Willing to Look

I woke up this morning and couldn’t find my will to live,

it wasn’t there, paired with cigarettes and a dead lighter,

so I dug through my dirty pants from the previous day,

but all I found unfortunately were fortune cookie fortunes,

telling me to feel lucky and to hold on tight,

I turned on the lamp and the bulb blew out,

so I searched my room in the dark,

clawing around on the carpet,  

wondering now, how does one lose a will to live,

I checked the dish where my car keys swim,

looked near the wallet clamming on the dresser,

where the mirror reflected how lost I am,

See, it said. But I don’t.

I slumped to the kitchen and couldn’t even find my appetite,

I looked under the stack of motivational posters on the table, but still no will to live,

I thought maybe I dropped it coming home last night,

so I retraced my steps out the door and down the silent street,

slowly sinking into knowing,

that I had lost it years ago.

Reincarnation

in the beginning,

just an empty blankness

born on the sore knees of torn trees,

beaten to a pulp, mashed, pressed, pulverized,

rolled flat, forced to withstand the pressure,

of living to be used,

far before glimpsing critical thoughts,

lines stamped blue onto faces and private parts,

convinced worthless without ink,

and the words fill it with meaning

tattooed with its reason for existence,

it knows who, why, where, it is,

then tossed, like so many remnants,

into a yellow bin, destined to be paper again,

stripped of ink, erased life,

but paper has forgotten all the wiggles and points

it once lived for,

no memory of its past lives,

now it waits, empty,

empty waiting,

and we are all waiting, waiting, waiting,

waiting patiently for the words to come

and be born again on the blank page

Grandmotherhood

You were born an infant, rocked in mother's hands,
and then you broke-teeth-in, took a few steps, and then you started dating,

Now grown to the edge of adulthood,
you've just begun to miss your mother's hands,

girl becomes woman,
woman becomes mother,

You gave birth to an infant, rocked in your hands,
and then you lost sleep, gave dead-tired under-dogs, and then they started dating,

daughter becomes woman,
mother becomes grandmother,

and the daughter gives birth to an infant, rocked in her hands,
You tell her to sleep, give better under-dogs, and you already know about the dating,

You hold the small delicate hand, belonging to child of your child,
but you know the cosmic truth, we are all children,

Now the master has her apprentice, 
Great Teacher of Creation,

It's as if you reside in some shrouded, mountaintop temple,
with secret knowledge scribed on crumbling scrolls,

imbued with the sacred wisdom of Nurture
the world should know, how well you mother mothers,

You worked hard, gave it all you had, and enjoyed the years,  
and all you get is a fucking Greatest ever! coffee mug?
 
Grandmotherhood

Faces

Masked

concealed

there won’t be a note

just a leap

just a hollow place

left from the off-ramp

up near those creaking swings

at the edge of beauty

Make-believe

contrived

there won’t be a rope

just a tightening

just space being added between vertebrae

left to gasp and dangle

a suffocating sunset

at the edge of beauty

Mangled

crippled

there won’t be a reason

just a cheap knock-off

just  a handicap shower

where only ornate notions

keep the air in the lungs

at the edge of beauty

Demand

So you went and had a vasectomy… big deal.

So you hyphenated your last name… whatever.

So you majored in Feminism in college… no idea what that’s about.

So you are ashamed of what others did… others that looked like you.

So you wear a baby in a chest-pack… I’m embarrassed for you.

So you blabber all over the internet… that’s nothing new.

So you shave off anything that might look masculine… you were kinda hairy anyway.

So you make fruity teas and cry with friends watching Lost… this is a free country.

But if for one second, you imply I follow suit…

I will kindly ask you sir,

to go eat a bowl full of dicks.

Things Die

Things die in my garden

cared-for things

loved even

wilt and die

could I have

smothered them

broken trust and broken branches

parasites

sometimes I try too hard

I can’t even say there was no sweat off my back

molesting them into decay

can’t stop the destruction

so I keep steady

planting more each day

outrunning the death-train

the one that always seems to come around about this time.

Listen Here Buddy

So I go all cave man and beat my knuckles on the table. So what? It’s just a dance. A pretty display, cave men have feelings too. So I hurt inside just enough that it shows. This is how it is. So I dance some more. Then we put on our smart-people hats and laugh it off. Throwing handfuls of hanky-panky back into the bucket. Narrowly escaping it. But even with our smart-people hats filled to the brim with cheap beer, I want to go all ape and bang the drum walls out. So I chill it. Put it on layaway. Say so what? Like I mean it. Perhaps voo-doo eyes knows what she is doing. Seducing serpents.  A mind like that would taste good in garlic butter. Then it’s back to dragging my knuckles across the pavement. Thoughts of cannibalism pound out of my groin. So then I go all woozy goosy as she proses my poses with her voice full of roses. Even though she got a doggy bag, she aint takin nunna my crap! Maybe we should just, Be. Arent we already asks the fortune cookie. And we dance in chains around the end of a long line of leftovers and strange lies.  So I go away in pieces, shaking out the dusted. So I stagger through the underbrush, brushing by the blueberry bushes. She pushes. I pull. She pushes. I plead,  Please. But the answer is Know.