Are you there, Father?
.I’m here
I can’t see you.
.No, you can’t
I need to feel that you’re there.
.Take my hand, and you will
Photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash, altered by me.
Edit: last line was “.Believe that I am, and you will”
Category Archives: poetry
~~~
The flowers I pick
Die in my hand,
But flowers I can’t
But pick.
Photo’s my own.
Three thirty seven
Awake. Bladder.
Keep the eyes slitted to suggest to brain I’m not awake yet.
Think as little as possible. Frankenstein-movement to suggest to brain still very sleepy.
Pee.
Back under quilt. Duvet because it’s cold now.
Sleep.
I said sleep.
Worry.
Worryworryworry.
Worry.
Fidget feet.
Put palm upon forehead/eyes.
Worryworryworryworryworryworry worry worry. Worry. Wooooorry. Wurry.
Should I just get up?
Worry. I’m thinking too much. No. I’m thinking about sleeping too much. And I’m thinking too much.
Don’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworry. Worry.
Now I’m just wasting time. What time is it? 2:03. 2:04. Two hours left. I’ll have missed 2 and ½. Maybe I should just get up.
Don’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworrydon’tworry.
Breathe. Fidget. Throw off the quilt and duvet.
Sit up. Drawer. Jeans. Drawer. Socks. Creakcreakcreak. Closet, hangers. Flannel because it’s cold. Creepcreepcreep into kids’ rooms and put their covers back on. Close doors without making the knobs crea—close doors and hope they don’t wake up. Close master so the beeps from the lights don’t wake her up.
Light by the table, light on the stove. Coffee? Chance to go back to sleep? Reason you had to pee? Give it up. Give that delicious addictive stimulant that-you-might-need-right-now uuuuup. Headache—totally worth it. Tea. I’ll ebb off with tea. Irish breakfast tea.
Boil. Broil. Toast. Peanut butter. Where’s the peanut butter? Where’s the freaking peanu—oh.
Mixmixmixmixmix. Broiled. Flip. Boiling. Pour. Stand there staring. Broiled. Take out, coat in peanut butter. Blow nose.
Toast to table. Tea to table. Mason jar of water… to table. Blow nose again.
Backpack. Laptop. Paper. Pen. Open. Password. Sit. Twitter. MSWord.
Now type. What to type about? Stare at last cluster. Toast. Toast. Tea. Half of mason jar. Pop recently-infected-ear. Whaaaaat to tyyyype…
“Awake.” Blahblahblah. Edit. Done. Post to blog or save for some publication? Would Fathom take this? Would anyone? I should research what kinds of publications take things like this. Or just blog it. I mean, for what purpose are you writing? What’s more loving?
I’ll just blog it.
What time is it? Ah.
Apparently, it’s World Sleep Day. Coincidental.
Pic’s from out front of my work.
On Trying
S
al
vat
ion
To
Sinners:
Awaken
In dark to
A house
Without
Lights;
Switch
Is dead,
But we
Sure as
Hell try.
Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
1/12/2019 On Doing What God Wants Me To Do
Lord,
I believe.
Help
My
Wisdom.
Intelligence.
Knowledge.
Perception.
…
Arrogance.
…
Dependence?
…
Un-
Belief.
Couldn’t decide what photo to use. Here’s one of some dog drool.
Edit: Took a shower. Added “Dependence?”
By grace,
He unearthed
His knife,
Dipped it
In clouds,
And heaped
Them upon
The morning
Photo’s my own today.
Sinew and Song
Molten petals sweep
Into night.
And awaiting awaking,
I breathe,
For I am the mastodon.
I am the birdshout.
I am the awakening
Night.
Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash
The Sea
Have you ever watched the sea? I’ve only really watched it from the shore, and not that even that much.
It moves like breath. In, out. Like the back of a child, up, down, as it sleeps in its crib. A heavenly hand caresses it with cloudy touch. In, out.
Dreams sleep there. Water fairies and krakens and pirates and the sky. The sea holds our dread, and it holds shores.
What are those shores worth? I wonder. Shores of sand and coconuts and spears and trading companies and rifles and gallows. Shores of magic. The cloudy hands hold those too.
From the shore, the stormy sea seems not so stormy. But get out on it… Have you ever felt a strong undertow? That restless babe is but a drowning factory. A toilet. A grave, pulling on you like time, and you tromping and splashing to escape.
Or the calm. You don’t meet that on the shore. The shore is always breathing, trading its woody fares for foreign winds and unearthed sea bottoms. And death.
And what is land but death, anyways? Porous, petrified, stillborn Adam. And here we are to work it.
I have never seen a calm sea. I suspect it’s a lot like death. No breath, just space for the walking room of your thoughts. We were all made for that place—where the water stops breathing and the wind doesn’t wander.
But were we made for that place? Is the sea made for calm? Wet movement upon stone. Waves and waves and restless weight. Like my six year old.
And like the rain to the rivers—beading and dripping down, down, down—all our lives go to the sea. And don’t get all uppity. The sky is the sea too. We drip down to the sea, to the very edge of the shore, and we fall in.
I’m not sure if it’s time or fate or possibility or creation. It’s something, and it doesn’t seem to want me to define it. But I suppose that’s just like anything God makes. And as I try, it breathes, in and out, and it sleeps and angers and dies.
Life and death are like the sea. But what can I tell, really, from this Adam? Maybe someday, God will walk me down to the shore, draw me by the hand in, and take me down to its depths.
Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash
2/17/2017: On Line Breaks in Poetry
I’m looking at the two versions of of a poem I wrote, “Reach” (As of 10/18/2017, it’s still just sitting in a folder on my computer).
The first, what’s more natural to me at this point, separates lines into different grammatical parts. For instance, in the first stanza, I separate the three prepositional clauses into their own lines. I follow the same thing throughout the poem, actually. It’s all separated into different grammatical parts.
I have read poems that do not follow this method (some more than others), and it’s these that the second version emulates. They break sometimes in between grammatical units, like nouns and their modifiers, like prepositional clauses, etc. The effects seem to include natural forward motion, like stair steps or like the meter in Jabberwocky, and an emphasis on certain words or phrases that wouldn’t otherwise be noteworthy.
Here’s a couple for study:
http://www.rattle.com/on-domestic-ecosystems-by-liv-lansdale/
This one seems to break each stanza into three lines regardless of what’s going on in the thought. At the same time, thoughts always end at the end of a stanza, even though a thought might take up more than one stanza. Each line is two to three words. So I can’t tell if she’s following the numbers or following one of the other purposes I mentioned before. Or something else I’m missing.
https://www.fathommag.com/stories/the-cellist
Garrett also sticks to a specific number of lines in each stanza, but he doesn’t seem to stick to a specific number of words in each line.
Perhaps I should read up on modern line breaks. There’s bound to be a reasoning I’m missing.
10-16-2017: Day Break
Wood pulp,
Dried and bleached by sleep,
Laid and stacked,
White for writing,
Dropped from a height
To flutter,
To flap,
To clatter upon concrete,
Where a ruckus wind
Spooks them again
To flight—
Such are the thoughts
Of this broken daybreak.