Do not dream too loudly
You may awaken your conscience

                                        By Phil Roberts

This is how the spoon stirs,
how the soup swirls
in several spinning
concentric circles.

This is the plump
juicy red tomato body
struggling against
the gravity
of this liquid reality,

plopping when it drops
jalapeno sauce
dripping little hots spots.

This is one spicy dinner.

My blood is ink.
At least I think.
The last time I saw it
was when I tried
to cut myself and die,
but ended up
only staining the kitchen sink
with bits of runny poetry.

If God
is love
then I really
need to tell you
how intensely
I experience
God
when you're in
the room.

the tectonic plates
in me
are shifting
     as our continents
approach collide
my ocean is
getting closer
to the mountains
on your landscape
  tallest grasses blowing
         in wild demon dance,
                shaking their
          heads as heated
storm approaches
oven-baked air crackling
    with its own
         electric currents
Nothing can stop it
it's a magnetic force
              one to be
                   reckoned with
               surrendered to
as dust foams
like ocean froth
around our heads
clinging to us in tiny
starlit fragments
and soon will come
        the slick dive into
             wordless waters,
                    just skin on skin
        slippery mouth muscles
like entwined snakes
flick-flicking, shiny
in eye-lit cherry moons
Take my hand.
Just pull me in.
Enfold me,
          without talking
watch as my aura
rushes into you,
first a delicate whisk
             of cool light
to slake the thirst
of coal-licked caverns
then sparks
and bubbling oxidation
turning into liquid brushfire
Hold your palm
to my chest,
as if to keep
    my heart steady,
        my glowing flare of halo
  pressed into your
clavicle, taking in
the embryonic beats
soothing my torrid ache,
infusing minerals
in vitamin-laced libation
It is time to simply bask
in the new
crispness of radical
shake off
           the silt and salt
and rise up
into the spheres
      of memory
      of soulspeak
of collapsed time zones
budded breath
spiraling up
in curls,
       diaphanous
dark mist
ascending
                 into
           light

to drink from
the river of
kindness that
flows all around
us is the goal.

to do the same from
the incoming tides
of hate is unthinkable,

undrinkable.


to have lost all
threads of faith
in: ‘We The People’,

but to have a circle
of friends to envelope
with love and compassion,

allows one to regain a
measure of faith in: ‘We, the people.’

there is a division.


it need not be black or white,
rich or poor,
left or right.

it need not be the elephant
or the ***.

there is only humanity.

(kind or unkind.)

unkind people can be
shown kindness.

Ignorance is easy.
Hate is hard.

we will not overcome.

(we’re too selfish.)

we certainly will not overthrow.

(we’re too soft for revolution.)


really, the only way that this gets better
is with pockets of ‘We, the people.’

you, and you, and you, and you.

(and me too!)

doing the best they can
with what they have
where they are.

trust that a little
kindness can go really,
really far.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I don't want to be your sun
I want to be the moon
Pale, faint,
You might not even notice me sometimes
But when you need me the most
When you are lost
I will be there
Having never left.