Haiku: Returned From War

sword and sheath couple

spade turned soil made to receive

the cup filled with seeds

Hang-Ups

light blue sheet all clean a square slice of sunny sky

hanging on the laundry line all breezy getting dry

dripping drops of water to the dirt and making muck

wants to sail the winds but pins and rope have got it stuck

Dying Flowers

crooked green stems like straws standing in the glass

a few yellow petals gently press the old water’s tense surface

scattered on the table trembled slightly as she passed

leaves fringes wilting drying darkly curling

i envy the seeds clustered at their centers

their silent compact comprehension of becoming 

filled to capacity with time

Portrait Of A Con

cigarette stain yellow cloud of cotton-candy hair set

over shallow forehead waxy sallow spray-tan skin 

thick fringe yellow-grey fur on heavy boned ridge

thick lidded narrowed eyes too close to a penis-tipped nose

parenthetical flabby jowls around 

pursed pink thin sliced pouty pork chop lips

shallow round chin sinking into a robust pallid turkey wattle

gathered round muffin-topping the white collar cinched

black suited simp with a luscious over-long red silk tie

First Impression of a Francis Bacon

nude twisted bodies wrestle grinning 

head and teeth askew in ecstatic agony 

on the bed a fabric wrapped thigh man 

meat made modest but for everything else elevated

slow rigid telemetry that creak

and scrape the penetrating stroke

a palette knife on the fluids sheet

gray and purple green and blue

skin on skin sweat slick oil primal

unprimed mattress-cum-canvas

Month Eight

I started this blog in August 2021 for my personal project of writing a poem a day every day for a year. This was to establish and continue a daily writing practice. I’m posting them on this blog to keep myself honest, and really for no other reason. But of course, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the idea of sharing them with you.

Missed Days

I’ve only missed four days/posts in that time, and my penance was to write and post to make up for the missing posts, which I did. There are already more posts in this blog than the one a day I’ve promised myself (and the very few of you reading this), so I think I can let myself off the hook. For the most part, however, until I’m on vacation again this summer, the days of posting more than one poem a day are few and far between.

Personal Struggles

As some of you may know, my dad died in December 2021, and my mother, grieving and ill, needed to have surgery in March. I travelled upstate to see her, take her to some medical appointments, and to get some of her affairs in order. Time with my parents was already taxing because of the kind of people they are/were. Even with just my mom … well, she’s doing double duty with her anxiety over the surgery (from which she is recovering very well now) and all of the other problems my dad’s death has created for her.

As you may guess from some poems and other writings here, my dad was a deeply flawed human being, and in addition to grieving the loss of her partner of over 37 years, my mother is deeply entrenched in the work of figuring out how to forgive him for her own peace of mind. She’s also sorting through various financial messes my father created in the years leading up to his hospitalization last August. Supporting her through this, even in the limited ways I can, is difficult, but of course she bears the lion’s share of that effort.

With all of that and more on my mental and emotional plate, the novel I was working on (first draft more than half complete) and my TTRPG hobbies got shelved for many months. I plan to pick it all up again in the coming weeks. All that’s missing is a little motivation and a scrap of a sense of self-worth, the last bit of which dropped into an existential void in the weeks following my dad’s death.

The one thing that was constant in all this time, is this blog. 

Poetry

The poems here are admittedly not great. Most of them are not even good. I guess I can’t ask for much from these tangles of words, most of which I only had a few broken pieces of hours to piece together. But I think I’ve improved over all, and a handful genuinely seem like they could become something more.

In my post “Month Three” [linked] I mentioned possibly combing this archive for rough gems when it’s all written and done, polishing them up, and creating a chapbook. That prospect is still appealing to me.

“Art”

As for the visual arts portion of this blog: I’m learning how to paint with acrylics and oils. I am unwilling to post anything yet because I have a lot more to learn and need a lot of practice. I am sketching in ink quite a lot, and also doing some watercolor, watercolor pencil, and colored pencil sketches that are turning out well that I may post here from time to time. But mostly this blog is still just for my writing practice and poetry, so sharing my scrappy, slightly shoddy adventures in the art world will likely be kept to a minimum.

My Novel

As for my novel … I would like to finish the first draft before the summer. It would be lovely to give myself the birthday gift of a first rewrite at the end of June, but I make no promises.

In any case, things are fine. The blog goes on.

Stay well and be good to each other.

- MS

Fat Shame Sketches

i’m built like a trailer full of trash

resenting my body like i got nothing to do with it

my mind would orphan this form in a 

heart beat 

but then that’s the problem

and i dreamed somebody asked why are you so sad

and i said i have to wear this fucking meat suit everywhere i go 

and it’s all that i can do to forget it

i can’t shed it

i don’t want to be seen 

but it’s too hard to miss me

if i was Joshua from Nazareth

even fucking Judas wouldn’t kiss me

the condition of this carcass even rhymes with my name

added thickness from the layers of internalized shame

Art Block

books of blank pages silently accuse

a dozen unused brushes in a red cup

pens ink drying in their reservoirs

pencils so sharp they could draw 

the blood of an accidental hand

reaching for something beyond them

and hesitating at the sting confused 

for fear of failure

Presence

memories gilt shine in the lowest light

but in the darkness of night all guilt

reminders remainders regrets 

words misspoken and sad silences

these are the guides we have into the mists

the unspoken future

any gold fired arrow guide rope tied

missed and is later found broken if at all

so consult no augury

this moment now your last

A Prayer Is No Offering

a prayer is no offering

where nothing is promised nothing is gained

your soul is your own to fend for

true awareness presented wholly is holy

your unchained will is sacred

exercise it and be born anew

with the wisdom of your life now

to nourish you

Hedges

screened through the mist of a spring evening

warm grey light haunts the window

passes through the glass

and dusts the desks edge the floor

a melancholy pollen over generative pages

smells of wet asphalt and cut grass

pass in through thin cracks 

where humidity contorts the frame

i am half comforted by the intrusion 

and i see the birds have eaten all the seed

from the feeder in the four small trees

this side of the neighbors’ walk

and look forward to the leaves

that will swallow the view

On Seeing a 19th Century Drawing of a Monkey Undergoing Vivisection

the doctor worked his science

blank eyes stared at the artist

who somehow also captured

the metallic scent of blood

but not the simian the mouth

a line curving down something

but none was drawn

but for the opening of the chest

flesh like lips peeled aside

screaming red

and pinned to the table

Dreams

when i knew it was a dream

i cast away the shadows with a wave of a hand

the ceiling peeled away

and leaping i flew into the sky with a view

of blue snowcapped peaks

i woke robed in golden morning light

panicked I was late for work 

the clocks had no faces

so i knew it was a dream when

the shadows closed in

Memento Mori

after the endless wars

fields of delicate white-petaled daisies 

disks mirroring the yellowed sun

powdery stamina thrusting

rising tender green stems

through the sockets of the soldier’s skull

now windows for other souls

Release

beneath the poppies’ pollen

the nectar of painless sleep

while far afield and forgetting

aimless and idling among the waiting deep

go now love you are released

at peace you find the passageway

tonight the living voice and blood have ceased

and memory lives to walk the day

Make

forge that which fills you

overflowing with joyous purpose

what excites your mind in the wakeful night

and gives you a flame of found focus so deep

a day is gone before you emerge

cracking at last the crystalline chrysalis

transformed in the act of creation

Incline Chorus

those distant dissonant sonorous voices

singing the sun up over the horizon

heavy lifting facing south and shifting

left foot right right foot right left foot –

under the star the shadows arc

light splits into the gift of color

oh to slouch in the lawn reflecting on the grass

soaked in the music of the garden's living thrum

into afternoon as aft the passing day presses

half a head into evening reflecting on the dawn

as this ship wends its course thru the outer ocean

of perceptually endless night

rattle of human voices hum of throats

honks whistles wheezes buzzes chimes

bells rung tongues into language that organism

it only knows its selves disseminating differ and defer

a measure of time where letters are seconds

words are minutes

a sentence an hour

a paragraph a day

a page a month

an essay a year

a conversation a lifetime

unfinished in the end

the lights dim down and off

the windows flicker blue 

a screen’s a window too

go now to bed children

the faster you sleep the sooner to dawn

the silence of darkness

is the beginning of song

Déjà Vu

light enters our eyes

our minds afterward catch up

living in the past

predictive machines

forever grasping phantoms

of expectation

The End of History

bare feet calloused kissing earth and stone

red ochre stains in finger webbing there

hands on the bare rock 

in flicker licking shifting firelight

the fathers the sons those in between the mothers the daughters

and the generations all together in and on the bare rock

Push back the edges of night 

and curate the shadows

they will tend the flames

the generations preserve the coals

carried on into the cold darkness

in the horn the home borne

from hearth to hearth

where warm red hands scrape aside

an age’s spent gray ash

Haiku: Home

my home sails along

the blue river meets the sky

i cannot return

Haiku: Moonflower

sunlit petals clenched 

night blooms the pale white flower

mirroring the moon

Dad

that word that means transformation

as the i splits again and becomes a greater we

however that happens

the same one is a shapeshifter 

even in daylight hours

on the whim of unchained imagination

a horse to ride around in the house

or a dinosaur resurrected

the counterpart parent sometimes sterner or 

more forgiving

as needed

the weekend pirate 

building forts to shelter wonder

seeking the lost forbidden treasure

of time

the same one who offers explanations openly 

while also protecting that which is fragile 

and most precious

and because strength is quiet and listening still

crying from pride or compassion

and never deriding for the same

the same one who knows sacrifice

to do whatever must be done to engender

a child’s trust without trepidation

Returning

enveloping the red brick buildings 

shifting mists on the pale snow grey shadows

the clear melt water pooling on the sidewalks

reflecting a child’s yellow boat upside down

the dissonant echo of a footfall

the jangle of keys on a blue-baubled chain

damp spring air collected on the threshold

between the evergreen hedges a door swings open

Hum

sometimes words buzz all through me

like bees making honey in the hive

sweet and thick and golden overflowing my eyes 

running out of my fingertips onto the keys

sometimes i am a hollowed honeycombed husk

bands of grey paper coming apart in a high wind

egg sacks that didn’t hatch 

mummified dried in hexagonal pens

on those restless rustling days

head heavy with emptiness

i make myself an apiary

and search for swarms

Jornada del Muerto

white explosion bubble swelled like bulb

or a blister ready to burst
unfurling the first rose of science bloomed over the desert

the route of the dead man

green glass leaves on the ground

now open for tourists

Ruin Cycle

fragile afternoon crumbles to crumbs

rubble around my feet 

i sweep through the night and sleep

awakening to the aging edifice of morning

Liminal Season

outside burning brittle city rusts

branches haven’t yet budded

reaching red like frigid fingers

trunks gnarled barren gray and brown

parking lot brick garden boxes

overflow with drowsy daffodils

yellow headed tilting back

many looking down

people jacketed faces pinched

leaving work heaving sighs

shrugging off one muffling mask

to don another home

Decision

a dance with decadence ends with decay

for even measured cadences betray

a need where middlemen fain to decide

between the means or mean deride

April

welcome cruel season

never are the dead more tangled

in the roots of the living

overflowing gutters rain

rivulets mutter gather in puddles

in through the cracks 

basements fill with whispering phantoms

singing of damp warm birth

No Cave

there’s no switch to flick to turn this off

we are sensory projectors with light receptors

the reel and the real spinning and mixing

there is no outer form only screen

of which we are a part 

make 

believe

we cannot make a mistake

there is no such thing

Spring Rain

blue night’s parched throat

opens out on a long moan

wind harbinger of rain

the lover’s warm tongue

this kiss ignites the season