Saturday, December 2, 2017

Panic

Sometimes 
the world feels so big
it makes me panic
I look at the miles that I travel
and all the worlds that unravel
before my eyes
when I sit with all the people
that I think I know
As I grow older
I get luckier
because the boundaries of my globe
don't shrink
they grow
The places called belonging and connection
aren't located at the end of a singular road
Paths to walk have splayed out around me
like a spider web surrounding
and just when I think
I have connected all the intersecting threads
my life moves forward
and the pattern spreads 

The rare moments that I am capable of 
presence
become birthstones of my momentary existence 
The coal of mundane
compresses minutes
and hours
and days
making diamond memories
to be mined later
in the quiet library of my mind
The time
it takes to travel
in between
all those crystal destinations
all the introspective transportation
makes me panic
about this constantly fracturing
and continuously scattered incantation 
I find shards of shrapnel 
Timeless glimpses of past and future 
Captivating sparkly distractions
that keep me from noticing
the latitudinal and longitudinal lines
that are wrapping up around me
forming the grenade
that is once again soon to explode
Is this just the process of evolution
this repetition of emotional implode
Mushroom cloud billows of blossoming smoke
Crackling tangles of glass
Cities are built
go to war
turn to ash
Generations come and then pass
Centuries of ancient forest decay
produce newborn blooms of seasonal growth
Cumulus cycles come in all shades of grey
there are hidden solar storms 
that accompany sunshiny days
followed by hypnotic rolling oceans
softly kissed by silent moon rays

I am but a universal blink
by the eye of this sleeping giant we call time   
No wonder I should panic
from the understanding
of the magnificently minute
microcosmic measure of my life 
No wonder I insist on holding this mold
that I continuously break
No wonder I sift through
the aftermath rubble 
like chicken bones in a witch doctors hand
No wonder I inspect the skins of my cocoons
spread out and searched through
like a map of the internal land
No wonder my tiny brain
can barely understand
that my significance is even less than
a fraction of a speck of stardust
swirling in the irresistable magnetism of a black hole
and also
that it is 
as beautiful 
and fleeting
as the icy fractalled lifespan
of a single perfect flake of snow 
So there is no need to panic
because when I stop to think about it
the world doesnt really 
feel very big
at all

Monday, September 11, 2017

Let it.

Let love swallow you

Let it imagine you
Let it dream about you 
Let it look at you
Let it study you 
Let it admire you 
and want you 
Let it reach for you 
Let it touch you 
and feel for you in the dark
let it smell you 
and inhale you
let its mouth water for you 
let it take you between its teeth 
and let it saver you 
and you damn well better savor it 
let it bite you 
sink it's teeth in
let it gnaw 
and scrape 
and tear your flesh a part 
Let it chew and gulp 
and gasp in between 
and grind you into a pulp 
that can be digested 
and then 
let it swallow you 

Let it take away your appetite 
or move your food through you 
whatever the case may be
the way that only love can do 
Let it make your head light
and your mind dizzy 
and your nights sweaty
allow it to engulf you in flames 
Walk the streets with your hair on fire
Don't hold anything back
because abandon is the fuel for desire 
Let it take you over completely 
and don't you dare feel guilty
let it wash away all of your sins 
Can I get an amen
let it rinse out all of your sorrows
in the moments that it can
don't worry, they will still be there tomorrow
and then let it drown you 
deep in its ocean
like buried treasure
because 
you 
are
Let it bury you 
deep in the ground 
so deep 
That the old you will stay there
and only the roots 
of the tallest trees 
can find you and pull you up
like new-trients 
and lift you as high as the tips of the leaves
Let it carry you to the moon and back again
let it take you over 
and pull you under
with the forces of tides 
that run like currents through your veins

Let it revere you 
and become dear to you 
Let it take your breath away 
fill your heart with play
Let it empty the sky of clouds 
and calm the water to its depths 
Let it make the world become clear to you 
even if for just a moment 
Let it fill the night with storms and wind
let it cut you to the core
Let it turn you into the most shameless whore
and liar 
and beggar 
and cheat
and thief 
Let it hurt you 
and desert you 
Let it crush you 
and flush you
with rage  
and jealousy 
and greed
and grief
Let it bring out the worst in you 
It's ok
because it will most definitely 
bring out the best in you 
and we can endure the worst 
if the best is yet to come
and it is
It always is
Let it float to the surface 
in the wake of the aftermath 
Let love rebuild your belief
that the best is yet to come 
It came to you 
It came from you 
Let it make you a prisoner of hope
let it grow you
and show you 
the next step 
when one foot in front of the other 
is all you can take

Let it make you 
by breaking you 
into teeny tiny little puzzle pieces 
that you have to put back together again 
let it find you 
let it lose you 
let it yearn for you 
Let it miss you 
and choose you 
let it thrill you 
and kill you 
let it skin you alive 
and eat you 
let it feed you 
plant seeds in you 
create needs in you 
let it see through you 
and be free through you 
let it fill your insides 
like the sound of a choir
and distill you 
like moonshine in a mason jar
let it walk with you 
and talk with you 
let it laugh with you 
and die with you 
let it live in you 
and cry with you
let it listen to you 
and 
you 
should 
listen 
to it

Let it find you 
in your hiding places 
and unwind you 
from your twisted spaces 
let it unfold you
like the endless petals of a ranunculus
year after year
time after time after time
as many times as it takes
and if it leaves
let it
Let it mourn you 
and you it 
Let it transform you 
and know that you have transformed it
and if it stays 
LET IT
Let it adorn you 
and you it 
Let it transform you 
and know that you have transformed it 
It comes and goes 
ebbs and flows
hides and seeks 
It sings and speaks
It's all that we have 
and all that we are
When you find it
it can enfold you 
with gentle ecstasy 
lift you with electricity 
it holds the power 
to cocoon you 
and it holds the power 
to butterfly you 
But 
you 
have 
to 
let it.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Beckoning Royal Majestic


Since I left you

I ate a donut
the size of my head
Washed it down with
3 shots of espresso
Veered off the highway
to an unknown strip mall
Bought a new pair of shoes
I didn't need
Missed my next three exits
Almost drove off the road
trying to remove my jacket
like a fervent twister
Twitched incessantly in my seat
as sweat dripped
down my sides
until

surrender … finally … came

deep breathing
long audible sighs
tears spilling
from the outside corners of my eyes
rolling down the sides of my cheeks
as I passed the gas station in Decatur
where I once gave a lovely old woman
the flowers I had bought you


Let go
and find peace
you said
What the fuck does that mean
Telling me to let go
is like super gluing my hand
to a grand piano
while you proceed to sit down
and play
endless
meandering … dissonant ... jazz chords

I have found 
fleeting moments of peace
in my life
but they are located in the past
and there is no map
that I know of
that can help me find them
in the future
and you certainly arent going to
The problem is
when I am flying solo
I tend to get lost easily
but maybe that isn't really a problem
since knowing where I am going
has never brought me to any place
I have wanted to stay anyway

Sometimes
I worry
that I don't know the difference
Between calm and numb
because the one thing
they have in common
is the stillness
the quiet
its maddening
chaos has always been the heroin of my existence
and I am good at standing in the eye of the storm

However, my comfort with fear 
makes me no smarter than a monkey
If I would just let go of the goddamn banana
maybe I could pull my hand out of the bottle
Most days I feel like
a wild coyote
stuck in a trap
and it is all I can do
not to chew off my own foot
Because I have been taught
that being a cautious three legged dog
is better than being a car chasing
dead one
no matter how much freedom 
the death of this identity may bring

I have lost all my sense of direction
from insistently following
these thoughts clouded with fear
Instead of fearlessly diving into 
the beckoning, royal, majestic
called the unknown

Thunderheads billow on my left
Deep violet violence
with asymmetrical fractals of lightening

Sunset burning on my right
Florescence orange
beams through a foggy maze

Driving straight through
the flat plains of windmills
Headed toward an indigo sky

Random electric flashes
bring me back to the present
illuminate my way
revealing midnight cumulus tendril fingers
that stretch over head
Reaching for me
Wrapping around me
This front has no clear end
and I have forgotten where it began
all I know is that I don’t want to front anymore

In my altered state of mind
my fight or flight purple haze
I have completely lost track of time
But maybe that's ok
because I know that
At the end of every drug trip
is the dry up
At the end of every road trip
is the quiet
and maybe I will find peace
in the stillness
if I just keep driving
and allow this storm
to swallow me up