She finds something to cavil at in everything I say
Winter, summer; spring, autumn; night or day
I will love her, more than life; no matter what
Every April; June, July, August; even May

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Kathump, kathump,
boom, boom, flash,
spider cascade,
purple crash,
rumbling thunder,
crescendo zoom,
kathump, kathump,
boom, flash, boom,
kathump, kathump,
boom, boom, burst,
flowered fracture,
silver surge,
Oh, concussion
Patriot's tune,
kathump, kathump,
boom, burst, boom,
kathump, kathump,
boom, boom, blaze,
gold explosions,
glowing gaze:
Song of Freedom
in smoky haze,
kathump, kathump,
boom, boom, blaze.

He didn’t respond for five hours on the Fourth of July
It was warm
I was tired
Cell phone rested on my thigh
And I sat
And I waited
Another hour passed by
He was mad
Or maybe his phone was dead
Or he was with that girl,
Autumn,
He said she was giving him the eye
So I picked up my phone
And sent a message that read,
“Hey baby,
I miss you,
So, can you please reply?”
He was my world
My everything
The who made me sigh
As I listened to silly love songs
He made me want to try
To spend each moment
Speaking not from my mind
But from my heart to his
Two more hours went by
His soul with mine
Intertwined
It was dark now
Cool
Into a chair I reclined
And I sent another text
“Hi, hope your day is going well
Text me whenever,
I’m getting by.”
I missed the moment when
My brother managed to embarrass himself
Yet again
And why it was so funny
I’ll never know
Because on the phone remained my eyes
Another mindless hour went by
And finally
The phone’s ringtone chimed
But I didn’t pick it up
Let alone waste my time
With someone who made me feel so confined
I felt the wind brush against me
Smelled fresh, crisp, summer air
And I spent the night
Sitting in the grass
Watching the stars
As they danced and conversed as the fireworks burst
And I realized
I could love myself

I plunge into the cold water on that warm July day
no goggles, only the loose-fitting swimming trunks
I swim through the blur of chlorine
pushing through the water
when a familiar tune I heard hours earlier traps itself in my brain
and I suddenly become weightless, a plane high above in the air

The water is pure blue sky, below me the clouds
And at the bottom the city in ruins
I take my plane and dive down below the clouds
past the blur, until the city is in view just below me

I level the bomber and let it soar low above the ground
Over the pale white shells of buildings
I remember the museum exhibit that inspires this flight

I walk through, studying the pictures and the uniforms and the weapons on display
when in the distance of the room beyond I hear the familiar tune:
Brian Eno's "Ascent (An Ending)". It brings me closer, and I move past the exhibits
at a quickening pace, past the slow browsers
glancing only briefly to read, to catch a glimpse of an object, a photo, a map

I keep going, "Ascent" on a loop, its minimalist beauty entrancing me
until I find a large television in a small corner.
A few people are gathered around, solemn,
the television entrancing them, the music washing over the room.

First the white words centered against the black screen: "The Bomb".
The come the white-and-black photos and footage of the mushroom clouds hovering above Hiroshima, then Nagasaki,
standing tall like ungainly trees in an empty field.

The soundtrack to the short video before me is "Ascent",
or rather an excerpt, a piece of it, stirring strange emotions
Familiar ones that I give attribution to when I listen to it on my own.
Yet it feels different coming from this;
on the screen a few photographs of corpses and burnt victims flash by.
And then the screen fades to black, a moment of silence
before it all starts again

I hear this loop and see these images before me as I fly above
the imagined city in ruins
And for a brief moment I am the Enola Gay;
I will only know it at the bottom of a hotel pool

Third weekend in July
I love canoeing out on Northwood
Lake, early morning hours melting
into the pines, as I head toward the
island where the wild blueberries
lie. Tiny morsels, abundant and packed with
the taste of summer and beepollen and freshwater
and snow. Minnows nibble my toes, each one
a solid worm for the biting, as I slowly
fill a one-gallon jug, berry by berry,
to use for breakfast pancakes and
Belgian waffles cooked golden from
the waffle iron. Some of the ripest
berries plop into the lake. I swipe
them up before bass or sunfish
see them; always leaving the
green berries behind.
Pausing to taste some, they
split between my incisors;
I marvel at the flavor
while a loon’s haunted red
eyes stare at nothing.
Blueberries split like
relationships
occasionally do,
sour at times, always
leaving a taste on your
palate. Families, young
lovers picnicking on the
beach lake, confused couples;
they branch off, moonlight
silhouetting their outlines;
silent elegy softly blossoming
downward as their paths skew.
They won’t cross again.
My jug filled, I oar
back to the dock,
ears filled with
humming of birds,
insects, boats;
brimming with
the bream from berries
splitting apart,
and the intense
silence of blueberry
picking in late July.

You remind me of spring
with the gentle warmth
caressing the land
like your hand in mine
when we would sit and watch
the fireflies
light up the twilit sky

You remind me of summer
with fireworks
in your cloudless eyes.
Like the fourth of July
sitting love drunk on the lawn
with a balmy breeze blowing through
your ash gold hair

You remind me of autumn
with the way words roll of your lips
like the raindrops in the early morning
wetting the fallen leaves
from the night before
making the world smell
brand new

You remind me of winter
with your alabaster skin
shimmering with light
from the fireplace.
Your embrace kept the whiskey feeling
in my stomach
as we huddled beneath the covers

You remind me of the sun
and how it dances with the moonlight
every single morning
and takes a bow
every single night
before laying down,
with me

I'm just a ghost with no home
No belongings besides my comb
Too bad ghosts don't have hair
I'm not even a big scare
I don't know where to haunt
I have no mansion to flaunt
I just float around
My body in the ground
I'm the only ghost in town
I can't even make some one frown
No mouth to eat
I'm just a floating sheet
I can pass through walls
And go through bathroom stalls
But it's all to no use
I should have never tied that noose
Man I miss my friends
And even the lame trends
They used to be sad
Back when I was a small dead lad
But then those feelings passed
And maggots amassed
I wish I could become a fly
Because I had to die

No house
No belongings besides a blouse
If I had mass it'd be made of regret
But I sleep in the rain and can't get wet
I sit in the coffee shop
And some times in IHOP
No need for a job
I can't even use a doorknob
I just strum a ghost guitar
And hope you get hit by a car
So then you could be a ghost
And my loneliness would be toast
And you can add the butter
And make my nonexistent heart flutter
I hate life support
And anything of the sort
Keeps people from dying
While I'm just trying
To get some help
So I don't have to yelp
And best friends means forever
But that's a rope I'd have to sever
Or just let it fray
Because I'd rather you never pass away