When There's Wonder Left At All - a poem

When There’s Wonder Left At All

I remember a night light in the corner

of my room to frighten little dust mites. They gave the monster

under my bed a terrible sniffle whenever they wandered

near. He would sneeze, and I’d say God bless,

though I wasn’t sure he cared. 

In case his nostrils were bothered by flakes

drifting sleeplessly through air so sheepishly, and should

he care to sneeze and I offer blessings of deity, I always kept a box

of tissue handy. He not only sneezed, but cried

at length too, and I too, cried too. I felt for him but would never

know what sadness a demon-looking-stranger might know,

maybe it was that he was stuck under a twin sized bed

in my american city.

The night light waned

one time. Dust mites went near its flickering.

Then it died, and the monster contracted a terrible

head cold. My mother said good riddance but I pleaded

with her to get a doctor to make a house call.

My mother said that this was America

early twenty-first century and no well intentioned doctor made house calls.

I would settle for my father in a chef coat to check-up on monster.

He said the beast was terminal, and would probably die

soon. I begged him to make him well, my father shrugged sure.

He gave me a piece of composition paper. He’d written

a diagnosis: a case of the gloomies.

And the treatment: no sleeping near teddy bears.

My mother came by a whole one year on to kiss me

goodnight, she bothered a  good night to monster

under bed. I told her it was silly, nothing was there. She patted

me on the head, and began to cry. She said time caused her to cry.

Adults can be pretty funny sometimes, I told her I couldn’t wait to be a funny adult too.

She then told me that that was enough

such foolishness, that I should stay a child eternal, like peter pan

she told me, never grow up.  Always believe in monsters under beds, the comforting

power of night lights to fight off dust mites. But I’d thrown out

my night light in the garbage bin.

They Say the World is on Fire - A Poem

Everything illuminated under a waning moon

that waxes nothing resembling poetry and thus nothing

resembling nuance. As sudden shudder of wind clasps

on back of unsuspecting the ritual feels weighted by

misery that cannot be beguiled back. For the setting

sun did not leave much to desire, and the pupils

went to rest behind the shade of fleshy lids

as the moon rose its midnight serenade

dropped on deaf ears. This swan song of sparkling

injustice was only heard by the few, the quiet sort

of night people who resembled owls in their wide

eyed miserable stares but who could not know who

it was who made the stink in the first place. Thus

it goes that nighttime ends and whines of moon

are left to its phases, but the people want a picture

book setting when all they get is a text they cannot

decipher, and all they get is a song they tune right out

and the sons and daughters are less well for it,

they are down right sick for it, for it is negligence

of celestial songs that got us to burning down

a rainforest, forgetting humanity were caretakers

of earth. Everything illuminated under a waning moon,

but everyone is sleeping, so no one is caring to be

awake.

Just a Prayer in America in 2019 - a poem

Just a Prayer in America in 2019

take a chill pill friend before your head pops like a pimple
on the verge of infection and mucus substances pour
on the helpless individuals that stand around you. It never helps
to stress too much, nor does it aid to stress too little and making
it all too late to change. There's a balance in avoiding collateral
damage, a little ballet to play with the brain as rain pats down in pitters
and dampens all that came before, and you remember how that went
when the world collapsed around you, suction created by black hole
dreads that deepened as you, you stepped farther away on thin air. Progress
was nil but you can't expect progress when you're ten feet off the ground
without traction, yes you'll slash and shout with hands and mouth,
but there's no way to make an impact if all that troubles you is at the back
of the hall and you aren't even on the ground to let gravity do its work.
Traction is important. Planting yourself in the realness of your surrounding
is important. It has to be tangible and graspable and changeable. No use spitting
on it when it needs to be choked up and removed from the earth. Don't get buried,
don't let a crash zone stretch back to black hole as you dig too deep.
Such a thing as burying too deep. Such a thing as digging your own hole.
Such a thing as burying yourself whole. Such a thing as a grave you dug.
Such a thing as a grave you dug.

Do you remember the sorrowful way the sky looked on the day you lost yourself. How it glistened with starlight in the evening as the wind whisper awful and sweet nothings to the ears of the earth. When men and women alike laid together naked against the grass and admired the infinite of that infinite. There is a saying that no two fingerprints are alike, but that lie is told often and is lazily spoken, for no two fingerprints land in the same ways, thus no fingerprint is its twin when placed again, and no one thought to mention that only computers can give precision to document this phenomenon in order to right it into precision. Did you forget how the sky looked down at us with sorrow as we tossed stones at whores when the Lord Jesus said stay thy hand, and we would hang Judas when Jesus wept and told him he was destined to betray him, a villain for the ages, following the orders of a hero for all. The glistening blood that seeped out of a wound into the sweet crevices as cracks in the earth, in his skin, in that desert wind. How Sodom and how Gomorrah must have felt watching their sins be cleansed, and as the black boy places his hands in the sights of an officer who seldom wishes him safe passages. Oh how you forget it, the sorrowful looks that hollered abuse at the ground, and how Jesus, our Jesus wept for the poor and tired, and lost souls. How he tossed the tables of merchants inside the church, so that coins rolled upon the stone floors as though bleeding upon the temple steps, and how dare we force with guilt that the poor give mightily so that men on stage can fly first class to Hollywood and make propaganda films. Oh how ass backwards the sky has become. How unfit mothers are to teach their babies right from wrong when they cast a ballot for a serial murderer of American ideology. How simple it must be to accept the lie that they have no religion but the coin, the white, patriarchal coin. Do you remember the sorrowful way the sky looked on the day you lost yourself. I suspect not because you were too busy being unborn and undoing that which was set in motion. Recall how it felt when Jesus wept, when he was nailed to a cross, and punctured in the side. Do you remember that sky? Supposedly it was for us, but we still shed the blood of everything. We love only our children, and only our spouses, and only ourselves, and anything beyond that we claim love for, but we might cast it away into a fire and say, but at least its not my country, and at least its not my brother, and at least I am still God's son. The truth of that sorrowful sky is is that you are not, you are nothing, but a spec in his eye, but the gunk that accumulates on the corner of the eye as your Lord wakes from a night terror, when he returns to see how his experiment is going. He'll turn up the flame of the burner, and liquefy us and start over, because it is impossible to separate the poison from the blood for the blood is now the poison.

Well, Fit Debates of Digression - a nonsense poem

It seems fitting, well
is fitting, but often not
fitting to fit well at
the seems, but less often
than not its fit for
debate that which is well
and that which fits
well, but I digress
for I do not want a
fitting for this fitting
sort of debate as sorted
as well as it can be for sorted
things that digressions
can cause debates about,
but debating the digression
is not the sort of debate
that fits well, or makes well
the fitting of debates
for after all, is it not fitting
that not all are fitted, or that
that which fits, is a witch that
fits on a broom stick who
digresses often for debates
on fittings of sorted hats
of sorting hats, and thinking
longingly about which witches
are well fit to be well debated
on fittings of digression, this
digression has engaged a witch
which does not wish to debate
the well fitted fittings of fit
well wishers who wish wishfully
on witches which digress about
hats that fit in a fitting.

Message in a Bottle - A poem

A little bit of nothing goes a long way,
because with nothing, there is nothing to lose.
No love to lose, no money to lose, no pride to lose,
because you had nothing. Nothing goes a long way
but it also leaves everything to gain. Ever ounce of respect,
every minimal dollar saved, every moment of hard work savored,
rising up out of the ashes is nothing can take a long time,
it is the length road, with a noose at the end that you can
either slide around your neck or grab with a fist and climb
your way out using the walls of your life to push yourself up
as they enclose and encroach upon your life.
Do not fear that nothing will work out, because something
must come of it, and it means everything by how
you use those pieces, be they whole or broken,
the risk of doing nothing is minimal and may promise
piece mind but it is a zero sum game, a multiplication by
that always resorts in nothing. But who can blame the
nobodies for wanting to remain anonymous, since
everything in this of a life can catch them unawares,
when you strive for even the littlest something, so risk
versus reward is the question, the equation, the result
of all that nonsense, but lets stop a moment, breathe
bask in what we don't have by way of what we could have
but leave the envy out of it, because envy leads to spite
and spite is a sure way of gaining everything at the expense of
everyone and those of us who know the light guard it with our palms
even as the wax drips and wanes away. Let this be a message,
for messages can come in many ways, in bottles,
and in mailboxes, or on digital machines deposited in
spam folders to be ignored, because all of us have the power
to ignore a message, but few of us have the power to hold
the walls of defeat at bay.

Leaving the CD Player on Repeat - A Poem

Isn't it weird she said how easy it is to get lost in eyes,
as though eyes were a strip mall and I was a little boy who'd lost
his mother's hand. She said, look at me and see potential
but all I see is a past of my own, like mirrors in those pools
of ocular fluid, that show me a past that shouted at me
over minuscule things. I said isn't it weird that we should be so sure
of what tomorrow might bring, but she shook her head and said
don't think about that, time will give us the answers,
and to that I had to laugh.
And as a boy strolling down the sidewalk screaming for his
mother, I am seldom concerned with my conceit into
falling for someone, as if falling were the ideal way
one hurt oneself when love was on the table.
Nor do I take chances that something good will
arise from the sinking feeling in my gut, because even
though she was bold and beautiful the Titanic sunk
and rotted beneath the Atlantic Ocean. She said, isn't it weird
how overwrought with worry you are, and I said its smart
to be afraid, because I've experienced the expedited lovelorn
worship before and it sought only the ideal of forever
and took no chance to investigate whether this feast
were sustainable.
Isn't it weird she said, and I said, yes it is weird, and she
was happy to make her mistakes again, but I'd almost
died by my own hand for grasping at these straws,
and I was not ready to feel the barrel of a gun against the side
of my head. So, I disappeared like a ghost, because
that is what ghosts do best. I am a dead man,
as dead men suffer most, consumed by worms because
they were buried in the earth, in the hole,
that they dug.