mud (a poem)

I can't decide if my mood is contingent
on the weather, or if Mother Nature knows how
to mourn with those that mourn.

The ravens hover precariously over me outside,
wobbling like kites in uncertain wind.
Ravens shouldn't wobble,
ask Edgar Allen Poe.

My eyes burn and fidget and then leak
as big fat raindrops fall from the sky.
First... slowly.
Then a drop for every heartbeat.
Then a drop for every thought.

Today I am as 'bright and cheery'
as the mass of dark, bruised clouds above me.

My heart, folding back up into itself, pumps
from its chambers and hoses
mud
as thick as the mud in the driveway
my car will be stuck in tomorrow.

i am cold
and quiet
sludge;
if you give me a hand or a foot,
i will hesitate before i give it back.

Motorcycle Ride

A punch-you-in-the-stomach sunset. Your smell I want to dry up and rollup and smoke up. Maybe. Get high. The wind rips and stings and flutters and all of these things until you have to realize-force yourself to see- that you aren’t actually flying. The ground is a slip of the foot away.
I can feel pieces of me stretching and pulling to break off in a snap like a leaf off of a tree, shuddering off into the sky in flight like all of those birds we saw tethered to the telephone wire… breaking free. Busting out. All of us flying the coop, over the cuckoos nest. None of us birds are caged. Not a single one.
With my hands on your waist .. Relaxed (what a waste) … these hands like wings not talons. Alive. Restless. Flapping desperately but never REALLY making contact. There’s nothing to clutch with, and even if there were, there’s still nothing to hold on to.

excerpts from a letter

Its snowing outside. The snowflakes falling like microscopic feathers, slow and weightless, taking their sweet time to join the convoluted white blanket already on the ground where individuality will disappear; they’ll become like a drop of water in a lake. Snow really is beautiful, and quiet and pure and glittery. I was spiting it this morning, because for a week the weather has been trying to remember spring. Warm days slowly getting just a bit longer, and moments when you can feel the sun trying to bake your skin. Today, the start of my five day weekend, was supposed to be spent outside, doing outside things… and I’ve been stuck inside, where my puny fire tries to mimic the sun.

Today I am useless. I’m boycotting anything productive. I slept, I watched tv. I spent too much time on the internet. I tried to read. And all day long I’ve had words floating in my head needing to be anchored and written. And I’ve sat down three or four times with the intent of doing that, unsuccessful, until I put your name at the top and your face in my head.

Speaking of your face in my head! You just called, and now I’ve got your voice in my head. The sun has sunk beyond the horizon, and with the darkness, I get a little bit of light with more of you in my mind.

How much longer? Time goes by so fast, but yet in so many ways, I forget that I’m not standing still. That I’m aging, as everyone ages. That the lines on my face are only going to get deeper and more pronounced, and that my body and brain will atrophy if keep just sitting here, waiting, without letting myself believe for even a moment that I am. Denial waiting. What am I waiting for, you might ask? Everything. LIFE. Beauty. Love. Something to write about. Something to make my heart explode rather than implode. Something to make my heart beat fast. Something electrifying. Something that’s neither black nor white but every single smidgen and idea of every shade of grey. Something to wake me up from this life I’m sleeping through. Something to motivate and excite. Something to ignite passion.. . I want to be on fire with passion, to be burning with it. And for that passion to be ok. For it not to destroy dream, or destiny. I want my mind to be light, alive with weightlessness. I want my mind to be a place where darkness isn’t welcome. I’m waiting for balance. I’m waiting for connection. Undeniable, magnetic, law-of-nature connection.

I sound like I’m complaining, or despondent. Truthfully, I’m not. I feel peace, and I see God’s hand in my life in so many beautiful incommunicable ways, more now than I ever have in my life. I have felt the sweet waves of The Holy Spirit permeate my soul more times in the last few months than I have ever in my life. And its settled me in so many ways, so why is it that I still feel like something is terribly missing? I wonder if this searching ever ends, or if it is life. Perhaps we are made and expected to always be looking for ways to fill our soul up more, as if here on earth it can never be and feel totally whole or full. Or maybe the idea of a soul mate being one’s other half is not so absurd.