Strange rituals
The beaked mask
Is donned no longer
In its stead
Plexiglass and cloth
The same wall
Between sick and well
Will the hazmat suit
Instill the same terror
Centuries later
As the plague doctors of old?
Tag: #prose
Change
There is never growth
Where the ground is not readied
Untilled soil
Is never ready for change
Descale the heart
Raw and afraid
Is the only way to listen
The only way to pray
Feel more than you think
The fear felt by others
Making your own heart race
Your feet in the same place
Other Minds
I suppose we all have visions
That we carry to the dirt
High minded goals and creative urges
Most of which never come to be
Patents that are never filed
Books that won’t be written
Dreams that leave with the oxygen
From brain matter, in the end
Are the thoughts we have
Those which crossed other minds before?
The only difference being
We take the time to write them down
While the older mind wrote down others?
Role Call
A tentacled masculine life
Of backyards and meat
Grass tidy and neat
You found yourself a wife
Is it all so toxic
If you found peace
In a role call
To feed and heat
Not for you
Yes for me
It just ain’t me babe
In this we’re not the same
Maybe the only life I’ll lead
Is of anonymity and femininity
Forgetting
Forgetting
Is a drug
A crutch
And a curse
It serves its purpose
Remedies the past
A prescription painkiller
A memory marauder
This crutch steadies the brittle
Weaponizes the worn out
Welcomes the willing
But it is indiscriminate
Tosses out the baby with the bath water
What’s broken with what’s whole
Until it’s all a wash
And nothing is dirty or clean
There is Rarely Finality
Maybe there’s a wrong way to do this
And maybe there’s a right
So wrestles my mind
As you lick the honey from your lips
Sweet-mouthed and sugar-eyed
I’ll wonder from this point on
If you made the right choice
Between my voice
And the words of other boys
I never got finality
I see that’s the problem now
Left hanging like a severed branch
Thinking it may still grow
One good gust and it was over
Every new day brings us closer
To finally letting go
Can’t Forget
I have no words
When I feel this way
Sadness and angst
From you and for you
My hands go numb
When I allow my heart
To take the journey back
Towards the start of this road
I can’t forget the finale
The unwinding of the story
A frayed and tattered end
I can’t forget the future
Threads divorced from tapestry
Allowed to weave again
Droplets
When a droplet of reality
Disturbs these glasslike waters
The entire surface dances
Shaken from peace to turmoil
Awakening from slumber
Is that ever a negative?
For better or for worse
You’re made alive
Quickened to moving and breathing
From stagnation to stirring
Given new vistas
New ways to view what’s old
Rekindled from long-cold coals
Ripples
I’ve met the lonely soul
The face of a stranger
In my own eyes
It’s only in the rippled view
That I see myself clearly
For who I am
Rather than who she made me
That water of life
Is of my own making
It’s Somehow Glimmering
You wanted me in totality
The stuff of your dreams
Untainted by my reality
Where I could only offer bite sized pieces
I wanted you in quiet moments
When the edge wore off
And my nerves weren’t firing
On all the wrong cylinders
We wanted something
Bigger than ourselves
Somehow we got it
Two beautiful faces
A glimmering future
OVERVIEW AFFECTED 