Oppossum
Every animal reacts when,
accidentally,
vulnerable soft spots are
exposed –
for a moment powerless, precarious,
out on a limb.
Some pull back,
cover up, engage defensive shields.
A few will retract,
deny, bark louder and defy.
Others strike first –
preemptively act to annihilate.
And then, there are those
that
simply roll over,
pretending
to already
be dead.
Strength
True strength is not found in force, but in patience and compassion dealing calmly with frustration. Accepting and forgiving mistakes, the deepest strength molds situations softly, and with love.
Deconstructing Dasein
Sometimes you know it
when you do it -
and can
already see that gnarly karma coming back to you later -
an amplified, boomeranged perpetuation;
bearing your own old bullshit signature,
only in someone else's handwriting.
But most other times -
like now -
it is
a cold cocked, upside the head smack-down,
stun suprise attack:
Whoa, this is what it felt like...
to him, back then -
that time when -
that time you -
did that -
that thing -
that thing,
that you did...
Items in Deep Storage
Johnny and I. We are in grandmarie and granpa's barn. The little room where we are not supposed to go. Boxes and boxes that smell like the closet, only dustier. We are playing in the boxes. We are finding neat things.
Johnny finds a slingshot. Yellow and rubbery. Rubber that you can pull back and let go – go – go! But Johnny is doing it all wrong. No, No, I am saying. I am showing Johnny how it works. I sling a penny "ping!" into the wall of the barn! But you are supposed to use rocks, not pennies, I tell him.
Johnny wants to play with it. Even though I want to play with it, I will let him play with it first. I will play with it later, when he forgets about it. I tell him go outside and play with it. There are rocks outside, I tell him. Don't break windows.
I open another box. Books and books. I can't read yet. But they smell neat. They smell like mushrooms and dust. I am flipping through a book, looking at pictures. The pages are crinkled, old at the ends. Brown edges like toasted marshmallows. And the pictures are drawings. They are pictures of people dressed in old clothes – they are about a long time ago. Before me. Before momma, even. I wish ladies would dress like these pictures. Fluffy dresses, pretty hats. A picture of a lady on a horse. Funny, she's not sitting on the horse right. She's sideways. If he gallops, she will fall off.
"Clunk!" outside on the wall. Johnny and the rubbery slingshot. I am yelling at him to be careful. He is laughing, saying he will do whatever he wants. Won't be my fault, I say, if you get caught.
I am looking at a new thing – a neat thing! It is a book, but most of the pages are blank! And you can write on them if you can write. This is just like what momma calls her 'journal' – only older. I asked her that one time what she has it for. She says it's to put her thoughts, ideas and worries in. I like that. I look through momma's journal sometimes when she doesn’t know. Her writing is pretty and light blue. She sometimes draws in there. Pretty, swirly pictures. One time, she drew a picture of me in her journal, when I didn't know she was drawing it. I find it later, when I am looking without asking.
This journal has different writing than momma's swirly light blue. This writing is black. Old. I like it. I am slowly turning pages, wondering who writes black and old. And so good, correct. Not messy, this writing stays in straight lines, but it is pretty, anyway.
Something is between the pages. Something not paper. A photograph! It is old, too. Black and white, it has pretty, bumpy-cut edges. Cut like the special triangle edged scissors aunt Laurie uses for sewing which we can only touch if she watches us. Cut like that – but rounded at the ends, like ends of popsicle sticks. They don't make pictures like this anymore. I am looking at it.
It is a picture of a little girl. Curly, short blonde hair. She is standing, laughing, with her hands on her hips, next to a house I don't know. Laughing at a baby calf, napping on the ground next to her. She is wearing a neat old apron, like the ones in grannie's kitchen. Cute little girl, she is younger than me, maybe.
I know this little girl! I have seen her before in grandmarie's photo books. She is momma from a long time ago. Momma happy, laughing.
I am missing momma. I don’t know where she went. Grandmarie does, and she tells me where, but I forget. I forget, because I don’t know the place. Grandmarie says they will take us to visit her pretty soon. But she means days. Not today. I miss momma.
It is too quiet. Where is Johnny? It is too quiet, sitting here. The quiet is making me sad. The picture is from a time when momma was happy. What happened to momma after she stood laughing at the baby calf? What changed her?
It is too quiet. The quiet is scaring me. There is something scary in the quiet, something that almost touches me. And the quiet is not alive. The journal, the picture, they were alive once, but now they are not. Because they are forgotten in a box, and no one looks at our uses them anymore. They are forgotten in the quiet. The dust and the mushroom smell.
Scary, but I can't leave. I am daring the quiet to touch me.
Virtual Private Network
I can still feel you move,
even when
idle.
The inert, specious
buffers
between
us
drop packets, unaware of
tunneling sockets
layers
below
conventional
protocols.
Pneuma
I am
walking a fine line
between delusion and inspiration,
where even
strange little aspects
of your effects
fill me
with such unqualified emotions –
the smooth thread of
the monogram
on your tie,
the steady weight
of your watch –
they are all trying to say,
whisper, something
to me,
about you.
Primum Mobile
I dream of stolen moments
in your head:
I want to be your shiver
of anticipation,
right now, I
want to be there,
next to you,
up under even your skin,
so close
I can hear your hum,
feel your brain
vibrate, thinking
maybe, even
thinking,
about
me.
I want to be your electric
bold energy,
right now, I
want to damn any
uncertain hesitations,
so quick
like instinct,
or muscle memory –
all growing things seek,
lean into, desire,
lusting
after
sun.
