Twists
We are a tangle.
He sees himself
As master-at-
Arms, twists
The appendage
Behind.
Transmogrifies.
Becomes the monster
On the table
From memory, from
Lore.
Dancer, statesman,
Retiree, friend of toxic
Masculinity.
Who can understand
Why anyone, who would
Hurl stones through
His windows.
Foolish tire-waisted
King of television, who
Hides behind shiny metal
Instruments of fear.
Who hides.
I used to think the Kingdom
Of God was rolling in like
A fire,
And I had better roll with it.
But couldn’t. It wasn’t me. I was a quiet
Soul on a bench.
An occasional tear.
As though I could summon
Another person inside, another voice that would
Be more valuable.
Gumption, you don’t have enough gumption
To stand. Wrong, but how it wrung me.
I had not yet found the right place
To find footing yet, like slipping toes
On the wet stones of a forest path.
As though a shout was all I needed
To prove myself – to whom?
I worried my head
Was too full
Even with a sensing muscle inside.
Such worries have so often proven
False, reifying identity,
Finding compassion where others find
Fences
And fences where others find welcome.
I am who I am, perhaps created, I believe
Created – angry, silent, bereft, doubting,
Certain, confused, clear, seeing the steam’s
Bottom on mud at once.
Seeking.
A creature of calm, not cacophony,
But speaking, not only when spoken to.
Who would rather read one
Book I love
That a thousand so-so stories.
Who sits, listens, writes,
Letting a thousand pasts and possibilities
Ride by with a thousand worries
Calling from the backseat. Awake.
An Upside
Down
World, the floor a floor
The cavern walls,
Rising above, this is the cold winter world
I discovered as a teenager when a new path
Opened.
Want to come to my house?
I knew that invitation could lead to screaming
Diapered trouble. Found that bit of fear inside
That wouldn’t trade a moment for a life.
Rising above, a tundra sky, welcoming
Ice that will make you slide if you don’t watch
It. Watch it.
When will warmer
Weather come? The climate is cold,
Like standing in a stranger’s kitchen, like
Bobbing heads of angry on the way
Out the door. Like an earthworm heart.
Like the blank spot next to another
That won’t be filled. Anytime soon. No one’s
Home because someone’s always hiding.
Fuck it, I’m not hiding
Anymore. Tired of traipsing
Worries and woes behind me like a row
Of babbling, honking geese.
Bread is now baking in the oven, even
If it’s not my oven. Anymore.
Poison in the Yard
The common morel, of course,
populated our dinner table, popping
up like – well, you know.
We had a field guide with illustrations
that were a little too imprecise
for my liking. Glossy pages, the title
might as well have been:
How Not to Die Around the House.
Decades later, as I approach middle age,
I hear the phone ring, the static story buzz
of how my father insisted he had found
a safe one.
Cooking it, liquid like blood leached out
in the butter-laden skillet, nature’s final warning,
and my mother tried to convince him.
He insisted and, thankfully, made it through,
a testament that even the memories that grow
locally sometimes have death in the middle.
Recluse
No, not the brown kind,
scrambling creature with legs
and venom, fiddle belly.
Such creatures are proof
of the story of Lucifer to me,
fallen from some ancient ago.
Yet, recluse/reclusive, still.
I think I know enough of fellow
humans to suggest a modicum
of reclusiveness can be helpful,
the stirring of murmurs commonly
drowned by the din,
the steep mountain of self-
acceptance, laden with barbs,
packed with prevarications.
Yes, rejected, I reject; refused,
I refuse; distanced, I say now I am
in my starry cavern.
Don’t let my inner music
dare to disturb.
Stillville
There’s a hollowed-out mouth in the rockwall
of mountain, where the trappings of an old still
are located.
Visitors to the park gawk at it, some laugh, and some
touch the marks of an alcoholic’s anger, wherever
such scars can still be found.
I myself was seventeen the first time I took
a drink of some cheap wine from a Sam’s Club
bottle and thought: What’s the big deal with this?
Others swallow a drop and are caught. But I have
been raptured by other invitations.
A bit further up the mountain, you can look to your left
and see a giftshop where items may be purchased
to remember the days of yesteryear: outhouses, smokehouses,
old women spitting tobacco into open containers
with a pinging sound, like shelling beans. It’s the insecurity
that comes from being born of such a place that makes
me switch my code by adding my g’s to the end of words.
But, of course, we all come from some hollowed-out
story in the side of some grander scheme.
The Paradox of Connection
I’ve been told that men only want to gather
and talk about sports or alcohol.
Well, aside from bouncing a basketball back
and forth with my Dad in the hallway
of my childhood memory, I don’t know a damn
bit about sports.
Alcohol is lovely but sits in the back of my throat
in the middle of the night. Each sip is a sacrifice
of a moment of rest.
I’ve been told that, as a man, my best bet at friendship
with women will always end in some kind of desire
for romance for one of us. Not that I’m insanely irresistible,
but this is the When Harry Met Sally outlook on life.
This is also one problem with a binary existence.
Relegated to a digital space for connection, I marvel
at how much human experience is captured in the click
of a like, in the share of a post. Sometimes, someone will
jump into the conversation. This is dicey.
Don’t steal my thunder, man. Don’t jump in and subvert
the post. This is the only fucking outlet I have.
Connected with more people than ever before, that
titular paradox is the inherent distance.
But then sometimes, in a moment of masculine bonding,
someone will surprise me over a bite:
Have you thought about…
Have you read…
and my ears, were they as active as a dog’s, would
settle back into a contented conversation.
