rapture

the hammer flung against

the wall

Dismantled piece by piece into

a million parts

buried back with Santa at

the Christmas tree farm

what is dead is what is real to

the falling apart

we heard the siren but not the

alarm

I wonder how I will know when

the sky becomes my master

when dreams of yesterday stop

mocking me with laughter

tomorrow is today tornadoes

circling my trailer

I was wrong over

and over again

Now I whisper to the wind about

my broken heart

falling in slow motion

not a subtle art

toss the stones in the river because

I am

I am here alone at the end

Lost

April 15, 2014

I wanted to write the saddest poem in the world.  But most of them just sound desperate.

I want someone to trust.  There was a girl who kept trying.  But then she got tired and stopped.  She was the girl who wanted to feel smart and special, except that got tiring, too.  It was just so much work.  Now she isn’t a girl anymore.  She is just another person full of panic and desperation.

There once was a girl.  The saddest girl in the world, because she kept believing.  She thought she was so clever and strong.  She thought she was different.  She thought all of the red lines would lead to one circle that would form a barrier around her forever.  But the red lines didn’t.  They just lead to more red lines.  She can no longer remember the red line she started from.  When she tries to walk backwards nothing looks familiar—all she can see is what is in front of her.  The boy laying down the red straws does not help her.  He pays no attention to anything other than the red straws, and to placing them on the large, white sheet spread across the middle of the open market.  No one cares about him being there and he doesn’t care about them.  He does not see the girl standing in the middle of all of the red straws, trying to remember where she came from.  

Soon there are so many straws leading in so many different directions that she loses hope.  She does not understand the pattern.  Only the boy does.  But to him it is a math puzzle and you either understand it or you don’t.  He is a sort of genius.  He is the one who keeps us all wandering down different lines, so that we never meet.  We must never meet.  We must never speak to each other.  The boy’s job is to keep us all walking on the same sheet, but never at the same place together.   We must always remain lost and alone.  It is a math puzzle.  There is a solution but the boy genius will never open his mouth.  He talks with the red straws.  They tell his story for him.  And it is a beautiful story, in its own way.  A beautiful story of loneliness and loss and of being lost until all wandering ends.

your promise on the edge of my fingertips

and it falls

and it falls...

Icarus

1988

If I raise my arms

and try to fly

only the sun will be

out of my reach
when the sun is

all I desire.

For a century, at least,

I have stood here with

my arms clasped

to my side

waiting for the dew to share

its secrets with me.

For a century, at least,

I have stood here

and waited
with my palms facing
the sky

my eyes turned toward

the sun.

Memory

1992

I bumped into the memory man

the other day—

(we’ve been crossing paths often

lately)—

I listened to small things

which gave me small reactions.

But when he arched his eyebrows

as if asking was I ready?

I decided I wasn’t in about

one second

and I left memory man

where I found him and

conveniently forgot where

that place happened to be.

The only thing is 

he knows how to find me

he finds me every day

and every day he asks the question

and every day I say, “No thanks.”

One of these days, I guess.

It will be one of these days.

The Lost Winter

Where will the night train take me?

So many trains

all leading to distant December destinations

crammed full of strangers breathing

clouds against the windows’ glass

as they exhale their expectations

            Convinced we knew the future from what was

            afraid to confront the past in

            what we had

            become

But for the desperate promise to find a summer unknown

we dismantled the track that would lead us back

home

            No one remembered the snowstorm in

            the mountains

            how we yearned to crash

            to ride this shivering disappointment

            right down to its

            final gasp

When all aboard ride the night train alone

mark the passing of the time with the

falling of the

snow

No use in unpacking for tomorrow

tomorrow is a thousand midnight

dreams of color

away    

Where will the night train take me?

this I learned never to ask

            not with so many trains all

            vacating this station

            with so many tracks, less one, left for me—

            the one you have taken

Illusion

Because you believed in God how
you believed in death -
it happened to others,
not to you.

School essay, 1985

At one time or another, everyone feels a regret or hurt that they hold deep down inside until it nearly crushes them.  By the time it reaches the critical point, though, the person himself has to let it go.  They may never be totally forgiven for what they once did, but complete absolution is rare.  To release the pain, we first must realize that we are holding it inside.  Many people deny this until it hits them like a sudden storm.