Poem-A-Day #281 : I'm A Little...You Know The Rest

I'm A Little...You Know The Rest

Of course I want to rage - kettle myself

I know how to whistle

The man at the corner was screaming repent into traffic
his mouth a dark hole into which pennies could drop and never fulfill a single wish

I thought about the unsteady hand that drew the sign
thick black scrawl against sunflower yellow
these are Charlie Brown lines I thought I wanted to yell out the window
          THESE ARE CHARLIE BROWN LINES

But I drove through the intersection - his wild hair in the wind

It's cold in Santa Fe today and this man is freezing to message

His temperature must be high

The problem with my raging - it evaporates quickly
becomes herbal tea

I never said this was going somewhere interesting
though you came on board and probably assumed it would destination

The reality is that I stare into the abyss of life and I don't even see an abyss

I see a thin cloth - loosely woven and unevenly made
full of holes and without pattern other than the continued overlaying of things

And I don't think raging helps thin cloth sustain

Steam does though - maybe - in directional ways

Iron-like ways

What I'm saying is that I don't want to rust but I don't want to shine either

Poem-A-Day #264 : Unrest

Unrest

Wake and the arm is cold again - outside the blankets
like it wants to escape the comfort

The arm wants to tell you something - you were sleeping and it has a message for you

There are marks along the skin - birth and otherwise
notice how uneven the color and the veins are so visible in the darkness

The sound of celery breaking

Knees collapsing on pavement and the glitter of light on everything

The arm wants you to remember fear and agency

The arm wants to sweat with you
there is the sound of a siren - it is the sound of all sirens - the room fills then empties of it

A moment before the most beautiful dream ever forgot - it lingers pinkly in the haze of the brain - calls in sing-song that it should be returned to

This arm has thoughts of going through the window - it cannot understand how one sleeps in troubled times like these - there should be blood on the steps of the capitol

Blood is hard to clean

If it is forced under the covers to warmth - the arm will form itself into a mouth and begin to whisper all the promises that have been broken

If it stays in the cold it will purple - possibly loose itself and never come back