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 Jul 2016 aar505n
katie
wrote
 Jul 2016 aar505n
katie
we didn't
know we wrote
          our names
   into snow,
scrolled
our
         soul into
soil,
our toil invisible
on
         maps but
held
as heavy as
breath
         in cold air,
our love, death
birth, despair
        who we
were written
indelibly
into this
               earth
 Jul 2016 aar505n
spysgrandson
anonymous winds
bend tall Timothy grasses,
wake rabbits napping
in the brush

they ripple the surface
of the stock tanks, tickle the haunches
of the beasts who wade there
to slurp the tepid waters

they birth red dust devils
for my eyes to follow, as they scud
through mesquite, and hopscotch over canyons
older than time

one day, soon, they will blow
over a shallow earth bed; I will not hear
their sibilant song, but my sleep will be deep,
unperturbed by their mystic music
 Jul 2016 aar505n
onlylovepoetry
"I swear it's not to late"

a daily morning prayer,
given up to no one in particular,
spake with varying levels of
conviction and derision,
confidence, disbelief and indecision

this old standard,
in no hymn book found,
but mine own,
where. hostage-kept,
in some left brain corner stored,
from a well trod path place retrieved

curse-swears
this companion-in-arms
but not my friend no more,
mockingly full-on, these crackling, plastered,
cackling four white walls,
have long since
ceased the enumeration count of
this particular daily devotion's repetition

best left unsaid, they warn,
in case you weary tire of its utterance,
noting that even anti-hope
can also reverse spring eternal,
some things best bitterer~sweet remembered
by absence

and yet these words,
from some fissure crack peek, leak, then
gushingly screamingly escape,
"I swear it's not too late,"

**** these glorious sunny mornings,
demanding my acknowledging presence,
by accepting only this particular, solitary brief tribute,
as my daily surrender to the sun's yellowed blue
amniotic fluids freshness

so I sip my alone-coffee,
listening to the morning news,
that will be forgotten by noon,
but my brain thumps, the body thrums,
in the everywhere I seek to hide,
this cursed blessed almost forsaken but not yet forsook
un cri pour d'amour,
taunts me, haunts me, just say it,

"I swear it's not too late,"
 Jul 2016 aar505n
Corvus
Spending a month in a hospital teaches you a lot about people.
The doctor that told me to shave my head or she wouldn't treat me,
The nurses that spent forever chatting to me
And giving me supportive advice about how my illness doesn't define me.
The woman who was given a terminal cancer sentence
And chose not to pay attention to it and defied it anyway.
How she sat next to me on my bed,
Told me that all suffering is valid,
And just because I'm not dying, doesn't mean I don't get to complain.
How she complains more about her skin problems
Than she ever complained about her cancer,
And that's OK, because pain rarely follows rules.
I never even learned her name,
But she gave me the words I hold most closely to me
On those days when I want to fall asleep and never wake up.
I'm allowed to scream and shout and rage against the pain
And the unfairness of it happening to me.
I just have to make sure I know where the line is
Between giving my darkness a voice and pitying myself.
Tonight, I spoke into the darkness,
No stars to light my way,
       The black void all encompassing

   My words drifting up in ribbons,
          I waited for something, anything to happen

              I felt a rumble that was akin to ripples emanating from a drop of water hitting a puddle

        I was small next to the impossible,
And when it spoke back, it changed me
      
        The blank canvas of stark black was pierced by blades of light,
    The sky becoming a shutter in a rain storm
           Blowing open and closed
       The words came and wrapped themselves across my body in its entirety
        Constricting my air flow

             I felt myself shatter
  An implosion of feeble glass
       Ricocheting through a skeleton of paper, reflecting the brightness above inside ripped skin

                I was nothing.
                I didn't exist.
                I floated in an incomprehensible place that had no end, no walls

     No ceiling or floor

            Just illumination in every direction

                    I opened my eyes
  
    And was blinded by an incredible radiance

      I shut my eyes tight and swatted in front of me
        My hand struck something metal and I yelped in pain
          
          I shot up and stared downward
    Towards the desklamp unplugged on the floor
        
          Breathing heavily, I sat upright in my bed,
                 *Struggling to pull away words that had already sunken in
Writer's block
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