we all burn

we all have a fire within us that burns in the waning hours of dark days.

some of us burn beautifully.

we kindle quietly, alone on white sand beaches under a moonlit night.

some of us are forest fires.

we roam wildly under a flame lit sky, blackening the road earth we travel.

some of us are constantly putting out fires within ourselves.

some of us hold constant flames beneath our lowest branches.

the beautiful will see light.

the wild will see light.

the extinguishers will see light.

the lighters will see light.

we all will see light but only because we all have burned.

 

• See the poet read this poem.

 

 

Digital Age

Digital Age

The good old days

And

Such

Skittles

Action figures

Baby brothers

Are

Way

Too

Much

Diapers

Wet Wipes

Paper towels

Not

Allowed

Cell phones

I-Pads

Coffee cups

Nor

Mugs

Hopes

Wishes

Dreams

Not

Foreseen

THANK YOU

It’s my house now – and yet I feel

That those before me live there still.

It was their house for years and years –

Who am I to trespass here?

Tread the stairs their children climbed,

Eat in the room where their family dined.

Tokens of them linger yet,

In the things that they left.

A single pearl bead on the floor,

A note to oneself on the back of a door,

Newspaper flyers, decades old

Tacks in the wall– should I be so bold

To claim this house as mine so soon?

Any yet, I know that in these rooms

Others too will live someday,

See my home as theirs to stay.

 

Nobody acknowledges me.

Nobody listens to me.

Information I share gets ignored,

Then repeated to someone else's credit.

People I hang out with,

--Can hardly call them friends--

Pretend to include me until they forget I exist.

I'm sick of running around yelling "Wait for me!"

I'm sick of being the map, not a participant.

I'm sick of not getting a say in, well, anything.

I don't exist until I do something, say something, wrong.

Then my shadow appears

And is torn to shreds

By people I care for.

Then I retreat into my invisibility to tend my wounds.

I'm starting to ask why I continue to put my shadow out there

If nothing happens but

Yelling,

Stomping,

Tearing it apart

But my shadow tells me

That I need to put it out there

Or I will be terrified of everything.

Transparency is a good thing in relationships,

But invisibility leaves one person worried, sick, and alone.

 

They say that love is the feeling of the heart, is this because it beats faster when that someone is abreast?

Love is supposedly blind, and beautiful. But love is unpredictable.

We never know the outcome when we jump in feet first.

Perhaps that's why so many people crave it: the chaos, trouble, and unknown.

It hit me like electrocution, frozen from the shock, a shot of straight adrenaline.

No one expects love when it comes crashing into us like a freight train with breaks cut at full speed.

Love is beautifully messy, imperfectly terrifying. Although, I wouldn't change this all encompassing feeling for the world.

I don't love you though. Love is not a word strong enough to describe what I feel for you.

You are a dream, one I only have at midnight: a dreamer who helps me to see things with my eyes closed.

I see you, in the dark spaces behind closed eyelids.

Some days I wish to photograph a moment, and frame it on my wall, or capture it on paper, I'd even lock it in a jar so I could keep reliving that time with you.

My love lives in mourning howls of the wind.

I can sympathize with the wind as she seems to cry in the way someone who loses love does.

When I listen to the decades old serenades and fall into the notes I feel little shocks start at the base of my neck and move outwards to my fingers and toes.

The notes reach past my skin and into my soul.

When our eyes meet somewhere in the deepest parts of my being I recognized you. Maybe from a past life or the supermarket, but you were home.

You saw me as something more than the dream that others had.

You took away my invisibility cloak, and I couldn't be happier.

 

I have my paternal grandmother's smile.

It's mirrored in my aunt's and cousin's faces.

My eyes are blue, like my mother's and father's-

Perhaps I got one from each of them.

Framing my face are

My mother's high forehead and stick-straight hair above,

My grandmother's jaw below.

My nose is a mystery-

Possibly from some great-grandparent I never knew.

Maybe someday, searching old photographs, I will find it.

My body is chiefly of my father's family-

Long arms and legs and fingers and toes.

My mind seems to be from them too-

When I don't show how I feel,

When I get embarrassed and can't laugh,

My mother says, "You're Dutch, like them."

But from her I got a love of books, sad music, and the ocean-

British blood is in my veins too.

When I look into this kaleidoscope of beautiful people,

I see at the center

Myself:

Each part of me a part of someone else,

And yet, in that scientific mystery of no-fingerprints-alike,

My genes, my DNA, set me apart

As just-

Me.

 

We who won't lift a finger to help our fellow beings

Have plenty of energy to lift our middle finger at them,

A toast to pride, or greed, or just failure,

We all who run or waste away from a destiny of altruism.

Angry at my anger I think: amputate those middle fingers

Rather than go to hell with angry hands.

And think better: what I have owed to my middle fingers:

To free them from being the lightning rods of demagogues

And demagags and demigods.

Easy now: I have owed to my left middle finger

To shift her energy and anger to the left,

To my ring finger, to my love whose band has a circumference

That eludes exact measurement because in his case

Every digit of pi is significant.

Easy now: I have owed to my right middle finger

To shift her energy and anger to the left,

To the pointer finger, to the finger of awe, who says look

at fixable horrors and humbling miracles. To the finger who

touches unborn adults And raises them to life.

 

The innocents of the world look to you

When they've lost all hope,

Like you are the air they breathe.

You kill for them

With the hands of a saint

Holy, and broken, and cracked

Yet your god whispers to you

Demands that they be redeemed

Insists you smite with a vengeance

You're broken, bloodied mess

But the people cheer

Paladin

 

The only voice here is your own.

The only car, you drove from home.

Fields surround you, crops and loam.

You barely hear mosquitos' drone.

Without a signal to your phone,

Here you are, truly alone.

The quiet here can be unbearable,

But the peace it brings is incomparable.

As the sun sinks down, the night begins.

A gentle glow comes from within

That house behind you. Its light has been

Kinder to you than the city's din,

Full of childhood memories when

Your happiness would easily mend.

Soon enough, the sky unveils

Every start in its detail.

You gaze into the darkened sky

To watch Ursa run and Aquila fly.

These stars can somehow simplify

The troubles you keep in supply./p>

As you walk in, the quiet outside

Provides your pleasant lullaby.

 

×

Sunlight flickers

Lilacs fall

The scent filling your senses as they drift

Lost

A lone person swimming through lilacs

Wading through mock orange

Happy

No bees land on crawling ivy

No threat to your bare toesies

Safe

No parents, fighting

No throat raw from emotion

Nothing

Just you and your lost forest getaway

Everything is good

 

In the quiet, you can hear a subtle, steady breathing.

You can see plants moving in rhythm with that breathing.

You see books lined up on shelves like sentinels

defending the information held within their jackets,

waiting for the next curious reader.

When the books look upon a personal computer,

they scowl and growl at being replaced.

Bookcases groan with the weight of all that power,

for Knowledge is Power, but float away when empty.

The saddest thing to see is a solitary book going with a patron.

No book should have to leave their home alone.

Always take two.

For when you put them down to go to sleep,

they will talk amongst themselves.

Especially children's books, take nine or ten,

for they surely get lonely quickly.

They seem to watch as you study,

trying to learn the information too.

If you wish for your book to reveal its secrets to you,

you simply must stroke the spine,

releasing the pent-up magic and soothing it

before you open up its brain to read what is written there.

When releasing this magic,

do no simply read the words,

make them come alive--

as if its page were a projector

and your mind the screen.

Let the words play a movie in your mind.

See what the words tell you.

Paint a picture with the beautiful soul of the book you released.

When they return, they breathe a sigh;

feeling relieved to be back home with their fellows,

but also sad to be alone after the coveted company of a reader.

 

things usually aren't simple

like driving on the right side of the road

or trying to choose the best bread

nevermind

things always come to order

and every day

is a new day

don't chase a moving target

don't believe in wise tales, wisecracks, or wise men

remember that, no matter what, I will always love you

and if your gut tells you something

listen

 

forget superman.

that scarcemotherfucker

has nothing on you

and the lessons you've taught me about

resurrection.

resuscitation.

the destruction of your personal history drove you insane.

zero cool.

zero hour.

we all die a little bit

at the hands of fatal forces

in rapid attempts to rewrite history

to our liking.

i know what it feels like to become a ghost

in a world someone has written you into.

 

In between how and why, I born.

They gave me a religion, why?

Why not motherhood be my religion

Because I met her first and she brought me here

With no gain

With lots of pain

Why not my father be my religion

Because he provides me

With no expectation and demand

Why not my sister, my brother, my friends

And why not the crux of these relationships

"Love"

We are in billions

Categorized in millions

All have one need

"Love"

Some sapient they know the game

They gave us our category name

They taught us to ignore our first cry on the lap of mother

They taught us to ignore our first step on the hands of father

They taught us to divide by colors

They taught us to follow which followed by others

we ignored who we are first

we ignored what our thirst

we Ignored our Existence

"Humanity"

 

When you trust completely

When you give the best

When you accept entirely

Imperfections and all the rest

That is love.

When their joy is your joy

Their interests, yours

When nothing can destroy

The happiness that flows

That is love.

When you are willing

To give all you have left

Only then are you fulfilling

Unselfishness to the best

That is love.

'No greater love hath a man,'

Long ago Christ bid,

'Than a man lay down his life for a friend,'

Which he not only spoke, but did

That is love.

 

I promised the moon I wouldn't sleep tonight

Told her I would watch over my companions tonight

While she shone above us all; I know I told you I'd come back someday

But there's a whisper in the fire that sleeps with you

Tonight, I'll let it burn in my chest

And by the morning I'll be gone

Looking for the quiet silence that follows her name.