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it’s not even 6am, restless night, or wrestled night, ain’t much difference, see the **** geese on the water’s edge, I dutifully slip out of bed, awakening no one, dutifully slide in to my slip-on sneakers, grab the white umbrella next to the front door, dutifully, steadily, my first chore of the day, walk deliberately (and carefully) to make them get them get heck away, into the sound, and to cease polluting the grass where children may play…

standing at the waters edge, task finished, the sky commands examination, there is within the cumulus textured, multi-pastel, thick curdled pastiche cloud banks, overhanging the world as far as one can see, a substantive hole appearing in the sky revealing a blue heaven….what one believes, prefers should be, but what is, in fact,
not a…given and we are a but, partly cloudy day, a partly clouded observant person…

this reminds me that there are holes in all places, everywhere, in my disturbed sleep,  where I spend hours of triangulating in dreams, what I cannot pin down:

who I am, what I am, my purpose on earth, though I know where
I am, though not even, most critically, why I am…

is this a poem?

this thoughtful cursed query sits behind my eyes, frontally lobed, perpetually asking, judging me, these words, repetitiously heard,
one is not fooled,
it is a simple self-evaluation test, only an ask,
what are my justifications, ma raison d'être,
(reason for being) which is an amuse, for I discover

in French, ‘reason for being,’
is a feminine word,
(qui en Français,
c'est un mot féminin…)
and that makes me smile,
for I’m a woman-centric man

(I have no gender confusion,
this is not one of the holes
to which I refer)

perhaps it is, or, perhaps it is a rambunctious rambling of no worth, for no answers are obtained, given, deduced, and holes, skyward and inward are deep, none delimited by neither bottom or a top, just widening gaps and gapes in my existence…and answers are not
forthcoming…

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5:50am
Thursday July 18
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Four

I stalk through the dark hallways
Drifting through remnants of a sun.
Spirals into vortexes, cascading shafts of light on
Brief transits inward, where time falters.
Forces push & pull and all around
The tide of the cosmos envelopes me,
Wading through the static sea
Waves come in crashing-
Laughter, screams
And yet, no sound escapes the vacuum

~I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
—Portia Nelson, "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters"

My own four experiences with holes
written October 5th, 2021

1.
I walk down a road
I fall into a hole
This happens a few times
I stop walking down roads.

2.
I get tired of being stuck in one place
I decide to try again.
I walk down a road
A different road than before
I know holes can happen
I keep my eyes on my feet
Just in case.

3.
I walk down roads
I carefully keep a list
of roads with holes
It is always in my mind
Is this a safe road?
Will it be safe today?

4.
I walk down a road with a friend
I forget to check if it's a safe road
We are talking and laughing
Then I realize
This is that very first road
the one with that big hole.

Did we not notice and walk around it?
Did we float over it?
Is the hole gone?
Will it come back?

So many questions.
All I really know is
I am grateful for
the moments of not worrying about holes
while laughing with a friend.

You like stars?
Fool.
Those are the little holes poked in the container so we can breathe.

There are holes in my brain          and I shovel words to bury
                                       that emptiness

I look for laughter                                          that's not my own

I search my hometown graveyard
                     the spaces of your affection

I'm flipping through the oldest books
                     ******* in the autumn air;

I cannot find the thing                                                  I lost

There are holes in my brain but I kept you,
                                       Heart,

                    perhaps a different way of craving
                                     wholeness