Drowning, an oblivious stupor.
Mary Jane hanging on black-toasted lips.
Mentally intoxicating like a spoiled dipper.
Anodyne pot, we smoke the sorrows of yesterday, barbeque ashes of tomorrow.
In that drunken cloud, puffing
on broken bridges.
Supplanting flowers of rue with weeded grass.
That mental manacling opiate, a ticking asylum bomb.
what if I had had just stayed in new York
what if Abraham dared to eat pork
binary systems only give us either/or
parallel universes offer so much more
what if Columbus just had turned around
what if Newton’s apple didn’t hit the ground
nothing really defies imagination
just consider all the permutations
what if frogs had fur on their back
what if moose never left any tracks
there’re so many possibilities on heaven and earth
from the house of gloom to the house of mirth
What if salmon only swam downstream
what if things weren’t always as they seem
Children should be seen, but not heard
That’s excellent advice for the totally absurd
I know so well the warmth of cold moonlight,
For night is home to all keen thought, blissfully unmaligned.
Helios holds no sway with me, his journey out of sight,
Selene, my muse, guides my sweet nocturnal mind.
Supine, I float, and watch my ethereal phosphenes fly,
Till epiphany alights and I feverishly spring to write.
Mellifluous the ring of ink, as the paper I glorify,
Eloquent with ease, till the sharp break of Aurora’s light.
The ephemerality of my life seems with my heart to brawl,
Under shadow, ponder I, if unturned I leave life’s stone.
Yet Nyx’s reign inveigles me like sonorous siren call,
And so I sit, to on paper bleed, on my solemn wooden throne.
To live and write in lonely dark is my god-given right,
I’d rather live to shine in shadow than disappear in light.
The curtain is closing
On future planning
The uncertainty of age
Is like a vulture
Waiting on a fence pole
I must deal
With life
In chapters
A book is too long
And I might not
Finish it
I look back
When time
Was a burden
When I thought
In years
Plotting goals
The calendar
Was my friend
Now I check
My watch
Realizing that
There are only
So many seconds left
Before my sun sets
Cards are like wings
Carrying the warm regards
From our heart
To those to whom
Other times
We keep our feelings
In reserve
It is in the Christmas season
That we yield
Allowing the emotions
To find their way
To the surface
Counting on Hallmark
To convey
What we cannot voice
But I balk
With the canned expressions
That do not speak
Of our true feeling
Of your importance
In our life
Of the good times
We shared
Of our wishes
That the future
Would provide more
Second helpings
Of life’s sweetest dessert
The circle narrows
Friends
Their faces light
When we come close
But there is distance now
A bond broken
A relationships severed
As the atom split
We were protons
Positive in our youth
Constantly in motion
With dreams
With ambition
And now neutrons
Complacent
Not reacting
To the thought
The behind the eye
Wish
That somehow
We could harness
The energy
Make that call
Arrange that meeting
Do that outing
But the bother
Has bearing
Too much effort
To disturb
The comfort of aloneness
I want to weave words
I want to create
My own patterns
To not drop stitches
As I lay out
The intricate colors
I see in my mind
I want others
To feel the ideas
The smoothness
Of my logic fabric
To accept the textures
As truth
Me, as an artist
Who pulls
The silky thoughts
From the cocoon
That is my heart
Christmas and heartbreak
Came in the
Same misery package
Our Christmas tree
Fresh from the spoil banks
Of the pit
Great gaps
Reminding us all
That like the tree
Much was missing
From the season
I heard the exciting talk
Of classmates
Dwellers
On the Sears catalogue
Dog-eared reminders
That jarred Santa’s attention
I knew
Santa had stopped
At each house
But mine
On the block
That on the 26th
New bikes
Would ride my street
Gene Autry cowboy suits
And cap guns
Made my friends
Gene’s posse
And I
Would have nothing
Nothing again
But the misery
That dogged
My parents
But the worst
Was yet to come
The first day
Of school
With the teacher
Spending the morning
Grilling each student
Each recounting
The joys
Under the tree
And I would lie
With everyone
Knowing the truth
And I would hate myself
For the lie
I felt
I had to tell
My princess
Wears no tiara
Has no entourage
But makes my home
A palace
Any conversation
Feels like a royal audience
It takes no camera
To capture
Her tender heart
Her warm smile
The joy
Of her sparkling eyes
She is true
Without pretense
Without complications
And she reigns
In my heart
We speak now only in italics
Passing each other throughout
the day a hundred times
The familiarity, the recognition in habit lies
there underneath as it echoes back to us
Our false tender mercies and shared memories
Not so clever distortions
Uncommon grounds
One of these days you will not
come home
And the cycle will begin anew
More at https://www.taralynnhawk.com/.
—–
Tara’s second book of poems, “Rhetorical Wanderlust” coming at the end of November. Her first, “The Dead”, is available on Smashwords.