The Poetry Marathon

I hope you build your life on the rock
for storm will surely roar towards it
using both hands to test its strength.
I hope you shall resist the temptation of going for cheap sandy
for it is a slave to an ordinary wind.

I hope you will give yourself to pass through hell,
knowing you are made of sulphur
and the burning of carbon around shall make you fear not.
I hope you shall give your spirit to go to a high place and jump off the cliff
Knowing you are meant to spread thy wings up there and fly so high beyond the sky.
I hope you shall not be scared of fighting death knowing that is the path to life.

I hope you know you are the beast,
having your jaws stained with blood
ready to devour anything that comes your way…

beginning
finally hopeful
nervous and awkward
stranger acquaintances
breeze plucked-
steel guitar strings
untrained voice
steady as sunlight
grass-wet denim shorts
ice-cream-stained lips
dragonfly-winged bubbles
dance to amateur tunes
a waddling tricycle
and stick horse audience
“this song is about drinking…
water.”

farewell
only made honest
by this hesitant
beginning

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep”
– Robert Frost

I try to remember the promise I made to my mother
as I continue down the dirt road before me
When times get tough, I’ve always just gotten tougher
However, that isn’t always the answer either

The woods have always been a lonely place
Unless you know where to go
Somewhere deep in this space
Everyone comes alive, if just for awhile

I remind myself of this
The trees begin to look the same
as I walk deeper, looking for that spark of life
I have miles still before I am to fall asleep

Wear my silver bullets on the edge of the fire forcing my feet across the red lines of hault

while you tarry away with my heart

i answer the call of its most dangerous part

t’was more than you after all

one settled score

i care to fall away, now and deeper more

“Stopping by woods on a-”

Stop
Right there
Do not continue

I hate that poem
Twenty times I heard that poem
in the same year

They kept playing the same Reading Rainbow episode
every time they wanted to put something on
just to occupy us

Every
Damn
Time
it was the same episode
Always, midway through, a man standing uselessly
in a snowy forest
with a horse wondering
“What the fuck is this guy doing?”

You and me both horse, you and me both

A novel tried to save the experience for me
and pointed out the suicide elements
I understood those by then
but still…

The poem drives me crazy

(First line excerpt from Robert Frost poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

“And miles to go before I sleep.”
I don’t sleep
Maybe I’ve forgotten how
Maybe it’s because in my dreams is where the memories of you I keep.
Your eyes pull me into them…
Drowning in the deep
Running through the woods being chased by the shadows of my mind.
You’re alive but you’re the ghost that takes up all of my time.
How can I lose you when you showed me how to be alive?
Breathed life into my empty shell
Pulled me out of the fires of my hell
Now I’ve lost you to time except for when I’m asleep.

Still light outside, the
darkest evening of the year,
we watched tall trees bow
over boarded up windows
hiding their alphabet soup.

6/25/2022

Gasolina

Smells like a flame
Something that’s about to ignite
Stings deep in the sinuses

Part of it is already
Becoming something else,
aerosol, evaporant.

Permissive, soaks into wood.
No texture, as it touches my skin
and starts to dissolve.

It takes the shape of its container
Flame thrower is a given
Advertised direct to your email
You don’t know why you need it
Until you hold it in your hands,
Until you douse a body,
And see it catch on fire.
Until you’ve scorched the earth
Everything an unrecognizable crisp.

It’ll cause a fire
To whir and roar
Have a its own heated weather sun
outrun a landscape already bone dry

This liquid is a love song,
A horror show
Fumes soak through even a porous
surface like cement
Carry fire through the stone
Sometimes cause a fire burrow,
A lava tube, just plain need.

Why would you need to place a thing
That’s already there, goes where it will,
where you wouldn’t think to travel
Like a soft rain at night, barely audible,
Like a cleansing whisper,
Just let it happen, let it absorb,
It’s on your breath
It’ll take any form, call it a wish, a taking
A draining, call it a slow burn. A swamp.
The original flammable gas,
Gators float beneath
Scaly skin coasened to the pet

Awash in a sense of eerie comfort, I choose not to leave my bed
I’m warm, I’m safe, I have a window of time carved out just for me

I don’t have any responsibilities dragging me into the daylight,
not today

It’s like a safe, dark forest
trees made of blankets,
pleasant breeze born of doggie breath
from my mutt lounging nearby

I am surrounded by only what I know and love
with this moment I could do so much
but productivity isn’t my priority this time

I don’t have big plans, I don’t even have little ones
I just want to rest,
think,
cocoon myself in the covers and refuse to arise

To look in one might think I am broken
Hurt
Lonely

But no,
I relish this moment of peace

Only when society reasserts itself

When I am forced to return to those institutions
which demand my time, will I
be forced to say to myself

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep…”

* Excerpt from Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening