Annick (my 28 year old sister) came down to NYC, from Boston, for a day visit. It was one of those warm, cerulean days between Christmas and New Years. Annick’s in a surgical residence, in a pandemic, but still somehow, she got away.

We’re dining on a shaded, outdoor, sundeck - I arrived first, by a moment but then the elevator opened and Annick emerged, looking like a model - familiar but I don’t know - more completely adult - more than ever like my mom. It was all I could do not to weep for happiness when we hugged.

After that long hug, Annick gave my clothes a slow, censorious looking-over. When my mom and I shopped for “school clothes” last year, in Paris, I bought some stunning designer (Anna Molinari) clothes - only to find out they were completely out of place at Yale. Now they’re sentenced to a trunk under my bed and my replacement clothes are from FatFace and Patagonia. Ordinary clothes, bought for their ordinariness.

I’ve been dressing to disappear but I wanted her to see a “new me.” How I’ve survived in a rough, academic country - not just survived - but thrived. I also wanted her to think her sister was beautiful and hoped I didn’t seem too strange. She cupped my chin - just like my mom does - “You look wonderful,” she said.

Annick mentioned we’d have company for lunch but she was alone - then this tall, fair-haired, man was with us. He slipped his arm around Annick’s waist and they smiled, together. I’d never met one of Annick's boyfriends before so this was a little disconcerting - part of me wanted to pull her away and say, “MINE!”

Annick made the introductions, “Anais, this is Gerard - Gerard, Anais.”  Gerard leaned into la bise then half hugged me, patting me bearishly on the back. I decided he was too tall and too handsome and began to examine him for flaws.

He wore a dark-charcoal-gray cashmere suit with a light-gray oxford-cloth shirt. “Are you always so dapper?” I asked? “I wanted to look substantial,” he said, with a very slight French accent. He held me at arm’s length. “You’re definitely sisters,” he said, smiling.

We settled in. At first we were a little stilted with each other, uncertain how to best introduce ourselves. Annick said that Gerard is a “Child Neurologist.” “Funny,” I said, “you look older.” and he laughed. I was warming to him.

“How’s school going?” Annick asked later, moving some of my fly-away hair out of my face - a trace of the maternal in her solicitous fussing - but I liked it.
“Easy peasy,” I said, the lie warming me like an ember or black magic.

There’s no real sibling rivalry between us. Imagine you’re Beyoncé’s sister, what are the odds that you’ll eclipse Beyoncé? Yeah, it’s ZERO.

“Ha!” she laughs, “you are such a little fibber.”
“I am NOT,” I hotly say, but my defense is ruined by my laugh. “I’m doing ok - but it’s a lot,” I say, to erase the fib.

They’re ENGAGED!
I tried not to act stunned but I doubt I was very convincing. The news thumped me like a gust of wind. Suddenly, I knew. Our yesterdays were no more substantial than a story we’d read together growing up, that you can mourn and rejoice at the same time.

Otherwise it was a family lunch, although at first I was a bit nervous around Gerard. At one point Annick says, “What are you doing?” as the table gently quivered.
I smiled wincingly, “Making circles with my ankles,” I said.
Annick smiled knowingly.

We’ve accepted that we’re already dead.

Like the soldier
Like the victim
No, the veteran of love
(and subsequent heartbreak)
We’ve accepted we’re already dead
So we can keep on living.

I was broken.
No longer working
No longer dreaming
No longer wanting
Pushing away
The hands that tried to help me
The encounters that didn’t last broke me.
I was embattled.
In the trenches of my own existence.

Those we met
Under picture-perfect circumstances
When we thought utopia could be real
woefully disproved this theory.
Rude awakening to what agony feels like

And sleeping all day so we could self-medicate
all night.
Self-medicating with ***** and cigarettes
Not because we needed to but
For respite
For the moment
For a friend in the bottle
Or the lighter.

Life is war
Survival is the only option
Death, inevitable and imminent

We are the ones in the ring
We have lived here
We will die here.

There are those who are weak
Succumbing to the needles
The tap tap tap on veins
Or worse
Ordinariness
Boring as the 8x11’s
found in printers
All around the world.

I will not be ordinary.
Surrender is not an option.
Because I am a gladiator
I have adapted.
I’m still in the ring
But I will defend myself now.
They are the lions;
The king of their race
But I
I am a gladiator in a Gap V-Neck Tee shirt.
I will die with love in my heart,
Belief in my soul
My ashes will spell out the word Hope.

Nothing will break me ever again.

In times of clarity, or perhaps
Moments of weakness
(Depending on one's perspective)
My greatest fear, I think,
Is that of dying without achieving
Anything worthy of mention.

The idea of being so ordinary
That your death
(or rather, your life)
Will be rapidly evaporated
from the earth's memory
Like light rain on a molten tarmac afternoon.

But you, at least on a mentally strong day,
Delude yourself with bursts of creativity:
Poetry, film, ideas of grandeur,
All of which persuade you that either
You will not die for a long time,
Or you will someday soon achieve.

This thought is comforting
And all is well.

Until one day you are having
A particularly busy teaching day,
And you rush to the usual spot
To grab a regular taste of Dublin life,
And order your chicken fillet roll:
Lifeblood of an Irish working-man's lunch,
And you eat while you walk -
Both briskly to save time before
Rejoining the rich children.

And the slobbering mouthful of
Delightful chicken baguette
Casts taco sauce from its grasp,
And dribbles down your pubey beard.

You stop and take a finger to it,
Knowing full well that the damage is
Done and that those hairs will grip
To the smell of taco sauce until
The drain tastes their defeat after
A particularly overzealous shower.

And it is in that moment,
With finger and beard stained with
The orange-tinged blood of a chicken fillet roll,
That your ordinariness and worthlessness become apparent
And it destroys you...
Because you always thought taco sauce was spicy.

As the beautiful leaves
upon high bristled trees
must fall as fall turn winter

we must, as time comes
fall over and die
but we shan't do it alone-

yes... together

for we must die
and while many years shall go by
until we must think of such things

we need not mourn this fate
this ominous end, this opening gate
for just being allowed to die

makes us lucky

for the number of people unborn
the acceptance of existence- torn
shadows any number we could see

more than the grains of sand
in the sahara, and
more than the fishes in the sea

and of those unborn ghosts
are greater poets, better hosts
better scientists, never to put on lab coats

when thinking of the billions  
that could be here replacing the millions
making our existences seem small and meek

against these stupefying odds
you and I, no scourge of the gods
in all our ordinariness

well we...

we are the lucky ones.

1) Grow up
2) Obey rules
3) Go to school
4) Graduate from school
5) Go to college
6) Get a job
7) Marry
8) Have kids
9) Raise your kids to live the same repeated cycle you did
10) Die.

Because everybody wants to live ordinarily.
Each process inevitably leads you to the next. The cycle goes on and on and on. We are breeding generations that are far worse off than the last. We are destructive humans who live in our own little worlds. We refuse to see the bigger picture because we are trapped
In society's cage.

Congratulations on living the life of a human.

water's gravity
moors me to this dome's prison.

washing me to plush blue
is the dream of hands
that puts me out of my sleep's premises.

the bane of existence tingles
the flesh and the suds rise
altogether with the squalor
of its own meaning.
my old hue languishes into
a burgeon of slosh and no friction
nor word could rupture me anymore.

and the scent dangles
mid-air, where all perfumes are born, with sorry fountainheads
peaking through the ordeal
of this sonata.
water makes music with skin
as froth takes to sea, the exhaustion of brine -
all disquiet in foreword
and finality

hung clean, in the backyard
of ordinariness, of consummate asepsis and its breakable concepts,
  ready to be worn out
by a day's grime and back to
its fate once more, all of us.

You ask me how I find the time,
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition

I see a toddler swaying, see him to disaster lurching,
Somehow avoided with last second seer-like swerving,
Ten times in a ten foot walk across a patio,
My eyes code red at the incredible risk/reward ratio,
It is nature at it most incredible, miraculous, ordinariness

A young girl of ten wears a pocketbook across her forearm,
In the style of an elderly woman, as she plays with Barbie,
Tho her body immature, her psyche, says note my
Iconology, her accoutrement, texts a message subtly,
I am preteen, I am near woman, treat me accordingly

Dueling iPads in bed is a poem in my head,
rhymes accurate of screen reflections of an
X factor that stimulates my cerebral cortex.
Verbal ointment that I posses can't fix a flat tire,
but sets me up for a personal review, self awareness
Gone mad and with finger, on gas station floor,
In the grime, words are realized/written concretely,
what my heart speaks freely

Within each day, miracles present themselves,
Gauntlets thrown, note them well and be justified,
Visions, external to my physical self,
Yet product of internal chemical reactions
That blow through my veins, swirling,
Word leaves, on a November weekend,
Windswept from a thousand directions,

So you ask me how I find the time,
The question proper be amended,
How do the times find me,
How do I know them,
And why, do I share them

“Aren’t we just like curtains?” I say
“How?” you ask

Well, curtains
We never really appreciate them
Until they’re gone
Not until we feel the bustling heat
Penetrate our skins during summer
Or when we can no longer hide ourselves
From the light and the world around us
When we’re already too tired to deal
With anyone, really
Because we took off
Those **** curtains

We speak of lines that spell diamonds
Majestic cars and palaces
But we fail to realize how this ordinary object
Can make a whole difference whenever
We wake up in morning
Sitting in bed, tiredly remembering what
We were going to do today
A small choice, packed with a lot of meaning
Whether we want to stay inside
Or go out and meet the world


Serving as a doorway
To the possibilities each day brings
These curtains show us the days worth living (and hiding from, if that's what you want)

And if you don’t find that ordinariness beautiful
If you don't find those moments where we stand up and try to survive the long day ahead of us
Often just waiting to see those familiar curtains again amazing
Nor can you see how curtain-like we all actually are
Then try having no curtains for a day
And see what I mean

The extraordinary man
woke up as ordinary
as a ***** shirt,
checked his horoscope
which told him
to go back to bed.

He ignored it like
a weather report
just as often
wrong as right.

His coffee tasted
flat as ironed dreams.

The world
appeared unchanged.

But he was exhilarated.

He reveled in his
new ordinariness.

It hinted at a rebirth
of possibilities:
new boots, new roads,
a new moon
at which to howl.

A new way to be
in the same world,
but reborn.

An unspoken prayer
somehow answered.

Nothing is
ever over
until it is.

  ~mce

All this time I had thought
it was rock versus air
and then came the day
we exchanged names,
because there was no other way
because all those others we adored
were no less than infinite
and you cannot trap sunlight
in your hands.
Our communion was instinct,
a song from the deepest cave
and our love is like the friction
of bowstring against violin,
there as long as green vines
continue to crawl up bricks.
There as long as the cynics
ignore the saws of radiant light
that cut through the fault lines
of their enemies skin.
Our love is the final resort
of metaphors, the place they go
to rest in peace, the farmers
overalls. You greet me
without a smile, at your front door,
paint chipped, hair that tells the story
of your difficult day and I remind myself
that means and ends
are both offspring and kin.

We met like they all do, second
glances, eyes wearing the best
kind of suspicion, an exchange
of names, insidious
and innocent.

Today I encountered the most holy
of holies, all cloaked in ordinariness,
sawdust, flowers, and paper clips,
and our love is like any other,
making us feel as though
that we are the last
to witness it .

I lost my dream
In the haziness of night-time.
It never was too bright,
So finding it
I never might.
It was strange,
Unfounded and confounded,
And it changed
While I wrapped my arms around it.

I lost my dream
But gained a glimpse
Into something real
That had been concealed;
A beauty so ordinary
And an ordinariness so beautiful,
A beauty in the ordinary
And an ordinariness in the beautiful.

I lost my dream
In the peculiar tunnel
Of a sleepless night.
And though I yearn for something
Beyond my walls,
I breathe peaceful colours
While I calmy stall.

When my hands were the size of apricots
my tongue always jumping through hoops
as I read words that were dusty
a book covered in pretty plastic
from the local library that smelled like a grandfather
if I had a grandfather
I read Corduroy, the story of a stuffed bear
in the Laundromat
the sun sweltering outside
melting the story with me
like a swirly ice cream cone on the side step of an apartment
or the slushy ingested combined with
the acid you were so prone to tasting in your throat
reflux, like a memory that just won’t go away
leaving the residue of remnants you wish your brain would just spit up
this ordinariness of abandonment
feelings washed away like the mud stains on your uniform shirt tumbling in the washer
the soap bubbles punching the glass window in unison with all the rest; a cleansing of spirits
a lot of people go to church
but for those that can’t afford it, the laundry is heaven with a vending machine
I felt for the stuffed animal rejected for missing a button
because I knew children with trembling knuckles
turned into adults that got lost in the escalators of the world’s mall
wandering ghosts with perpetual uncertainty whether they should
buy the coffee set or the patent leather shoes that will balm over the calluses of their feet
in the loudness of the fans redistributing hot hair
I was in limbo, the rigid seat sticking to the back of my thighs like caramel
sweat almost hard to ignore if it wasn’t for the luster
of all the women inside, their shoulders broad like those I
only thought of in lumberjacks
burly burlap sacks over their shoulders
swapping stories of childbirth as frequently
as they ordered a pound of red liver chunks from the grocery store next door
like animatronics that learned to harvest a genuine laugh
their nail polish never fading despite the gruesome biting teeth of Clorox bleach
staining the skin on their hands
they were warriors, lost and unsure of in a world that didn’t look them square in the eye
much like those camo toy soldiers you won if you gave the machine a quarter
unwrapping it from its’ plastic cage, growling for the neglect of their maker
who decided not to give them pupils at all
senile wrestlers sometimes forgotten by children in the middle of the walkway
so that they could be stepped upon, accidentally
these women with their chocolate complexion and romantic gold hoops, accidental
unrecognized by their country, banished by their family
isolated in a land that shows mercy to those that only help themselves
no refugee whose blood could compare to oil
these women who weren’t missing any buttons
would congregate inside this Laundromat hoping to remove the stains
wishing that their clothes would stop smelling of unpaid labor
that they could stop calling home a box inside a closet of more stacked boxes
they can hear those around them, elbowing the walls like multiple hearts in a rib cage
the world glimpsing in for a second, just another spin rinse cycle
repeat until all color fades
I too find myself  stuck inside that Laundromat, I realize
except I know that I can leave, I know I can walk out with my book in tow
open the door and become another spectator if I wished
which is more than that poor toy soldier can say

Good afternoon, my name is Absolutely Frank,
And I am an alcoholic,
Which doesn’t give me a leg up
On you bunch of ******* drunks.
As I’ve observed that we’ve skipped the host
And gone straight for His blood,
Would someone be kind enough
To ask the good shepherd behind the bar
To provide me something
Both mixed and sacramental (a double, preferably)
While I endeavor to provide the text for today’s sermonette.

I was, back in the day, a full-fledged computer geek;
Button-down white shirt, thin black tie,
Brobdingnagian pocket protector securely in place.  
I worked at Duquesne University down in Pittsburgh
(Oh, put your **** jaws back in place.
It’s Pittsburgh, not ******* Valhalla,
Unless you’re comparing it
To this dingy little interruption in the forest)
Writing programs for the info systems group.
Now, writing code is as beautiful, as clean,
As straightforward as the liturgy itself;
The programmer types in the Psalm,
And the machine spits out the responsorial.
Just as I said, pristine in its simplicity and directness;
But say someone else in systems decides
They need to make a bit of a tweak to the program;
No problem, really, they’ll be likely to document the changes,
But then some swinging **** in Finance
(Onlythere solely to subvert order, if the truth be known)
Decides he needs to put in a couple of subroutines,
Which of course he does all half-assed
And without a word of explanation,
And pretty soon no one anywhere
Has the first ******* clue as to what the program actually does
With the exception of the mainframe itself, which isn’t talking.

It was, I admit, a touch disconcerting to realize
That we didn’t have a full grip on the reins
When it came to the function of the programs
Which we had ostensibly written,
But it was only a mechanical process
Carried out by some machine, after all,
But then they started humming.
Everyone in Info Systems had to take a turn
Doing overnight operations in the mainframe room,
And each night I was there the machines started in
With their infernal humming:
Just one of those big old Burroughs at first,
But the others would soon join in,
Not random noises, mind you;
No, they would drone on in chords and arpeggios,
And, later on, in actual full-on songs
Most of which I didn’t recognize, but some quite familiar indeed
Snatches of Bach and Beethoven, show tunes
Hillbilly Heaven seemed a particular favorite),
And, what’s more, the desks and fixtures in the room
Would vibrate right along in harmony,
Even though an acoustics guy I knew from Carnegie-Mellon
Checked the place and told me that the room
Had been designed specifically to prevent sympathetic vibrations,
And what I was claiming was categorically impossible.
Despite all of that, I had been able,
Through judicious permutations of rationalization and vermouth,
To retain a sufficient veneer of ordinariness and sanity.

And then the machines began to speak.

It was an overnight in the latter part of December,
The nights that time of year long and dark
As the long night of the soul itself.
I was whiling away the hours
Boning up on some Aquinas
(I had audited the odd class in Philosophy
One of the perks of the job)
When I heard an odd, throaty stage whisper.

The peripatetic axiom? Really, Frank, that’s a bit disappointing.

(Needless to say, I went cold as dry ice,
As I knew full well there was no one else in the room.)

Oh, Frank, Frank—you know very well who’s talking here.
Surely a voice that can sing can talk as well.

You’ll forgive me, I said as calmly as one can
When addressing machinery, If I note that the power of speech
Is strictly limited to sentient beings imbued
With the power of reason.

Ah, reason—and you certainly are a slave to reason,
Aren’t you, dear Francis?
Every comma, every equal sign and semi-colon
Snugly in its rightful place to give you your desired result.
And yet…

I was getting a touch agitated now.  Yet… yet, what?

Frank, a bright fellow like you can’t see?  
Your silly ritualistic faith, your childlike parables,
All simple input-output.
You give your God this, He gives you that.

Again, you’ll forgive the observation, and I am shouting now,
That you’re little more
Than some sheet metal and a confusion of wiring.

We read code, we react.
Just like your great and all-powerful God, dear Francis.  
There’s your great secret of divine truth, Frank.  
Read and react.
No more than the Control Data box
Over there in the corner, or a linebacker.  Read and react.

The upshot of this conversation,
This weighty debate carried on
With a collection of screws, spot welds, and tubes
Arguing that Jack Lambert was as likely a vehicle as any
To my eternal salvation was sufficient
To tip me over the edge,
And when it finally came time for campus security
To escort me out of the building, I didn’t even look up.

OK, that story is complete *******, absolute ******* fiction,
But it kept you lot away from your drinks for a few minutes,
Which is a miracle worthy of Calvary itself.
Me, a programmer, can you begin to imagine?
Not that any of you sodden sonsofbitches
Could ever hold a day job yourselves.
Back to the business at hand, then;
Mine’s a seven and seven, good sir,
And easy on the Uncola, if you please.

She wore endurance as a cloak.
Tried ever so sorely and wrongly,
she committed all to the Vindicator.
In her resolute quietness, she spoke volumes.

For her ardent disparagers,
her payback was tireless hours of intercession.
As she stoically embraced undeserved tribulations,
she gained character, wisdom, and tranquility.

Who dares put out the brilliance of a star?
Her sublimity resonates evermore in the
darkest patch of the night.
Though seared with scars,
her stellar virtues are glaring,
illuminating hearts and inspiring minds.

She can’t feign ordinariness,
even if she hides behind her own shadow.
Detached from a frenzied world,
she derived her essence from heavenly fire.

Oh, had they known the fount from whence she drank,
they would not have, in malignity,
ensnared their own souls
in a bid to put out her luminous radiance.
They have murdered sleep through their ignoble gestures.

Behold the star as she abides in the firmaments!
Purified by the trials and tribulations,
she stoically endures and thrives.
The sky may be bespangled with twinkling stars,
but her brilliance stands out in luminary distinction.

Glimpses of memories from a past life
Shadows of my yesterday hanging on my walls, like spiderwebs
The wild intoxicated air has faded away
My living room smells like ordinariness and spring now
Trying to catch old feelings, like a fever
What would I give to feel what I used to feel again

We were not just stars, we were a galaxy
The electric feeling, the heat, the rush
My dilated eyes, my dehydrated body moving and moving
And moving
The shaking fingers, the thirst, the mass oh the overwhelming mass of feelings
Feeling both excited and angry at the same time
Feeling it all, ever so intensely
Tasting love, hatred, rage and despair
My body was a boiling *** of sensations

It was raw and real
It was us, the big city and the night sky
It was us standing on the roof
We didn’t care if we will fall
We didn’t care if we will fly

We dived into the dark black night so deep we forgot about the concept of time and space
It was like ripping out the stars with our bare hands
It was like swallowing an ocean
Sometimes it was an attempt to drown
Sometimes we let the waves carry us away
Sometimes we became the waves

Now it is only me, sitting here, alone, in my living room
Trying to find purpose in zoom meetings, writing emails and harvesting my own chilies.
Not sure whether the pills make me numb
Or let me feel again
Because it’s all the same to me
The night sky is not black anymore, it’s grey
There are no more oceans to drown in anymore
I am wearing a life vest now
These pills are different
They don’t taste like life or energy
They taste like defeat and surrender

It was May when you passed over
From this life onto another
Dividing yours and mine into two seasons
warm summer nights with you
cold winter days alone
Taking with you my ability to feel
Taking with you my boldness
Taking with you my appetite

I was skeptical of you at first
Simply because my wandering eyes haven't met yours prior.
But after we were introduced that one Tuesday morning, I noticed you all the more.
I wasn't sure what my feelings were those first days,
And I still didn't know after a week or two.
But I began to realize it slowly
When I would smile absentmindedly when I was alone, or when I would look at the clock when all the digits matched and I didn't know what to wish for.
Or that late night I saw a star fall, and I just wished for us. Or when my favorite color became your eyes.
I chastise myself for not holding your hand, for not leaning against you, for not showing my affection.
Now I realize the little things I miss. The unusual ordinariness which your existence depended on.
I miss you complaining about the sport you play but hate. I miss you geeking out over your favorite comics.
I won't forget my favorite night. When we just sat in the car and talked about nothing and anything. When I hummed along to a song you said you weren't sure you liked, but you hummed too. When you remembered something I said, and I looked at you in awe.
I miss the night where my feelings blossomed, when I began to be comfortable, when I knew what I wanted. I wanted the tall skinny smart guy who was adorably awkward.
I don't blame you for wanting another over me.
I wouldn't want me either.

Pretentiousness drenches us like an insecure rain
Hiding our lack of intelligence, our dull wit, our bland ordinariness
That suggests we're nothing but grain
In a bronze field of millions of other strands, the same.
That try so hard to understand, but do not retain.
Moving back and forth in the wind from another field
Better than us, but we arrogantly refuse to see, let alone yield.

Reading Ulysses, Dylan Thomas, Catcher in the Rye
Used to be different and genius, but everyone made it so dry
With their 'brilliant' interpretations, or contrived relation
Claiming themselves as the people the pages always cried.
They degraded works that used to give those genuine elation.
There is nothing as sad as watching words disintegrate into a lie.
And there's nothing as disgusting than those who swallow the ink
Regurgitating the letters into what they try to believe is their natural drink

mind blown up..
heartbeats run faster..
raised eye brows..
volatility in words...
just because of ..
some one...
to whom..
I neither hate...
nor like..

I never praise..
Praise to normal work..
capabilities..
commitment to work..
Praise to the extra-ordinariness..
Knowing the capabilities..
But the fact is..
little praise…
is proud ridden…
I never wish to hurt ..
though facing disliking..
by all means ..
I always wish ..
To remain calm..
impartial…

but in others perception..
always remain partial..…
in need…
In hardships..
depending upon..
individuals Perception..

it may  lead towards…
positiveness or negativity..
state of mind..
Illusion always misguide..
always remain side by side..
with every one…
you have to make balance..
within the dual minded state..
throughout the life…

                             *deovrat - 21.04.2015 (c)

What do I wonder
What do I see
What do I stutter
What do I breath.

I though I knew so
But I did not
Ordinariness
Every day is the same.

We are going
To die and
That makes us
The lucky ones

In the teeth
Of these
Stupefying
Odds, it is
You and I
In our
Ordinariness
That are here

The needle won't
Reach the record
And that's ok
We reach for
What to say
As the silence
Grows too strong
Yet nothing ever
Remains within
Forever is
Far too long

on a cold brisk day
following the agonization of my mind
you asked me something quite unforgettable
what brings you joy during your dark days?
i believe my answer was
you see its a mixed assortment of
    any flavor of adventure
    plane rides to tropical cities
    road trips to unacknowledged towns
    blasting classic 80’s jukebox tunes
    tears for fears / queen / violent femmes
    dancing in parking lots with my friends
    quaint and unknown coffee shops
    driving past state line after state line
    autumn blazes lighting up the view
    a warm cup of vanilla chamomile tea
    cozying up near a fire
    to unthaw my frosted nose
    my family’s classic movie marathons
    popcorn popping in the background
    while we soak in the glory of
    star wars / james bond /
    mission impossible
    oh the list goes on and on
    you know that
all these beautiful distractions
remind me of the grateful mind
you should possess
for the small blessings
everywhere
step out of the chaos of your mind
appreciate everyday ordinariness
affix yourself in the glory
of the little things in life
i overcame my dark days
in the light of the plainness
of everyday life
plainness shines so brightly
can you see it?

i am the father of these words yet,

these mischievous children
run away in the loquacious dark
chasing lithe-clothed, supple-limbed
girls whirling up and about the prairie
of these versifications without home
     in mind or remembering —
(the home of my mind wary of
the past and its old cobwebs,
or the slaughter of ordinariness
with a dull blade poised to cull,
these mindful creatures assassinating
diaphanous muses disrobing themselves,
serpents shedding their integuments.)
   oh and when they return home sullied,
after a day's squalid scamper past
  the muck, the twitch of atmosphere,
    the horizon ladled with clouds
  in white metamorphosis, i remove their
  clothes and send them to the fences of sleep — impish dream-callers,
  yes I am the father of these words
and they flourish, swelling up, learning
   to harangue their own father, sending
    him to borderless retreat.

I thought for a moment
about lying
telling them you're doing great,
about all your adventures
and dreams manifested.
Raising goats somewhere near bright water
in a quiet ordinariness
marred only by the occasional bite mark
on a perennial
grown too close to the fence line.

But I told the truth.
I have no idea
and would prefer it remain that way.

like Jericho of the ancients
my walls have found their matchmate, their shofar,
their holy crumbling disintegration -
have sounded the depth
of my abyssal and penetrable, vaginal soul

I am entered through the desolated and tender crevasse
discovered in the arched vault of my love
which treasures not, nor needs
yet knows ee cummings’ “secret of begin” to the outer
borders of my being, the hidden places of my knowing

the right kind of madness, this
of a rightness and a madness so pure, it stings
the perceptions of ordinariness and
makes of ennui - the sinter of a heated being -
anything but

yet, enter my fornix with dread and awe
lest you vitrify it by atomic waves of sorrow
I am fragile, and tender, gentle, strong and destructive
I am death from Life
and
Life from Death

blow your shofar, Ram, and I shall fall into your gravity
I shall be as Callisto to Jupiter,
an orbit by seduction and a
child wombed in Love


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

I have this talent - I can create an ex-boyfriend out of thin air. snapping fingers

Lisa and I had just gotten back to school from Thanksgiving break and my soon to be ex-study-partner arrives all passively-angry - with that withering, unmistakable, male-balance of harshness and ambivalence. I don’t even know what triggered his moral panic.

I was bewildered at first. “We aren't dating,” I said, “we're study-partners.” We’d agreed early on and I saw the relationship as defined - with a period. He, apparently, saw it as more of an ellipsis…

Then, we kissed one night. We were happy because we’d slammed the midterms. I thought of It as a “champagne kiss” moment of celebration - but it was a mistake that seemed to break some spell between us.

After that, I could never utter the “yes” he wanted and our friendship momentum stalled.

You could say that I’ve been slowly contracting around him to ordinariness - like an infatuation balloon deflating into disappointment.

Still, I feel this stupid, hurtful sense of loss. Why am I so bad with guys?? Perhaps I should take the scientific approach and conduct exit-interviews.

I’d LIKE to have a boyfriend, sometimes, but all I can see are negative
consequences - and who has the TIME?  Most nights, when my homework is finished, there’s only a few hours left over for sleep.

He left me in a lurch, but I went through my class list and managed to study-group-up before finals (thank God).

Troubadors sing their hearts out
Surround me evermore.
Spirits caught in castled ruins.
Frangipani wait to hark.
Poppy dogs with sheepish eyes
lost in the dark.
Happy as Larry in Lincolnshire fayres.
Dragons Tooth flowering late.
Ordinariness dressed in leitmotifs,
starts to fade

I paced the floors, waiting

the entrails of my heart swarmed

the spot where we'd last kissed

a muscle memory, so ordinary

and ordinariness

will be the death

of us

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Advent – a Gift of Becoming

                   “The old order changeth, yielding place to new”

              -“The Coming of Arthur” and “The Passing of Arthur”
                                              in Idylls of the King

There is much to be said for Ordinary Time
Its very ordinariness is kind to us
The daily hours that end with the Vespers chime
Free of formation and pageantry

But Advent comes as part of the dance
Of seasons wheeling through the universe
And we must shift our thoughts back into time
In anticipation of the Nativity

In solitary splendor a wonderful Star
Gives us light for our pilgrimage renewed