Horizon-Gazing

Some say that loneliness is the human condition.  When I search my gut, and push past the insecurity that feeds a lonely state of being, I find solace in my own company, knowing that in this crazy beautiful world, I only have myself and my heart and my soul and my body to take care of.  I know how to ground myself, pull on my inner strength and the heartbeat of mother earth and find company in my own thoughts.  Perhaps it stems from being an only child and spending hours in my head, tucked away from the world.

These existential truths of life and loneliness (ie- "In the end, we die alone"), highlight the gap between our ability to be ourselves in connection with other people.  In this unpredictable and highly chaotic world, we search to make meaning and create structure with arbitrary rules for life and love and human behavior.  What is to stop my next lover from falling in love with someone else?  Nothing.  Not a god damn thing.  So how do you find trust and meaning in such a tenuous, temporary relationship?  If marriage doesn’t stop hearts from wandering, what will?  Do we merely wait in anticipation for the end of everything?  Or do we swallow our fear and dive in?  Let's go swimming.

I have also decided to stop using the word "happy" or "happiness."  Instead, I want to focus my efforts on cultivating a state of being content.  Happiness implies chasing an elusive high flying butterfly as it flitters beyond my searching fingertips; it implies slamming on the breaks when starting to sense the spiral downward into feelings of sadness.  However, the state of being content is rooted in being grounded in the middle path.  It means being open to the firefly flicker of joy in the night and being open to the washing waves of sadness.  But not searching for either or running away from either.

-Horizon Gazing-
Everything has an end.
Life ends and love ends and it hurts.
That end may come tomorrow
Or a month from now
Or a year from now
Or a hundred years from now.
And when it comes, it hurts.
But when we cast our eyes,
Forever on the horizon,
Anticipating, guessing,
When it will end and how it will end,
We forget to live in the love
And beauty that is present now.
We are blinded to the hand that pours water which quenches our thirst.
We ignore the warm arms holding us.
And we become sad, tired, thirsty horizon-gazers.
Embrace the end.
Welcome it in,
Make its company
And treat it with kindness.
Then, and only then,
Are you able to let go,
And live liberated and happy,
Aware and present in the beauty of your life,
And in the beauty and love that others bring,
Wanting to share with you.




-Bumble-

What started off as any orgy,

I came to realize,

Was a funeral.

Five bumblebees hovering

Stirring up tiny particles of sediment

With the frantic beating of their wings.

The sparrows swoop in

Eager to gobble up the kill.

My silent protestations

Go out to the little creature

Struggling to get off the ground.


-Moved-
I've written a million words about you,
And have planted thousands of kisses on your shoulders and your lips.
You hold gravity in my world.
We've gone from swimming naked in rivers to slipping under covers,
Shivering and wet, alive and excited and magnetic,
Warm and melted and comfortable.
Your strong arms encircle my waist and ground me in the night.
We talk as lovers in our sleep,
Guarded by the starts outside your window, 
Who keep watch over us and laugh at our folly.
I gaze in awe as the moon reflects in your eyes,
Bounces off your eyelashes,
And tickles my cheek,
As we go on our 4 am adventures for cigarettes.
Your words capture the pulse of our messed up human existence,
And I find home in curling up inside them,
As you read to me.
You've known too much pain and sadness.
But you arrive every day, undefeated.
I want to hold a mirror up to your own strength and resiliency.
You move me.



-Peach-

Soft pink palms hold pebbles that fall through fingers

Girls with black-rimmed glasses sashay down wet sidewalks
Boys turn their heads, look with sly abandon
Wanting to taste the peach but not slip the pit in their pockets

-Worcester-

There are no children here

Because no child sees his mom shooting up

And stays a child.

Gray city, grit and sand,

And dry wrinkles.

Wash the blood from your mouth

Spit last night's lights on the corner

And crunch beer cans on old sidewalks.

The cold banging of pots

Cracked yelling from the woman in the apartment below us.

Runaway son; Us, shrugging our shoulders.

Hollow eyes and scars that mirror the hot radiator

That he was held against.

I wield no light here.

The grime dulls pallid skin and we pace these walls.

-Patience-

Ladybug

Crawling on your sleeve

I turn to you and say, “It’s God.”

Sitting in the basement

Surrounded by a warm circle

Of desperate people

Grateful for sobriety

You place her back on the chair in front of you

But that persistent little creature

Flies back into your lap

Over and over

Patiently waiting

For your resignation and acceptance

-Northampton-

I find my customary spot

In the boarded up window

Behind the Haymarket.

Cross legs, dangle cigarette,

Smile at musicians.

I walked across your back to get here

Under mating dances of bumblebees

Leaves that uncurl

As mothers' hands open to accept 

Tiny fingers that entwine

Big blue skies

Beauty too pure to maim

-Starbucks-

I want to kill the barrista

Fire engine red string hair

Brown doe eyes

Sticky laugh

Mouth spewing charisma vomit

As she flirts with the delivery guy.

An old man stares at me skeptically

Mind your own business gramps.

Have you never seen a poet at work before?

A girl strung out on caffeine,

Whose brain is wading through haze from last night?

A girl who fears her own shadow?

Black hair hunched over pen and paper in the corner?

Two old ladies bicker over the bathroom.

“I’d rather see you go there because you know where it is.”

I have coffee with my lover’s grandfather,

His crooked, mysterious smile stares at me from way up there on the wall.

-Wake You Up-

Face slap bedtime

Wake you up

Sleepless nights and shaking dreams

"I'm stealing your cigarettes."

And I lost my underwear

Somewhere between the moon and the sun.

If you see it floating in outer space,

Don't tell the next girl

That you peeled it off me

After we sang the night away.

-Reflector-

I am the light-shiner.

My costume is made of broken mirrors.

Men come to me in disrepair,

Not sure of their substance,

Adrift and insecure.

I hold up my mirrors

And reflect into their potential,

Show the world their character

And kindle the glow that dances behind their eyes,

Until they stand in their shoes,

Gaze onto the horizon,

And declare themselves free.

Some give a nod, and some a, “thank you,”

As they walk ahead, steady and sure.

I am the light-shiner.

My costume is made of broken mirrors.

I am left to my solitary delusions as day sinks away,

Siphoning milk from the moon,

Waiting for the next broken shadow

To cross my path

And fall in love

With his reflection in my mirrors

And leave renewed.

-Musician's Ears-

Neighbor’s wind chimes tuned to minor keys

Morning birdcalls bounce around modes

The F sharp hum of stressed light poles

Taut with anxiety

As they cast glowing circles of assumed safety

Rain that resonates a floor tom timbre

Cymbal crash puddle splash of speeding tires

A hollow rush of air

That fills lungs

Of those about to slip into dreamland jungles

Or push piercing notes through trumpets

Or pucker in anticipation of touching lips

Or say last words to the dying saint wrapped in gauze

As he sinks under morphine waters

-Promise-

Promise springs eternal.

Green buds push through cracked soil

Sitting in quiet observance of the shoes

That pass by on the gray sidewalks

Wanting to cry out in their glory,

Have the stranger acknowledge their triumph.

Do you know what it took to get me here?

My mother lay down her seed

In the fits of fall

And I stayed in the frozen ground,

Surrounded by darkness,

Aching for the direct rays of warmth

To graze my cheeks.

I gathered my reserves,

Listened to the whispers of the melting snow

As it fed my thirst.

I made friends with earthworms

And the creatures that call this place home.

They all told me of this day,

The day of my blooming,

Where I would push through the black

Out into this formidable world

To exist

And bring beauty.

Do you see me here?

I’m waiting.

Promise springs eternal.