poetry

I can feel the burnout coming,
rising like black kittens
bounding across a field of timothy hay,
emerging and rising upon the curving horizon
angling in stop-animated edges
splintering into black inky hashes
at the corners of the pages
black until the border edge
bears an abrupt reprieve until
the appearances of the page give way
to the airy afterthoughts of consciousness and shadow.

The Wills, with hands bearing down the dashboard, grins.

“The pain of living is that there’s not enough of it!”

We’re hoping madly for a Peet’s Coffee.

I drive on. The Wills drives on.

I found myself serially disposed in the middle of a bold mandala, a spicy rendition of old bones zapped with the wine spodiody coursing of blood and a heart so big it holds the melody together in anticipation of the right configuration of space and musical note to lift the heart into the warm embrace of life itself… old bones… such a diminutive way of honoring the well-lived, the long-lived.

I cried. I did. I wept and stifled. I cried.
I spent time with a great mandala in my hand presenting kaleidoscopic resonance to the tender melodies and fierce hearts collected for an afternoon in the cafeteria of the retirement home.

There, life as much as anywhere.

It’s the wallpaper that mocks. It’s the wallpaper. Striped and installed over dry-wall. It’s America. It’s the American dream of convergence, of the convergence of a new moon, a cautious child’s melody and the wonder of a dancing heart taking what it can get for the moment.

I remember the Navy cup and forearm tattoo of the gypsy woman. She didn’t seem to mind; rather, to embrace the large risks lived through…