Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
One thin linen layer
separates my spicy palms
from the vast unscoopable harvest
of the crystal-scattered light.

Sunbeams brace the icy sky.
Early bursts of starlight score the dappled shade
whilst snowcrush of silence
interrips our invitation-emptied poem page.

So strange how soft it is.
The insulation stationed
on the streetcorner of the universe
intersection: stars sky & stone below.

I'm stepping in and leaving shocks of shade
just above the blades of grass
with tangled roots that sink into the icy loam
and stone-stacked-stone,

the earthy bone that plumbs deeply
to the heart & hearth of Earth -
a hidden molten core, the nethers
of a depthless tunnel filled from core to feet,

my feet, and then my torso-mind-and-eyes
that see. How strange it is, how softly sets my gaze
upon this world, a fleshy inglenook in space
that sees itself and steps into the snow.
Love is fear's mother,
and she calls you to see
everything you are afraid of.

Let it be before you. Accept it.
Accept the broken glass
and childhood spilled
like lemonade, and the wrinkled
brow, and the nightmares
and the scary movie,
built to taffy-stretch the curl of your spine, accept it.
And let it go.

And the heaps of crumpled paper in your torso
will start to smooth in tandem with your opened fists.
While sweet, sweet words are written fresh
in clean tears of grief.
Love
Say!
does Wednesday have a favorite snack,
doled out on paper napkins in a bright-lit kiddie school?
maybe trade some salty fish crackers
with its neighbors?

does it jump for joy when it's time to leave,
and giggle when it gets to go to school?

Little Wednesday,
the middle child.
every week, a little older,
but easily overlooked...

perhaps it dreams,
in the way of stories,
that it will do beautiful things.
Here's John Edward Smallshaw's "Day Care": https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4046813/day-care/
We found neurons in the soil
while mining yesterday.
Dendrites broad as city streets,
and axons like superhighways.

There were ribosomes like raccoons
equipped with claws to clip, construct
cities in a stunning cytoskeleton:
the Bones of the Earth.

What, we wondered, does our planet think?
Does that mean we aren't the best anymore?
Is our planet a component of a greater ecosystem?
Is our planet a person of a species?

Thinkers think to survive.
Why does our marbled orb muse?
Are there galactic predators?
We scramble civilizations to prepare in fear.

Or is there rather interstellar prey?
We ready our harpoons either way.
Dusty trouser legs and well-trod boot soles
make their way beneath me while I walk
twixt distant-gazing cows and a cricket-filled
live oak forest in the sort of dawn that only comes
after a long night of quiet walking.

Homes. You’d think that they’d be easy to find
and keep and laugh in with warm light spilling out
over your shoulders when you throw open the door
to welcome a guest after their long night of walking
to end their journey with a bed-haven and hot-meal spirit.

It’s not. Human beings are blessings.
Self-respect is a blessing. Parents, pets, kids, attractive
love, successful communications, trees to climb and earth
to plant seeds in…

All these things are so good there’s nothing we can do to cook them up
from imagination and elbow grease and raw materials - they’re miracles.
We don’t “deserve” them. We’re anti-****** blessed
when we get them, just some by-the-way incidentals
while we wander with open eyes, open ears, open hearts.
As open to the light as our darndest can do.

Dusty trouser legs and well-trod boot soles
make their way beneath me while I walk
twixt distant-gazing cows and a cricket-filled
live oak forest in the sort of dawn that only comes
after a long night of quiet walking.
When you fall asleep,
Your brain catches fire
Burning up the less significant
Memories of the day.

As the flames rise
So do the swathes of smoke
Curling past your eyes
And around your ears

What we see and hear:
~That is what dreams are~
The geese are a honking loose thread across the sky. I can hear them in my wicker chair like they're sitting right next to me and I think their voices carry at least as far above as down below. So loud. The sound of changing seasons on the wing. You'd think a goose-whisper would be enough to keep their conversation going, but no. I need to hear them in my wicker chair too, apparently. I kinda like that. Maybe they are talking to me. Maybe their sounds are like street-songs for strangers, or God-praise, or apple pie cooling on a neighbor's window. Maybe they made something really pretty in their hearts, and it's so big they can't keep it down their noodle-necks anymore. And so they're singing it out, for the whole world to see, like a big grin, and it's just perfect that I hear it in my wicker chair, it makes it even better, and that's why they're so loud. It could be.
Next page