15 Sunday Apr 2018
Tags
11:22 pm
a train is passing by
it is far away
miles away
from where you live
but for a moment
you feel the rush
the quake
the stream
all is not quiet
it is not a time to rise
and address
the ages
history
and all creation
and yet
the white fog
the streetlamps
the distant lighted view
all wait
for just one word
from you
06 Friday Apr 2018
Tags
i awoke
self-conscious as a star
a shiny particle
of eternity
don’t ask
i can’t explain
is this what it means
to be insane
no more delusions
no more hope
just a serenity
that outshines the pain
or perhaps you see
my sleight of hand
i don’t care
i won’t even try
to conceal
hide the truth
or the lies reveal
03 Tuesday Apr 2018
Tags
she always remembered
everything
she would have remembered
that crepescule
means twilight
i had to look it up
all day the word haunted me
teased me
with images of a slivered moon
hanging low in the sky
did it mean crescent moon?
was it even an english word?
it wasn’t in my dictionary
then with frequent repetitions of the word
shaping my mouth into a small moon
i remembered it was a french word
and when i found its meaning
in an old french dictionary i keep
from college days
i thought
she would have known this
from memory
31 Saturday Mar 2018
Posted in flash fiction, Memory, Short story, Writing
My younger brother came over the other day to share with me his collection of grievances. We sat on the porch of our childhood home, drinking beer, as he went into some detail about all he had collected over the years. The collection fit into a single box – a tin oblong box, about ten by eight inches in size, jade green in color, that he found somewhere during his vagabond days when he was wholly out of touch with the family. The box lay open with its lid beside it on a wobbly folding table between us. I had never seen his collection, but I had long suspected he kept it safe inside his knapsack which was always slung over his shoulder whenever he visited.
The first thing he took out of the box was a smooth opalescent object the size and shape of an almond. “This is one of my more pleasant grievances,” he told me. “Maybe not even a grievance at all, but it irks me all the same.” The quartz-like object smelled of rose water and old sweat and when he turned it over in his hand it glistened. My brother put this object down rather quickly, only to take up another. This piece, smaller than the first, was rough-hewn, obsidian black, and, in truth, rather boring to behold.
“This is just one of many petty grievances,” he said, “but I’ve collected them anyway. You know the sort – I’m sure you have plenty of your own. I find it’s good to look at them now and then, even grab a few and hold them in your fist – makes you feel righteously indignant and ready for the next volley.”
I leaned in to look more closely inside the box, and he was right. There was a dense array of these little objects, igneous and ignoble in nature. But here and there I saw other curiosities, some almost beautiful, needing just a little buffing to shine more than dully in the afternoon sun. I asked him about these, and he regaled me with their histories, one by one.
As each story quickly turned into the next, however, something else in the box at the very bottom of the pile caught my attention. It was a large piece and probably would have remained hidden had my brother not been moving the other pieces around as he was telling me their stories. It looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t remember exactly when or where I might have seen it. I said, “So what’s this one?” pointing. He must have thought I was going to grab it because he immediately pulled the box toward him.
“I don’t really want to talk about that one today,” he said, looking away. But in his abrupt silence, I could tell he was weighing whether to do just that. And after a few more moments, he began to explain. He said, “Well, I guess it would come as no surprise to you to hear that this one’s probably my biggest grievance of all. I thought you’d recognize it, but apparently you don’t. In a way, it’s part of every other grievance, going all the way back to who knows when. I’d say it’s like an ache that’s been there for so long you hardly even know it’s there anymore. But you really don’t recognize it?” My brother looked at me in earnest now, his usually distant eyes wide open and questioning like the eyes of the child he once was.
Though the box lay on the opposite side of the table, I could plainly see the large object inside. In fact, it was even more exposed than before, due to the jostling that had caused the other pieces to fall away when he had pulled the box toward him. It was a gangrenous thing with bulging red striations, like a gnawed bone long buried in the earth. And though I couldn’t detect an odor, for all the world I imagined a salty metallic smell, like the tang of dried blood.
I think my brother saw the change in my expression, the dawning of memory, for suddenly he pulled the box even closer to him. How I wanted to take that object in my hands, feel its contours, remember everything. But my mind was reeling from an avalanche of memories, bits and pieces of shattered memories flashing before my inner eye, and I felt frozen, unable to speak. If only I could find a way, I thought, say what I always wanted to say, I would apologize for everything – for everything I had done, everything we had done, for the whole damn history of our childhood.
But before I could find the words, my brother placed the lid back onto the box with a firm click and returned the collection to his knapsack.
19 Monday Mar 2018
i wanted to paint a portrait
but a portrait will never do
it would never capture
the hidden face of you
i wanted to write a story
but a story will never do
it would never unravel
the mystery of you
i wanted to make a list
but a list will never do
it would never make clear
the confusion of you
and so i write this poem
but a poem will never do
it will never reveal
the unknowable you
18 Sunday Mar 2018
Tags
other loves
obsessions
have shriveled
and turned to dust
all from the curse
of your love
lost
i remember too much
kisses on skin
airy
like frightened moths
shame’s impasse
my dream
then a nightmare
of longing
and loss
but it’s 10 in the morning
and years have gone by
my husband’s at work
we now have a child
i lie here recovering
from a three-day flu
whose low-burning fever
brings memories
of you
12 Monday Feb 2018
Tags
the world contracts
if you let it
you may know the feeling
been there done that
but think back
to when the world was wide
and you traveled with ease
through its multiple dimensions
of intangible beginnings
that always beckoned
for you to continue
without knowing where
or if the journey would end
think back
to a time when you weren’t
so wise
to when the world was
an open window demanding
your escape
and not this room
that entombs you now
31 Wednesday Jan 2018
28 Sunday Jan 2018
Tags
every word whispered
adds meaning to the ceremony
just as each humble gesture
gives definition to the dance
you may think life is full
of wasted words and motions
but what you understand is
never the whole ritual
but an infinitesimal portion
of the ceremony and dance
24 Wednesday Jan 2018
Tags
(inspired by the poetry of langston hughes)
long after midnight
a star or two above
the moon a sliver of light
reminding me of love
candle on a windowsill
flickering in the dark
outside the world silent still
inside my breaking heart
