There comes a time when
shoe-tying is
serious business.
High stakes.
Like, I’m starting to think
all my shoe-tying up till now
was just about
getting ready for
< bends >
< ties >
< upright >
like that.
Book o’ Verse
Take off your glasses Dan
Take off your glasses Dan
let the trees blur
soft let the sound
cotton fluff let
the smell haze pulse
let your thoughts
melt like a plastic bag
you flicked with a lighter so
the words drop and
splash the ground take
your glasses off.
A friend’s recollection of 9/11
Post-it notes in the air.
Finding his way
from the east side, near Grand Central
to a friend’s place in Brooklyn
over the Manhattan Bridge
by foot.
Everyone was walking in the same direction.
No matter what sidewalk
Finding your rhythm
there are familiar patterns you can scratch at
to remind yourself
your feet are your feet.
You drag them along in new sneakers
no matter what sidewalk
you’re pounding
it’s still
those same toes.
Dad’s watch, again
I’m wearing dad’s
watch again to turn
my left arm into his left arm
to give him an easy way
to remind me
how time works and
that the world keeps turning, the face scratched
by him, by his dad, and now me.
The seconds in
some kind of rush who
the hell knows why.
A case
Is there a case to be made
a first affirmative delivered in defense
of collating those second-rate thoughts
you might not see again (or even miss)?
Shake them out of your hands, those
drops of borrowed blue electric ink
to make room in the sides of your fingers
for some top-notch scribble sent down
like a message
in a lunchbox on string
you once lowered through a bannister
to rest on the carpet down below
just in case
someone curious walked by.
A beep
A beep from the phone
a text from someone and
why not let it sit? Perhaps it wants to sit.
Maybe it will
ferment or blossom decay
or dissolve
into a small pinch of
dirt in your slacks
given
enough time
a little time
time to rest and
some loving lack
of attention.
Wonderful, powerful
Wonderful, powerful, important words
I found today in Deuteronomy:
“for our lasting good.”
“Our” in this case, a people. Not a person.
“Lasting,” to think past the moment.
Now there — there is a phrase worth diagramming.
Worth pondering, worth knitting, worth chatting about over breakfast.
Worth adding harmonies to. Worth writing down.
Worth being reminded of.
Worth passing along.
Collateral Love
I’m the victim of a collateral love experience.
The love that tears through the space around,
tries to connect and disassemble
people sitting around and
behind me.
I’m caught in the love bomb.
Irradiated.
Stabbed with shards
with melodies
that tear into my shoulder, my
back, my knees. The
walls buckle as the wave bounces.
My wife is there too. At my side.
And she feels it
burst through the room, along
with the singer’s smile.
She feels the love that wasn’t
meant for us
at least not just for us
the love aimed
at the back of the wall.
We collapse into it.
We break together.
As the theater lights
blink on.
Ways I may have changed
It might be that my exterior melted a bit last year
that it’s shinier now, more like fiberglass, which I hadn’t noticed to be honest
until just last week.
That it’s a little more weather resistant, which is nice.
More sun proofed. Akin to the skin
of a sailboat — a sunfish sailboat like the one
my dad wanted to buy when I was a teen, and he was in his forties,
when we took that class about
tying knots.
I used to pride myself on my permeable skin.
I would chat with you
we would chat about this or that, and through our chat
I would find myself replenished.
My roots. My happy roots.
But now things bead up on me sometimes.
I look down at my legs, at my hands and I see water beads
I shake off those beads and I think
this is a way that I may have changed
a bit last year.
Ocean ready I am.
But covered in beads.