A Good Scrubbing

some days—

the flecks and chunks

of insufficiencies,

insults and incredibilities,

splatter on: salt and slush

to cloud the mind’s shine

coat the heart’s lustre

and create a predominance of grime.

But in moves the rain, forgiving

the hopeful torrent

the graceful wash

that buff me up real bright

and set me on another day

—some nights
one just needs a good scrubbing

Pages open, open, unfinished

Coldly bright and screaming

Branches blanketed, donning robes

Cold and clean and beaming

Let the snow drift down

Upon the trees

And cover, too, these pages,

Dead digital leaves,

Man’s cruel tools—

Memories of magic natural

Christen, enrobe, grace
The space ‘tween mind and soul

Lantern-Hearted Girl

Old glass lantern, beveled, bright

Once a jewel blazing

Through shadow and frost

A warm and welcome sight

Since benighted, cracked with shame,

Clouded from selfish smoke,

Wracked with rattling pains—

If I cast it in the ocean

to grind within the surf

Will it crumble?
If I leave it to scorching sunlight

pierced by noonday rays

Will it burst?

Or will the water flow like justice

Scrubbing off the grime,

The glass re-fuse by 

Faithfulness stretching from the skies?

Can my lantern glow once more

And pulse with shimmering life

Though it has been neglected

To dust instead of light?

with props to 2 Corinthians 4, Florence + the Machine, Langston Hughes, Third Day, and “Once Upon a Time”

Fish Out of the Sea

arcs of white water, light

falls of stone up-grown,

solemn in memoriam

silently observing

the water’s rushing, murmuring

the quiet and the whispering:

through tapping feet and laughter,

solitary sitters, troops of groups,

couples camped, and childish patters

—tonight there’s a mere few

then two

the white the light the stone the whispers

beneath the wounded moon

silver surfing patina swells,

caps of white, water, light

Miracles

You walked me ‘cross the water

You made the lions purr

You spoke and with a shimmer

The sun infused the dingy world

The trees flashed winning mouths of green

The still lake blinked and shone

But none these wonders have I seen

Though looked and walked and lived

The real miracle is

Amidst the beauty, gifts, the grace

I’ve festered something else

The opposite of worthy, praise—

sordid fears and self

And say now as John Donne:

Rip me up and root me out and make me feel
Yourself

Construction Site

the breeze blew long

heightening my hairs

hallowing, harrowing, harbinging

But I stood tall

and long

And when it began to rain

to rain

I built my walls

I built my roof

And I stood tall

and long

and long

Until it began to pound

(in my head)

to crack

(in my heart)

And I cowered and shook

and shook

and shook

Behind walls growing thicker

like fingernails left too long

like layers of moss upon moss

too strong for

the sounding, the pounding, the hounding

And when the thunder ceased

it ceased

(over or merely muffled?)

I stayed within

calming

and preening

And I stood tall

and long

But the sun burned hot

and loud

without me

And I stood tall

and long

and long

And never knew—

within my very crevice

beyond my walls and halls and moss and shade

something else grew, too,

and taller

and longer

and stronger—

just beyond my walls

Upon the Occasion of Thunder

It rattled as if to shatter
the window pane behind
to make me jump and fray my nerves
Then soothed its violence
among the trees,
pattering, whispering to the leaves
If Thor turns such a gentle lover
Come Thunder, if you please.

Finger Printing

The khaki uniform

The badge upon the chest

Courage and authority

Mewed behind a desk

The face was kind but business-like

The process pure bureaucracy

But through the sterile plastic gloves

The fingers touching mine,

The tentative good humor,

The light that ‘scaped from out those eyes as I looked up

—Said something

Something more

Than khaki

and customary questions.

words on a paper towel, dappled with sweat

somewhere in me there’s a poem

for this feeling

but the words

I’ve used before:

holey verbs, like

yearning, aching, throbbing

throbbing, aching, yearning

where do they find their home

besides within my breast—

in him, in Him

in You, in thee—

holy—wholly—threads

trailing into a misty horizon

to seek the end?

or find an end in seeking?

Links

How many times have you fallen in love?

How many times have you stayed?

I’ve fallen in love in a minute

A million minutes

And I’ve fallen again today—

There was something about you,

Or what I thought was you

That met something about me,

Or what you thought was me,

Or what I thought was me

—And the moment stuttered.

It shone

It blushed

With clumsy, bashful beauty

Fleeting

And glorious.

I left brimming.

I left parched.

I cling to that moment and fuse it beside

The others, link after link

Woven among the cockles,

Secret cortaneous art.

Longing

Longing is a heartbreak:

A vapid air inside one’s chest

The cavity achill

Beneath the bleak and bony cage

Frost nibbles at the heart

Longing is a heartbreak,

Not of the love that’s lost

But of the love that’s grown and grown

And grown the wrong way—down

No memories or kisses to feed its feeble sprouts,

The tree of longing burrows

It twists and knots itself;

Without a love to match it, steal it, reveal it,

It pulses in the dark

Longing is not heartbreak;

It’s love without a love

Loss before there’s loss

Barren branches boundless as the sea

Not a breaking, but an aching

A cancer, not a crack.

Nutshell

Was there once a fairytale,

a nursery rhyme,

a fable,

about a little girl who slept

in a nutshell?

It would have to be the hardest kind

of shell, grooved and thick and opal-shaped,

uglier than a duckling on the outs.

Its hinges would of course be hid,

its latch as well in secret,

so none would know the pearl laid within.

Her downy head would be protected, upon its bed of

fur, silken silver and stripes of brown

to camouflage her tawny locks.

Her soft brown gown would curl her ‘round

as she’d rest beneath the stars.

She’d know they glowed though it was dark,

and then they’d glow for her

alone

and no creature of the forest floor,

or heights or branches, burrows or doors,

would ‘sturb the little girl.

A rest like Snow and Rip and bears

would weight her lids and fill her up

and make her glow for something more.

something beautiful

untarnish something beautiful

unlock something kind

toss up the weary working world

turn over something fine

the longing has set in again

snap and sneer and try to hide

the oil slick, the rotting log

cussing and fussing

and angsting away

filching a purpose

to endure the day

breathing

the ocean’s breathing

salty on my lips

like your body

breathing heavy

and strong

grey rocks beneath my feet

dancing through the cracks

up to brush my hair

back

gathering wisps

like your hands

moving softly

but strong

wrapping my sweater tighter

cabled wool squeeze me small

like your arms

breathing held

too long

bound

trap me in a small space and show me how to live

tell me once and do another

make liars of us all

parents, teachers, children

teach one another ill

and send us into battle

up a hill, a hill, a hill

rolling a ball

small as the universe

gathered up to find it ourselves

to find ourselves

down

was it soaring or falling?

falling is free, free, free

I was high when I learned to weep

In love when first I mourned

Kicking and screaming when we were born

Our hearts and strings were bound

and bound to be

trapped in a universe

small as a ball

thinking we might live

Noises

My secret dream is

Holed up in the garret room

At the top of the house

Sipping tea and pulling faded fragrant volumes

From the shelves

Listening to them flap their pages

Like pompous old men or young revolutionaries

Throwing ideas and visions

To spin in the chimney smoke

Pressed, caressed into condensation on the window pane

Spinning records ‘round the gramophone

And waltzing in coattails

With a garrulous Emily or Anne, swishing her pink beaded cocktail dress

And laughing like crossed cups and the upset chandelier

Oblivious to the wheels of the world splashing past down on the asphalt

The babbling and blaring of wavelengths to and from satellites orbiting overhead

Cries of children, braying politicians, ringtones, deaf drones, construction zones

A noisy world without

A noisy world within

Which will echo, echo, echo out?

Exposed

See the skeleton through the wings?

It’s hollow

Full of air

Os and COs

1s and 2s

Fanning out the membranes:

Glowing furry windows

Filtering streetlights, night’s lights

Murky with pigment, veins

Bony crosses framing leather panes

Cruising Zephyr’s highway

Membrane turned outside in

Cupped upward like a woman

Dark and warm

For once not pummeled

By elements

The Os and COs

The Hs

The 2s

Pepper the virgin lining

Instead

Whipping past a frenzied head

Scampering, teetering

Trying not to scatter to the ends

On Zephyr’s bends

The 2 membranes teeter

totter

See how she flies blind?

Dark and listening

For once not pummeled

By elementary

Ohs and ahhs

Exclamations—shrieks

Surprise at being

Naked as a baby

Blind as a bat

Free as a word

The Tiny Girl and the Sea

(with props to Ernest Hemingway)

rough-hewn umbilical cord

monstrous, natural

swinging and whipping

if not for its baby ballast:

tiny me

gasping

hand over hand

fibers and pores

shrunken, like Alice,

on nerve’s last, soggy straw

I trail through the void

skirts flapping

hair snapping

hard against my

tear-stained

wind-burnt

doe-eyed

face

pulled along the water—above

but not out of trouble

for the sea raged

the fish leapt

and I hung

and I swung,

hands gripping

rope burning

sweaty slipping

it’s dark and I’m

lost at speeds

o’er seas, endless seas

stop the storm

and drop my form

and walk me Home

Home Home

walk with me

on water, endless water

endlessly Home, Home, Home

The Click

Click clack
Wrong track
Kick back

Dig in your toes
And tap your heels
Dance around it
Ask your questions
And try not to lie

Sink down, sink down:
Bend you knees
And drop your heart

Move your feet
To each new beat
The rhythm’s never right
Syncopate, syncopate
And start to hate
The timing
Off, off —- on —- off

Endure the flailing
Endure the kick
Nurse bruised toes
And wait
for the Click