Musing On “Adult Life”

"Sit down" she said

"Stop fidgeting" he reminded

"I swear if you don't stop MOVING" they threatened

until one day one didn't

The teacher didn't say "Sit down" or "Stop moving" she said "here, when you get bored or finish an assignment I want you to describe to me what you are going to do on the playground"

This simple kindness to a small hyperactive child turned into teams of paper preoccupation detailing the grand adventures of various heroes, heroines, dragons and ponies as they battled vicious creatures discovered new locales and made friends along the way fostering forever in me a childlike wonder for the magic of the written word.

More poetry for you

A short one this time

I'm a Summers child

I sup on rays of dust suspended in oxygen and filtered through sunlight

My bones are simply vehicles for the green scent of life growing against all odds on a cliff face

The cold pulls the will to live out of me, away from me, like a sieve my pores turn to the gaping maw of winter as all the me-ness of me seeps out and freezes with the tulips buried under snow

The Red Backpack

Time slipped away

        We knew, had known, will know

She had years, then months then days, then none.

She went first

Skipped into death like she had been waiting for it all her life and I suppose in some ways she had,

I couldn’t handle it

I sold the business, the house, the car, I lived out of my backpack                       She loved books so I hitchhiked from library to library always picking up ones we loved. Then we’d sit down at one of the tables, two old coots living out of a beat-up red backpack and read and talk about everything

We got some odd glances often funny stares. I didn’t care I had my beloved back then I’d come back to myself and realize that I was once again just a lonely old man talking to an empty chair

Then I’d pick up that old red backpack once more and search for her in the next dusty corner of the next dusty library in the next dusty town

“What would you have me do? O Great and Powerful Man?” 

nothing, I would have you do naught but that which you wish 

“What would you have me be?” 

nothing, I only want what you are, I have no desire for you to be anything but what you will 

“So, what’s the catch? Why do you seek this?” 

beloved, you ask the wrong questions, 

“What then should I ask?” 

what will I do for you? 

“Fine, my darling, beloved, he who knows my soul, what would you do for the one who has laid claim to your heart?” 

I would thread flowers in your hair and worship you as you lay in fields of golden grain, I would remove all barriers before you and watch as you fly chasing the breeze. I would be your wings. I would be your home. I would put the universe in your hands because I want to see you tear it down and rebuild it in your image. I would see you become all that you could be, terrifying and powerful. I would tremble at your sight, but not with fear. I would love you and all that you are were and shalt be. 

Stars

And as she sailed across the plain,

The men awestruck stared at her wake.

The beauty of her grace so sweet,

Forever gone from his embrace.

The king so sad, destroyed was he,

Her life was once his great escape.

The prince distraught, his mother gone

He’d miss her touch tender yet strong.

The star she was shined brightly through.

The years she spent on earth now done.

The blessings of her days endure

While she ascends to take her place

Her place among the stars awaits.

Nightmares Part 4

I was alone once more the journal was left on the table that had mysteriously appeared beside the bed the day the walls changed colors. I was afraid. I felt the compulsion to write, but when I picked up the pen I wrote obsessively, like I was attempting to make the words stay by willpower alone. The only way I could stop writing was if forced, otherwise, I would forgo food, drink, sleep and other necessities in favor of writing. They left me, the doctors left me to write for the eternity, never stopping me, I wasted away. The words taking all that I was or could have been. I died a husk, totally drained and floating in oblivion.

"I think I have cancer, no really I think I have cancer" she said as she shook his shoulders trying to get his attention

"babe last week you had the avian flu and the week before that you had ringworm and the week before that you thought you had meningitis"

"seriously though look I have a growth on my neck just below my ear" she pulled his hand around to feel what she was talking about, he felt the spot and yes there was something there

"okay, I'll call the doctor tomorrow and we will get it looked at" they went to bed peacefully and awoke with all the trappings of the next day forgetting about the previous nights conversation, she mentioned it a few more times and each time he promised he'd go with her to her doctors appointments, or remind her to call the doctor so they could go get it looked at

-but they never did, just like he didn't believe her when she was convinced her cough meant avian flu and her spot on her arm meant ringworm and her headache meant meningitis but this time... they should've

Tired

Is anyone else exhausted by all the violence?

The needless and senseless bloodspatter patterns that decorate my television walls and the wallpaper of my brain.

From the procedural made commonplace turning horrific crime to daytime entertainment for the lonely and alone at 2pm on a weekday contrasted and compared with the graphics and lies projected on channels with three letters and a failed promise to tell the truth.

A battle rages in my living room, the combatants painfully familiar to each other yet only one is aware of the war going on. The other believes it merely youthful idealism soon to be squelched by the tint of age and cynicism. 

The man medicating with food and numbing the pain of a capitalistic hedonism born lack of hope with the gunshots and head wounds of his favorite "more stuff blows up" drug. And me, the far from peaceful activist cooking and tuning out his chosen coping mechanism with my own, music played louder and louder, that preaches a similar method with drastically different goals. 

One child resigned to nothing, so preemptively tired of the fight that he wishes not to engage in the warfare at all. Running, constantly distancing himself from the truth that another whom he loves totally disregards the pains and existence of others whom he lives in concert with. Those the child sings and dances with, those he performs alongside creating spectacles of beauty and emotion to make the world feel again. 

The other dedicated to the fight long before she even knew there was a war. Desperately trying to explain why and how to care for other people to the ones who first taught her the very empathy she attempts to raise in their hearts. Running towards the fight at home and the fight on the front lines. 

I am tired of sighting, tired of fighting, tired of seeing the tension so broadcast and obvious and yet having the same conversations over and over and over fruitlessly watching those on the other side slowly slide into the muck and drivel they are fed from the very hand that bites them. 

I wish they would choose love, 

or at least

choose me

It's. . . Odd

I'm deeply Appalachian

Fundamentally claimed and cursed and part of that mountain chain that's older than words and hides and traps things older than that

Those mountains were my womb, where i first hurt and where i first held, how i learned to heal and harm in turn

Those mountains are the spine of the world, sinking under the weights of ages, settled in their rage and power but no less dangerous

These mountains are flash in a pan

Young and loud and tall and prouder than they should be

They take and take and take and forget that if you want to keep taking for long then you need to take less and more kindly

These mountains are barren in a way that Appalachia never was

Stripped of life and all emotion except numb fury

The things living in these hills aren't tricksy and wily and powerful, they're injured animals on the run and they're cornered in by the press of toxic humanity

They don't know me

And i don't know them

But they see me, sense me, look for me

And I'm afraid sometimes

I don't dislike them

They're alien

They're wild

They're not home

But i could learn to work with them

But also? I miss clever jack, i miss the plants i know by heart and smell and sight

I miss the ghosts of those who should've never been there but dug in deep anyways

I miss the AGE

I feel old my dear

I've been around too long, this is not the first meaty church my spirit had occupied and these mountains make me feel old and weathered and like I've walked into a party i was not invited to

but my heart went west so now thats where we make our home, itll do for now

Hunger in the Skin and Soul

Sometimes you need to be held, 

The skin holds a hunger that can only be thwarted by the touch, the pressure of someone who loves you. 

But underneath that hunger 

underneath that layer of Mud and Stone that we call Blood and Bone, 

lies a heart, 

A soul, 

A song, 

Something that screams and howls with pain, something that coos and purrs with happiness, something that sighs and moans with pleasure, something that rages and riots with anger. 

Souls need to be felt 

and Hands need to be held