The Everything in the Everyday
If I could bring you gusts of winter stars,
And Christmas lights across a frozen lake,
Then soon to warm and blanket we would go,
And love would be the only thing we’d need.
For though the nights grow long, and heart unsure,
I think, together, we could find some peace,
And build our fire out of simple things,
Like paw prints, and like crayons wrapped in string,
The gentle lights would blink as we’d draw close,
And love would be the only thing we’d need.
the queens of meritocracy, who sing of shortness in the lifespan, and the fall of capillaries once encumbered flush, the way that halls for Kostelanetz filled, when everyone who knew was frozen red. hereby the wind, afraid it might be late, takes bits of snow with it, to reassign a crinoline escape to stalk and stem, a baritonal escapade in frost, and caravan of jesters in the snow.
The last two out the door, and off to school,
A silence comes, as deadly as a flower,
That though he welcomes it, perfumes his mind
With poison, bringing sleep or even worse.
He calls so many things by other names
Than those most apropos. It is a curse:
To feel inside the marrow of his bones
The emptiness he won’t admit pervades
The water circulation, or the heat,
Or air that flows within the kitchen walls.
He will not say; and though he reads and writes
Of all the things that minds these days attend,
He dares not say the word. For life begins
In crevasses and cracks where shoots can grow;
And also ends, when light cannot get in,
And seals form over openings too soon
The clouds, like us, seem made of naught but dust:
We travel over hard and rocky ground,
Through countless miles agitated strife,
Then pour our dirty selves back down to earth,
As ash to ash, and dust to dust, indeed.
The clouds, like us, chaotic and obscure:
We tangle in each other, slipping out,
And heaving back into confusing mist.
The past, the future, both – so much to know
That we can never fathom, though we try,
To find some shape or order in it all.
The clouds, like us, whose days are hard and brief:
But in whose tears are growth, and life, and hope.
The mind goes back to when he was alive
To possibility – and to his heart –
A bench out in the woods, a moment shared,
And how the world seemed bigger than it was
But there is only silence, and a way
Of seeing things that comes when overgrowth
Crawls over landscape, tree, and every inch
Of heart he left exposed to feel its touch
And who is she now, she that he recalls?
Comes there the night or day, where’er she is,
That she remembers him, remembers this?
Or does the wild ivy hide the bench?
For all that is connection can be lost;
For summer burns and winter kills with ice,
And old age holds illusions to the last,
Though none may sit again as they did there
my imperfections i place in your hands.
with you, i can’t idealize myself –
for what i am, i open up to you,
and strip away far more than simple clothes
connection & acceptance are my hope;
to feel you’ve brought your whole life here with you,
and that you may, on knowing who i am,
move off, in finding me not to your taste
but here, withal that may be put at risk
i ask your imperfections show, as well
I close my eyes, and you are here again.
Your hand upon my shoulder, just a boy;
As though by magic, wrinkles smoothed away,
And graves released their peaceful, sleeping ones.
Your voice I hear, the ringing baritone,
The joys of harmony, and hearts content,
Though labor and the struggle, even then,
Put creases on a face not far from youth.
Your aftershave – I feel it even now –
The way my nose would tickle when up close,
The eyes that swept your family, then the front,
Of trying to, believing in, the good.
My eyes are open now, and all is still.
The sun is slanting in, and moving by;
And here, again I’ll feel that love is best
When it appears unbidden and aware
