The Deep End

i prefer the chlorine clean

silence of the swimming pool bottom

that benthic burrow from

the surface slurry of polluted social soup

i dive down deep

to drown out the hollow sounds

and dream 

dazzled by the refracted

diamond lines of light

Cave II

the sunlight turns red 

    on the bedroom wall

a cool evening breeze 

    arrives at last

blue shadow curtains blur 

    and shift the glow

i cannot turn my head 

    to see the truth

the fever breaks 

    exhaustion claims my eyes

Anxiety Spiral

on days like this

give me

a dark closet 

with doors i can lock

from the inside

seventy-two hours

of silent reflection

a thick pad of paper

a pen

a gallon of cold water

from the stream

below the house

where i raised

myself

then a push

back into the world

for fear

i would stay

We Control Our Fictions

the world is enough and life suffices

without involving spirit in the mix

religious worship and other vices 

are prone alone behind their stones and sticks

and politics the concept of the state

the borders on maps defining nations

reasons for wars these things that have no weight

a slate of confining fabrications

these fictions grip our consciousness so tight

foreclosing thoughts of other ways to be

being that our being is so light

it’s strange we have to fight just to be free

freedom a fundamental human right

since laws and rights come from humanity

Haiku: Love Is Not Shelter

love is not shelter

all lives have weather and wind

venture not alone

A Political Wind

the wind makes its voice from 

loose paper and flags

awnings and plastic bags

it says nothing 

it has no mind

there is nothing to say

the throats it commands

and tongues it takes
only get in the way

of our understanding

like now 

there is no flapping or rustling 

can you hear its message

just shut up and listen

The Small Change

cold green rocks 

beneath the stream’s eddy

flaming red petaled flower spinning

round the swirling surface

only a breath or a breeze is needed

to set it free

Uvalde, Texas

 I have no poetry in me today. Not after what happened to those children in Texas.

I will resume the poem-a-day project tomorrow. Tonight, hug the ones you love. Tell them you love them and how much they mean to you. I'll do the same.

Be good to each other.

~MS

Residue

from convictions' fire

my words rise like fine paper ash

fragile orange-fringed airborne

when touched burn

only a moment

but the smoke smell on your skin

the tenebrous smudge

tenacious

Offering

they tell me i was born from the ashes in the valley of Hinnom

from the flames in the stomach of the idol of Moloch

there they found me screaming at the sky

sinewy umbilical still waving in the wind

i have dreams of things i should not know

orange flames and oily smoke screams of children 

and the smell of cooking meat

frightened they have tried to burn me with their furious focus

but by birthright i am immune to fire

last night another cow was born with extra limbs

flowers grow here with heads conjoined

so they are bearing me back to the alter of my birth

before the dagger wielding priest

a woman from the edge of the village comes to me weeping

she kisses my forehead and smooths my hair

they ask for last words so i say

i only hope this helps

Outside

can i unmake this past in my mind

reset it on the path of least anguish

pick up where we left off

those years ago

refuse to let you take our child 

to that place where you neglect him

and then double barrel off into oblivion

on the thin skin of this reality 

from dreams shattered

a body shape of pain 

still pressing on the spattered screen

and from the other side outlined

deforming the mornings 

compressing all anxiety into 

one fine point in memory

even so

allow me to know now there is an exit 

to the outside of outside

though i haven’t yet found the door

you are not there

i hate your ghost 

it is no longer welcome 

in my still beating heart

Astronomical Authenticity

your truths like a sun

off-center within you

whether aphelion or perihelion

or at equinoxes

relax into the transit

turn with the turning

change and be not ashamed

the moon has many reflective faces

unmoor your guise and shine

Animate

globules of water roll

beneath the peonies pink petals

and along the lines the veins of green leaves

that bears the weight the strain

within and without and down

splash in the shape of a crown on the earth

that remains the root of all life 

flesh attaining

the sip of sparkling soul

Wasteland Love Song

walking menagerie of values 

with fortitude waning 

but press on into the animal light 

crass puritanical madman

pour over pour out history’s pages

learned fortune tellers smelling copper throwing

bloody stones from the soul crumpled papers

lies like leaves that fall from your autumn minds

the wind carries far and finite

as the idiot said

there will be time

chained to and fond of fences

trained dogs lapping up mother’s milk

dressed in silk a pig is still drawn to filth

and vomits in the slop its cohorts devour

wet crunching hour 

by wretched fearful iron hour rust

watching us wasting away to handfuls of dust

but needs must

Outside of a Therapy Clinic In Babylon

waiting melancholic in a parking lot

lost in thought and wondering when 

my capacity for fascination lapsed

zoned out staring out the window

turn with growing awareness then

struck dumb with wonder when

the evening-honeyed sunlight runs 

so sweetly through the thicket trees

dripping down the breeze shifting leaves

that shine like glass and molten gold

i finally breathe and see

holy moments such as these 

make memories like batteries

sustaining a once waning sense 

of reverence

The Impure Work

only in ignorance does emotion appear pure

now the tones and colors of each moment 

run mixing into all others

the sad tension of anxious work

pervades the moment of quiet calm

the tense anger of acid remarks

mars with restraint the joyous reunion

the swelling of my heart at my child’s embrace

confined in a tightening chest of debts

compartmentalization no longer meets success

the contortions required 

bend these bones to points of breaking

shoulders elbows knees out of joints

mind shattered into shards so small

reassembly seems impossible

through the fractures bleeding hues endure

strokes of moods and sensations commingling 

each layered feeling impure complex

all set firmly askew in an age sturdied frame

beneath semiprecious organic crystalline glass 

cut in many-colored facets

The Lake Road

that first weekend warmth of spring

we roll the windows down and ride awash in sun

the rollercoaster rise-and-fall of the lake road

the smell of eutrophic water and wildflowers

the hum of insects enriching the humid air

Vivaldi’s Spring near full volume washes over

and past the old cemetery 

where the stones fallen or faded or hidden in leaves

make shadows on shallow depressions

gone soon in a blur as we descend 

down into the noon lit valley

Sanctum Divisibile

to be individual makes us a prison and a lie

to never again divide is a crime against the mind

fracturing is how we become whole

a jangling form of fragments kaleidoscopic

and oh what pretty patterns

we broken beings weave

The End of History II

clear no land only

take shelter under leaning branches

from the cold seek the warmth of the porous earth
use and preserve the embers of your horn

eat of the plants and fungi

and if you must the animals that will submit

wear their skins and bones to honor them

listen

stay away from the ruins of your ancestors’ hands

envy not the towers of skeletal steel that remain

stay out of the star scorched cities

where even now ash rains down on sightless eyes

teach the young to recognize signs and signifiers

show them the understanding of past ages

for even the terror of the past is worth knowing

teach them that questions are conduits

be open to their asking

be humble and honest in your ignorance

and seek to know

remember this now will wither and pass

see the sun setting on the glut of the old ways

light your fire for warmth and to cook yes

but also as a beacon for tomorrow

Therapy

needing to alter anxious thinking

i don’t bring my cagey singing to an altar

a therapist is not a priest at office hours for a session

but barfing up my baggage feels a fuckload like confession

what a profession 

i confess i’m not averse to feeling envy

but this human across the room must have a finite well of sympathy

while i mine it and whine that i’ve lost a sense of hope

she nods along then summarizes and asks me how I cope

i draw i paint i write shit no one reads like poetry

she asks if i’m concerned about my legacy

i say honestly that doesn’t mean that much to me

and wonder if that’s a lie

i have no control over the stories people tell after i die

mostly i don’t want to live a life that’s mirthless

and it would help if i didn’t feel so worthless

possessed by fear and grief my self-doubt’s a fucking beast

on second thought and second second thoughts 

maybe i do need a priest

Brush

left behind on the bathroom sink 

three hair bands wrapped around the handle

strands still twined in the bristles

of the same kind lingering 

on my pillow from last night

and the smell is soft and sweet and bright

strange mementos these leavings

pieces of a lover shed

haunt my bed

this brush

my head

Living In The Wars

i’m sorry i didn’t hear your part of our negotiation

country music breached the dining area

the accompanying messages staged an invasion

a screen in every corner flashing unsteady action

just know we are here now living in the wars of distraction

and i see you there but just now recognition tolls

everything around me is a transaction

i’m too taxed to buy it and

i have nothing to sell

it’s true what they say war is hell

Burnout

exhausting explosion compressed and sustained

all in the space of a skull that refuses to fracture

instead enduring the strain until 

resources spent

the husk façade remains only to contain

the single dense hopelessness light cannot escape

Anxiety Cliff Notes

every time mind tumbling down to tomorrow

sifting the trembling talus in the shadow

the weeping wind in the valley

slope too steep then to ascend to the moment

all that’s left having fallen is to fall asleep

Workaday Amber

everything shone gold 

as i accepted my fate

and time meant nothing

like tales of heaven safe

and nothing ever happens

frozen in that viscous flow

each day the same day

this is what we work for

the cautious stillness until

in a magnifying yellow glaze

all the air is gone

Circles

within the ring defined by looking in

the colored lens of expectations lent

it’s tint to sand and man and lion tamed

the crowd around the ring the circle tent

the sprawling of the city’s jagged swell

the swirling winds of words that wind the spell

a picture of the world a homely rock

the solar system’s drawn concentric clock

inside the universe outside our ken

the human freedom from the minds of men

Haiku: Advice For Men Regarding Women's Bodies

if you see women

as walking incubators

chop off your penis

Late Night Hours

i take succor in late night hours

quiet only broken in

random rumbles from a passing engine

finally there is time to ease into 

a self unbidden 

aware and unhidden 

unhindered unconcerned with every floorboard creak

no need to be mild or meek or held to any role’s course

no one’s gaze to lock me into place

or pressure to keep an inscrutable cookie cutter face

no i simply sip and slip among motes

avoiding looking at the clock and all that it denotes

until my eyes no longer light 

trip and trick me into yawning

consciousness dies and then is reborn 

awaken impaled 

upon a golden shaft of morning

A Skeptic From Gilgamesh

Utnapishtim was sinking all soporific 

when Ea came calling 

her voice washing wisdom like waves into his dreams

Enlil will drown the earth, she says

build a big boat, she says

even then i kenned that stories tack

soft as straw but enough to break a born-again back

so everybody drowns but moldy oldy and his family

some seeds and some animals including three birds

when the rain starts they’re on the Euphrates

pouring from the sky like a fountain

ship sails around gets stuck on a mountain

so for six days and nights a mind blown Christian kid

starts questioning every religious thing his mom said and did

in the Bible humans sin so Yahweh-zilla destroys

in the epic gods are sleepless cuz we’re making too much noise

either way humans stuck with a bullshit rap

can’t have fun or angry god can’t nap

twenty faithless years later i read

melt water on a breaking glacier fed

tons of fresh water into the sea

and sea level rose suddenly

about 11000 BCE

Solitude

they kept to banter

that is all they felt

they could do because

to push it any

further might reveal 

the dark secret self 

no one possibly 

could share in common

The Glamor

the spellbinding spectacle

celebrity circus war all

ring around the ashes

the fabricated frameworks

attuning our attention

pockets full of ashes

crisscross applesauce

culturing the posies 

incarcerate the rosies

pokey chokey roundhouse

we all fall down