Far From Home

NaPorWriMo 2017 #21

A human carrying a thick suitcase,
Always around like a shadow
Under the direct Tucson sun
Black and yellow under blue skies:
This is the shape of chronic loyalty.

Spread on a spectrum between two coasts
To where I finally found a method
For unpacking the baggage,
The endless boulders and mud
Once thought to be precious gems;

They're now less heavy and ambivalent
So I can make my own home
Over all that confusing scaffolding.

Pastiche

NaPoWriMo 2017 #9

I am many pieces, like magazine cutouts 

Of the best parts of models' faces, 

Reassembled into something new.

I am layers glued to blank paper

Thick and crackling, edges loose.

This never ends. With every issue

I grow larger, more modern, 

More complicated and interesting.

Sometimes ripping and peeling back,

Searching for the best combination. 

Lost and Found

NaPoWriMo 2017 #6

We leave behind toothbrushes in each other's homes
Like a promise of good health and good love
That we forget when we argue.
Suddenly, pummeled by warm bathtub waves,
Salty, a cure, it's done.

We keep finding one another
Washed up on beach shores, abandoned,
Mistaken for a lost shirt, scooped up
And replaced. You never looked at me
As deeply as this cat does;
This, too, shall pass.

Reid Park, February, 2012

To my first Rebound Romance:

I fell into an obsession with you in Hour One

Of our Eight Hour date. Reid Park in February

2012, Tucson, bright green grass rolled out

For us to explore under come hither sun.

You straddled the park bench like a baseball player,

Leaning forward onto thin legs, fingers knotted,

Curved back aged in cheap whiskey, you

Were never young like Nate Ruess said we are.

I heard your childhood ended in addiction so when

The Bar Closes, You Feel Like Falling Down,

I wanted to carry you home again, and again, and again.

I couldn’t stop thinking of you! Between Hour Eight

At milky black Gates Pass, and the next text message

In the morning where you interpreted my dreams but not

As the warning signs they should have been. How! Was this

Obsession and not love? Isn’t this what Nicholas Sparks

Tried to warn the world about? No, it was fixation, taking

Control of me in prodigious pelvic thrusts. Once, just for the sensation,

I clenched my fist around a piece of ice until it melted into

Great rivers streaming down my arm, over the dog bite scar.

Has your life frozen back together since you melted away?

It might help if you read the "recipe" for this poem...http://jacket2.org/commentary/recipe-writing-new-york-school-poem

Spiral

#18/30

I am connected to you by six degrees-

Or maybe less. I live in the bedroom where

You lost your virginity to the girl who lived

Next door for decades before she moved east

To go to the college where my cousin was

Accused of sexual harassment by the foreign

Exchange student who moved on to engineer

The parts of the plane that flew a genius to NASA

To create the shuttle that flew among the stars

That we are all made of.  Star dust takes decades to

Return to the earth above the airport where my

Cousin returned with his adopted child who grew up

In the south and broke the mold by becoming

An activist and introducing me to you when you

Needed a place to recover and now you live in this

Bedroom with me.  We are naïve to our roles in creating-

These connections are who I am.

A Tentative Sea Shanty

I read two prompts this morning: one told me to write a tentative poem and one told me to write a sea shanty. I married the two ideas and this is what emerged. I found it really awkward to write a sea shanty while living in the desert in 2013 but I ended up kind of liking the result!

I might want to match my movements to yours

Swimming together to distant shores.

I might be ready to allow this anchor to lower

To the ocean floor and let it flower.

At least for now I think I’ll stay

Until loose grips let you float away.

Is it time to adjust our sails?

Are we willing to work 'til we fail?

I can’t see the horizon yet.

We should maybe stop and just forget-

The times before when we said we’d stay

Only to move when we looked away.

Do not fear the storm that blows

It only helps us follow the flows

That take us to our destination-

Old solid ground or new creation.

In the midst of the storm we’ll stay

We’ll either die or float away.

One day we’ll reach some promised land

And if on it’s ground we choose to stand

The journey will be worth the fight

Or we’ll see ourselves in wizened light.

We may both decide to stay

But likely I will run away.