Merrily

Hidden in honeycomb
Flecks of clear gone yellowed
Not amber but not not amber
Not cracks in the framework
But we're working on it

Sharing in the joke
But just barely
Not fake but not not fake
Not fool hearted
Heartlessly pooled in shallow

Prescribing to the myth
A giant vacuum of missing data
Not secret text
But not not lost on a scroll
Not scrolling on a leader board
Scripture as an inheritance
Majorly strolling back home
--
5.30.12

Cancer in the Breast of a Lady

As if insulation
Placed just right
Between wall, panel
A trinket box
Black velour, hinged
Dangling pearl earrings
Minus one pearl
Not for keeps
Or for mouse
A hoarding strategy
As seen often
Among end gamers
Before we arrived
There was money
Stuffed into walls
A woman's savings
As she died
She hid things
After she left
Her husband recollected
Tried making sense
But there isn't
Sense is patient
Sense doesn't scramble
But after cancer
Nothing makes sense
We'll probably call
After Memorial Day
Give them back
For whatever reason
Might mean something
--
5.29.12

Tongue To Teeth or Open Air

Sharing
There isn't, without losing something
When you pull out your share
You gain, easy breezy

When together, losing something
Barely noticeable
Muted or passed over
However, there she flees

There is no sharing without losing something
Remember to eye your share
Lest later on in solitude
You have nothing to wrack

Nothing shared, nothing gained
The past brings its own weight
In the form of dreams, data, death
Don't dare say you weighed or weighted

But a fair share;
Very rare
Even in turns
There is a hairbreadth more
Or less
Depending on how much you wish to confess
But I digress
--
5.24.12

Little Rams

My only resignation
Your brother, about legal age now
Stopped cold turkey
Fixed, cold giblets
Mixed, with so much garbage
Regular, standard waste
Perhaps more carefully segregated
To insure no cross contamination
Salmonella, or shipping container disease
Just a ragged shape of a woman
After all these years
Maybe a small incision in my collar
Or some broken face bones
Your sister, the same
Maybe driving age
A wreck of a circumstance
Her mother, all stuffed down, turned inside out with guilt
Her midsection showing the viscous pathways
Something a child has no respect for
Much less a child making a child
Making a child king
Or a princess bed or princess cut
Princesses bleed
Like hellfire on a tar pit
And then there is your mother
The saint
The deviation from chaos
The pace maker
Allowing us all to die
With honor
And slowly
Lowly subjects, sacrificed
All of us, little rams
Being offered to mushy fathers
For food or discontent
Sexual objects or random pitfalls
Greedy chipped claw hands
Full of guts with none of their own
Taking the corners fast
Leaving flakes of glass
Gravel imbedded in skin
Or worse, nothing
Just a rocking chair
Or television on mute
With closed captions
Turned ON
--
5.23.12

Popcorn

Those moments
Balled up
Between them, string

If you focus on the string
Vibration
Two distinct planes

With your eye on the ball
There are so many contours
And it is oddly weighted

In balance
It seems perfect
To have something like garland

But up close
Or in the moment
It's messy, abstract, an interesting predicament

A balled up fist
Or four arms and two chests in embrace
Can't last forever, shouldn't

Yet the wavelength
The time in between
Wrought with consequence
--
5.21.12

Ribbing

In the muscle around rib,
Otherwise known as ribs;
If you're eating ribs,
The only distinction being beef or pork,
Baby back or not baby back

In those muscles
If there is a second opinion
It is likely something rotten
So you might as well keep walking the same
Sitting the same
Acting just as you were before discussing ribs

In there
Holding us up
Keeping us from clanking
From becoming walking wind chimes
There are pulses and pulls
Just like a stocking
Sausage casing
Or other
Incredibly mundane material
Stretched taut
And asked to have function
Associated with it

In
Deep in between
There is mystery
And probably good meat
For eating
--
5.18.12

Scene: Grocery

Al-mund
She says
As if it's a person
A rich fragrance
Or delicacy

You know we're in Trader Joe's
I say
It's a co-op
With half decent produce
It's not the goddamn garden of Eden

What would you know about the garden of Eden
She says
Wrinkling her mouth into a dried apricot
Her eyes swimming to the left
In frigid waters

Eh
I say
And grab a bag of pretzels
Knowing full well
That her gluten allergy will flair
--
5.17.12