Conversation…

I stared at a little

red

square

under

a

black ribbed

portion of

a

huge

work of

art

and

saw my

heart

and

painted

again

19

The ruby flushed her cheeks
painted her lips
and aged her hair.

She was a gold petal,
begging to be a rose.

She was spilled ink
over easy poetry
and she was all the lead
in the gravity that sunk her

#17

Sleep?

sleep?

who needs sleep

Creative juices are flowing

words are flying

from my brain to the page.

My brain won’t stop

for even a short nap

Hour 19- Poetry Space

This new poem is demanding space

Its own room actually

It insists I clean out cobwebs

And put new sheets on the bed

It insists on regular meals

A full deep cleaning

Hourly sprucing up

It demands its own shower for new ideas

It wants room to expand, grow

To evaporate and come back again

It wants it all,

This poem wants it’s own space

every bit of attention

It has baggage

It has trunks full of memorabilia

This poem needs space

and I am forced to give it

I don’t expect it to help with the rent either

 

17. Lost

She lost her innocence that day they said
That day in the dark when her closest friend
Pushed her to try it just once
She didn’t lose it that day and
She wasn’t as innocent as people thought she was
In fact, she knew things about things only whispered in the dark
She lost everything that day they said
She did lose everything but it wasn’t that day
It was the day her brother stepped into her room
When he thought she was fast asleep.

Father,

what is it like to walk in my

footsteps to see what killed

you curled at the bottom of

unopened tequila bottles

in my kitchen like

 

you’re not sure if it’s your

reflection or your pride I

keep chasing but our eyes

are the same shade of blue and

time has turned itself inside

out for you

 

father

 

what’s it like

to watch pieces of your daughter’s

liver die / you left until there was

nowhere else to go I do

the shot straight no chaser standing

before the mirror staring into the

lines of my face of what’s left

of you there

 

father

 

you never understood why people

would drink alcohol but

the tequila burns away the smell

of hospital rooms the crackle of the fire

in the nursing home the last time you

said goodbye my mother’s tears

set into my shoulder like a scar

 

and father some nights like

tonight the tequila helps me

miss you

19. Maintenance

Time to come in, Rog. Oxygen is at a quarter
fuzzy. The com tells me my daydream is at an end. (daydream?)
I finished repairs a decade ago. But the minutes…
the sacred minutes I get as my own spec of dust.
Harnessing galaxies in my eyes and catching novas
in the glass of my visor. I’d spend my life in orbit.
To witness the stars live and die and live again.

Maggie, Cat of Kepler

This was news in 2015, a planet called Kepler 452b was considered very earth-like and potentially capable of supporting life. My old cat, Maggie, who I had to leave in Rochester, NY, would love being in a weightless environment, so I let her clib abroad a satellite orbitting station.

Maggie, Cat of Kepler

She loves this weightlessness,

has learned to shoot herself around
gracefully anchoring tostrategic surfaces
to watch imaginary fish
swimming in the blackness.

Orbitting above
Kepler 452b,
Earth 2.0
an intergalactic restraining order
keeping it human-free

A ping-pong ball drifts past,

thwacking it so it bounces around the walls
she calmly ducks
to let it pass by her on its circuit
like a tiny moon.