They told me it was medicine.
A cure in a capsule.
A little light in liquid form,
a powder path to paradise.
It whispered like honey,
slid smooth down my veins,
said, “I’ll heal your hurt, hush your hunger,
pull the storm from your skull.”
And it did.
Oh, it did.
The world slowed
colors stretched into forever, and my chest unclenched like a fist finally letting go.
But the bottle had teeth.
The pill had claws.
The powder carried a price tag I couldn’t read at first.
Every high built a higher wall.
Every flight carved a deeper fall.
The nectar that kissed me sweetly at midnight
bit me raw by dawn.
It is love that leaves bruises.
A friend who steals your shoes while you sleep.
A healer who poisons the wound so you’ll crawl back begging for the cure.
They don’t tell you the double-edged truth:
that the elixir doesn’t choose.
It cuts both ways
one side silk, one side steel.
And you,
you are the bleeding in between.
So I stand with the glass in my hand,
heart trembling on the rim.
Asking myself
is it medicine?
Or is it blade?
And the silence answers,
“Both.”
I played the flute for a rampaging elephant
she hesitated then flashed a forlorn tusk
and rambled on...
She trampled a greed pocked society
gored its steel hook wielding keeper
and his forty-year reign of chained isolation.
Men with rifles arrived, expert at finalizing freedom.
It took 200 bullets, give or take, to bend her ancient knee.
She trumpeted to her kin, long ago marked for death...
profits cut away from their gray mountain heads.
I played an Ivory flute for an angel elephant
as she slid into the mist of a sunflower ascension.
.
yes i did
mine eyne follow'd that drip
down hern
naykid length
yess
naykid
in thuh buff
thuh sun loving her canvas
that drip's glister
amplified
az down it
slid slowly
ride’n her
pink
drip
morning went all wrong
sideways and inside out
there was a cat hiding somewhere
possibly in the coffee pot
a goldfish slid up through the drain
landing in the sink face up,
I could not find a wristwatch
and Daddy’s pocket watch had stopped
One shoe? That’s all you got? I asked myself
I was snarly and surly and not happy about school
You don’t have to be said my mother
It is Saturday
I went back to bed
I wondered how her kiss would seem.
Drifting, I found out in a dream.
I felt the love that was concealed
as soft and tender lips would yield.
What do I want for breakfast?
The question surely begs.
I'll stop at Mabel's diner
for black coffee and eggs.
I slid into an empty chair
and gazed from her shoes to her hair.
Yet, I would not be unmasked
when my lovely Mabel asked,
"What do I want for breakfast?"
The question surely begs.
"I'm growing sleepy on the road.
I'll have coffee and eggs."
With strawberries, never enough for me: drippy hands, splattered ceiling, slushy the floor. Fido, my best friend, just slid out the door. Perhaps, a strawberry bush, why not a strawberry tree? -- Fido wagged, nay!~ to a Strawberry Flea.
By moonlight when the moon shone with all her majesty,
My ancestors told us the story of the Tiger,
Which crouched at every rumble of the jungle-thunder,
Either out of fright or from bravery;
Tiger, male and ferocious,
With wicked fangs,
Tiger which breathed fire upon the foliage that shielded
Our village from the rage of the sun,
Which raped lady antelopes with utter contempt,
Which dined lavishly on forest flesh
And wined drunkenly on hunters’ blood,
Which knew no honesty,
And which turned wild upon them,
My ancestors,
Season after season,
In rain and in harmattan,
Until one fine day
When the forest trembled with the screams of
The beast, beaten on its own tracks,
With roars of terror ending when the moon
Slid between the witnessing clouds.
LIVING IN MUNICH GERMANY THOMAS MANN TOWN THE TOWN OF POETRY MARIENPLATZ TOY TOWN CHRISTMAS TOWN THE PLACE WHERE HUMMELS COME ALIVE WOODEN CLOG SOUNDS IN A DISTANCE UPON THE COBBLE STONE BRATS AND LARGE PRETZEL HANG BEER STEINS ARE SLID ACROSS LONG TABLES INSIDE ROWS OF TENTS OCKTOBER IS NEAR THE OKTOBER FEST APPROACHES THE CLOCK MAKERS GATHERED CARRYING NUTS BOLTS GOLD SPRINGS FOR THE COO COO CLOCKS THE WOOD CUTTERS SAWING TINY MILK MAIDS DANCES MATRYOSHKA DOLLS STACKED NEATLY WIENERWALD SNITZEL AND POMFRITTS GERMAN BLUEBERRY SKONES BECKON MY THOUGHTS CRAVING NAUGHT CALMLY I SLIP INTO MY LEADER HOSEN SIPPING A CRISP REISLING READING JOHN KEATS COMFORTED BY TIME THAT GOES BY
Today,
the sadness slid in like fog—
not sudden,
just there.
Heavy without being invited.
I sit with it,
ashamed,
like I’ve broken something sacred
by feeling low in the presence
of someone so bright.
She laughs like clear water,
touches my hand like forgiveness—
how can I ache
when she exists?
But the ache doesn't check who I love,
only who I am.
It loops.
A guilt for feeling,
a guilt for hiding,
a guilt for being too full
or too empty.
And she—
she deserves someone who doesn't cloud over
on quiet afternoons.
Doesn’t fold into themselves
for no good reason.
Cooled off to take a sip; two.
Greedily waking up; fading
of the whole cup - butterflies,
trees, flowers; drips touching
the final vestiges of Antigua.
Fear ascended into the canopy,
slid along the line; work gloves,
gripping. Incomplete instructions,
lack of common sense, slowed
me down, with my feet off
the ground. Grounds remind me,
in this creamy, courage cup
to not give up, keep going with
support. I had to leap, to land
but otherwise I had support.
She, too, had courage, sans
my tears, my heart-pounding,
insane fear of flying; her words fly;
she’s shorter than I. She lands
on her feet. I’m behind. My friend -
a curious word; we shared a towel,
kissed dolphins; I hit her in the head
with a pingpong paddle (playing
doubles). Too close, these icons
of finance (we sailed upon a -ship
with). Friendship ebbs and flows.
You sea, you don’t need to pay.
Breach causes a realization. Suck-
cession of time and space, happy
place, but I soak in the memories
of once upon a time. Sipping,
sliding, incomplete instructions,
gliding, gladdened by adventure;
and even the brevity of affection.
I stood on edge of stream
crystal clear and cobbled,
with stones jagged and rough,
smooth flat and rounded.
How could this rumbled jumble
or rocks and gravel have got there?
Which stone was tossed and thrown?
Which was skipped there by tiny hands
trying for eight skips or more?
Which was placed strategically in
a row of stepping stones for dry-feet
to cross the stream to the other side?
Which stones slid and bounced there,
from way upstream, carried by
the last raging snow-melt torrent?
My path through life has similar
ups and downs, with slips and slides,
rocks and gravel, all rumbled
and jumbled together.
With the legacies of the ways I've found to
skip, step and slide,
to reach my milestones in the
sinuous stream of life,
riddled with scattered stones.
When all around sharp scattered fragments
of broken dreams bloodied my soul
and pierced every thought that dared
to take a step YOU lifted me.
When burdened by an unrelenting weight
of cold and ice and snow, I bent,
until my crown was buried,
frozen in the wood.
Sounds of snapping, crashing limbs
shattered on the crust and slid
against my brow yet YOU
hoped and waited for me
to stand tall once more.
When in a storm I faltered
too far too lost too gone
choking on waves of self pity
and regret YOU
stood on shore
and held a lamp high
until I followed
its golden glow HOME
And when I could not
with my own two arms
hold all of the pieces together
YOU wrapped your love
around all
and once more
I was whole ...
The giant caterpillar ate my shed
That’s okay, the color was an awful red
With a burp and a grin, the caterpillar ate my cat Quin
Quin was getting old, I said, calm once again.
That giant caterpillar slid under my bed.
A place I no longer feel safe laying my head.
I am sleeping at the neighbor’s down the road.
She is missing her husband, her dog and a horny toad.
Cool coastal air caressing care on my face,
The sand slipping softly through my feet,
The ravenous roars
Of the ocean’s whimsical waves,
Ice cream top like silky snowdrops,
Woody waffle cone
Like a bark of a tree,
The sun bleeding in the sea,
Sunsets and silhouettes,
I closed the gap,
I bit the top of the icecream,
And it slid down
Through the gate of my teeth,
Warming warmly the tongue,
And I thought
I swallowed the sun.
You tried to lead me
(surely)
by the hand
across the shallows
but we were both too drunk
and the stones too slick
so we slid stumbling and laughing,
falling toward each other
all the way across and upriver
(rocks bruising our feet)
until we were concealed by the night.
We held each other close
in the dark noisy water
that swirled lovingly over our skin
like a mother’s caress
as she bathes her child—
as though the river
were our mother bathing us,
our pretences floating downriver on her current
and making us new.
We seemed to melt and flow together
in the water
and seeing your lunar bodyglow
I ached to surrender to you.
Later you led me
(mischievously with playful eyes)
by the hand to your bed where we loved
and in offering myself
I discovered that virgin
is a state of mind.
Related Poems