Rescue

still acting out old edicts

i shower and dress

breakfast and brush teeth

commute to my sentence

people say failure is destitution

but when i sit at my desk each day

exiled from myself for what they will pay

it doesn’t feel like success

returning to our house i don’t want to speak

my day was the same i know you know

because you pull me back from the tracks of

my oncoming thoughts

with your hands home

Snakes and Actors

so complex we children of the serpent

tail to head wind a century’s spiral

some a little more 

most a little less

remiss sloughing our skin time and again

why do we lose sight of this performance

when it’s all we get until the curtain

drunken amnesiac method actors

footlight-blind and lost in oft-rehearsed roles

skin shed costume change 

in-betweens are wondrous strange

it’s sometimes sad we desire to be known

before knowing our selves at last

posturing coiling a life slithers past

Untitled 11.28.22

turn with the turning

and within quell the desperate longing

for an end

Foundations

this fixation on the origin of death

the serpent sting of immortality

make controversial worship 

harmony and unity of all forces

physical phenomena

all reducible to hydrogen

a compendium of facts

in a harsh vernacular 

terms of personality traits

analogous to man in their nature

gods that eat their children

and call it sacrifice

With Longing For Spring

spring morning awoke

with sensuous gale writhing

over gray pillows

First It Should Rain

recorded history

moving backward

carved into stone and trees

scratched onto paper

up in a cloud

Inspiration

the gods respire butterflies bees bats birds

breeze borne flights of splendor fear and wonder

flitting among leaves thoughts flowering

pollen producers and pollinators in co-evolution

original species of thoughts diverge

newness always emerges holy holy holy

from the bearers of the breath of the word

Membering

how much of history is fiction
can I change the past 
remembering it differently
what fidelity do I owe 
my own memory

like a nightmare 
upon waking 
can I will it to be well 
and return to sleep 
confident the means 
and thus the outcome 
will change

today she forgot
i was her son

Invocation II

low unquiet longing

devour my lusty heart whole

come cover me climbing

like juicy salacious ivy

suffuse me while i wallow

open the hollow to hallow me

unfasten that empty expanse

where my tenebrous shade 

untethered to desire

may tend again the muse’s fire

I Don't Want To Haunt This House

i don’t want to haunt this house

someday surrounded by strangers

cats and dogs hackles up growling

smiling down at frightened children

weeping wondering where my family went

only once in a while becoming aware

the rooms are empty and dark

Cross Constraints

lying on this prop 

sweet solitude plays

weak by week of mind wrack 

wasted potent days

every sense seeks now

some promised relief

through night’s cross constraint

of gratitude by grief

Transitional Betrayal

manifold crests 

feathers raised artful banners 

makeshift the mind

see through the smoke and dust 

dad’s argyle scale catfish

mounted in the living room

humans swam the sea

living at the boundary hearty supply 

grateful easy efforts

left the car at tide out 

tide in the flip writing verse watching

in the shade from the afternoon sun 

he begs you don’t cheat yourself

but you make the careful decision 

to stay as you are fearing 

if it doesn’t work out 

there is nothing left for you

but his sword to fall on

Gravity Unrequited

in her deep field photographs

such beautiful intelligent life

grey eyes farthest stars 

weak force pulling

this infatuated astronaut

in the vacuum

i didn’t know how to speak anymore

too stupid to try

afraid of losing i quit hold

done in by prehensile longing

that was when i left the module

let the emptiness carry me

into the sun

Foam

titan testicles

foaming in the Cyprus sea

the birth of Venus*

*When Cronus (the Titan) cut off Uranus's junk and chucked it in the ocean, the foam (basically semen, seminal fluid, and blood) coalesced into the goddess Aphrodite. Today I learned that the Greek work "aphros" means "foam". 

Mid-May, 2001

twilight walking gravel pathways 

beneath brickwork college arches 

across the old wagon road 

an abandoned vineyard 

ripe fruit hanging dark and sweet

swollen bunches between fences

high wet grass caressed your legs 

your hand warm in my hand 

slick smell of creek water and woodsmoke 

flickering flames through the trees 

spring swollen water laughing

you and i laughing

bare feet cold in the current

Condition

razor edges of a day 

slice beneath nails 

black where they bled

torture teaches gnaws away

so i bite them to the bed

The First Time

lying in bed after the long night’s run

your warm hands on my chest fingers roaming

while predawn light shone blue through the curtain

i heard your breathing change and closed my eyes

Life Is A Dance Without Time

in the absence of time there is only

the colossal weight of life playing

lithe body of fragile perceptions changing past

shifting of masses from place to place

changes of expression

variations of tone

this whole existence becoming 

dance and music

Missed Today's Deadline

I missed today's deadline for my poem. I'm sure it won't be the last time. Just wanted to let y'all know I missed because I was working on an acrylic painting on gesso board trying to make a homemade holiday card. 

Here it is:

I'll post two poems tomorrow ...

Be good to each other.

~MS

Autumn Abundance

afternoon air bears smells 

of rusted cinnamon cloves 

my roots run deep beneath

layers of shed leaves and needles 

earth wet rising breathing

fecund black soil steaming

my garden continues bearing fruit 

in the morning sunlit worlds swirl

on the new green in cool drops of dew

Seaside

my circle of home

led around an errant light

at a white sea’s edge

Sleepless In Mesopotamia

the gods of Uruk couldn’t sleep

humans were too numerous

a little too loud

and so flooded the world

a clear mind cannot cohere

the random scatter of thoughts

proliferates by distraction

sporadic noise 

house creak yawn cough 

car alarm horn or siren

peace is the sound of an ocean

however the boat floats

sooner or later subduction

everything under water

Why I Don't Go Outside

i got out of my car

avoiding his stare

fat fuck lazy

why even bother

he said to his friend

as though i didn’t

have the same 

question

Fences/Bridges

barbed wire protective brain defensive punctures

some new force coming my senses itch for leave

but this opening between sought distractions

stark awareness undistorted by ego

there is no point in longing for solitude

there is always some bump or cry or alarm

always a new knot of needles for the fence

and silence is only gained in life’s absence

darkness descended early half filled with tears

and some weird blunt thoughts given cold expression

my mind split over one ear on our child while

one heard your jangled voice pained pressed to the wire

these layers of distance my ineptitude

no way for this day to end but with you too

exhausted for anymore and my quiet

alone living room broken by the last train

sounding again and again its muffled horn

Solstice of The Modern Druid

the longest night with table set

the mead-filled horn and berried sprig

recite the prayer to summon god

then raise the horn and take a swig

thank that spirit for blessings borne

replace the chalice and the twig

then close the grove with warmth and light

know you’re inside of something big

Pleasure In Succor

a kind intense person is less enjoyable

than the anticipated absent bereaved

your surprised response heard

i encourage different expectations

Month Fourteen

The fact is, I am struggling. 

It’s been harder than ever to want to make time each day for poetry, to say nothing of the weekly posts. Lately, I’m too exhausted even for working on my novel (NaNoWriMo is here). My creative battery is depleted and I am actively considering going on hiatus from both my daily and weekly writing just to recharge.

At the outset, I wanted this blog to keep me honest in a daily writing practice, and because writing a poem a day, by its very nature, was going to result in some last-minute stinkers, I decided to turn off my inner critic and just allow myself to write without judgement.

But lately I feel like my inner critic is the only one in the audience, and he’s come armed with the juiciest rotten tomatoes. 

So, after ten weeks of consistent weekly posts, and with no noticeable change to engagement here, I am halting the weekly writing project for the time being. The biggest reason for this is that on any given week, I don’t even start working on it until Thursday or later, and that completely defeats the original purpose.

Instead of weekly project posts, I’ll endeavor to just throw in an extra post now and then when I feel like it. It takes the pressure off, and if I spend two months working on something before I put it up here, then so much the better.

I’ll continue posting poetry daily. I’m going to give it another month to see how I feel without the extra weekly deadline before I make another evaluation.

In the meantime, if you’re reading this, please consider posting a comment or sharing the pieces here you find most interesting or engaging. It would be nice to hear a few words from those of you that continue to come back.

Thanks. 

Be good to each other.

~MS

Verge

my head is cluttered cupboards

tilted stacked verging on collapse

doors noisy clapping or cracked

can’t close on dusty cups spilling

discontented content overflow refilling

below cracked ceramic begins to spin

i shout and shout to drive it out

there’s too much coming in

turning world rusted hinges burning

chaotic dying creates

such a creaking din

The New Colonizers

the trickiest part called truth

i hope will be convincing

an attempted positive account

to convey concerns more precisely

before autonomous mass operation

through incorporation

and property of course necessary

for the essential idea of singularity 

constructed after the fact

to understand only emancipatory history

however imaginary 

considerable civilized success

a populace

soothingly embalmed

Collateral Politik

winter’s arrow carries sorrow

stealthing through the night yard

no narrow tracks in the snow

the frightened children weep

swept up in wind what cloud of leaves

blocked the sun shadow shelter cold

falling gently down in ditches

wrapped in a quilt of anguish

when at last the soldiers cleared

slide descending orphans small and old

cold fearing fingers wiping mud from eyelids

father mother once but gone

son and daughter once but gone

cradling hollowed silent bodies

agony weighs nothing

light as life’s memory

Students

it felt common foregoing the horizon

after all we were resolving our own entanglements

my monarch mouth was our carriage wheel

a kind of master disc translation

so many disciplines combined 

we free radicals struggled blind

and it was like governing 

flames in a high northwestern wind

Putting Pretty To Sleep

rusted autumn marigold gilded ground enough 

satisfied cravings for words of beauty not 

ringing false repeating pulsing earth foul rot

cliché trite hackneyed beating that dead horse 

that sinkhole is a pinhole that blooms (like roses)

but weakly hold a lantern against spiraling dark

appreciate what precious poesy a little posy poses

appreciate smelling the flowers' red and golden heads

give a kiss a pat and tuck them in their beds