Monday, April 11, 2011

Blue's New Spring

That morning, a lonely jay
flitted between bare branches,
as I sipped black coffee
and admired the new skies and buds.
His feet and beak bounced back
between each spring twig bursting
with the earliest life
anyone had seen that year.

The leafless newness came on quick,
as only a rustle gave the bird to my eyes,
and as often as I saw him fly,
he rested perched in calm, unaware
of how Spring and I extolled his quiet race.

I don't know what it is about blue birds,
whether their feathers or breathy colors,
but something cold, arrested in my chest,
was thawed and replaced with a flame,
as I spotted a blue jay early,
on that Springtime April day.

The Balm of the Soul

Adjourn and welcome,
And welcome to desire,
and welcome to time held still,
and your mother still holding your hand.

Welcome to a dance with your appetites
and between your rationalities,
fitting steps with feral fictions
and bowing to your ego.

Welcome to bizarre vignettes
and compromising situations with
4th grade teachers, best friends' sisters
and a rotund clown from when you were six.

Welcome to irrational desires,
insatiable anxieties and obscene pleasures.
Welcome to wormwooded forests, purple mushroom spots,
side-winding cobras with your uncle's eyes and teeth.

Welcome to emptiness and boldness and foreboding.
Welcome to bare gums and demonic televangelist rants.
Welcome to the benthic.
Welcome to the night. Welcome.

About Me

All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life. -Goethe