"rebury" poems
“What can a poem do?”
—————————-
***”A poem
is a not a tourniquet
when you’re bleeding.
It’s not water when you’re thirsty
or food when you’re hungry.
A poem can’t protect you from an airstrike,
or from abduction, or from hate.
It’s hard to write when our words feel
like they’re not enough—they can’t do
the real, tangible work of saving lives,
or making people safer.”***
(see (1) Maggie Smith)
<~>
as is my wont,
I write,
as is my Natted~inhabited,
retiring to the local watering holes of
Cerebrum & Cerebellum,
them regular haunts,
where all requests are mailed, processed, satisfied & marked;
‘return & render to the sender, who’s on a cerebral ******
and that request?
‘give me the words’ (2)
those ‘to do’ words, floaters, direct to top of list,
those ‘can do’ words, that can effect the affect,
spare the despair, realize the fungible, concretize cures,
soften hard waters, giving a worsening worn life fabric a
curated baby blanket feel, a 4-ply human tissue of
‘words that tell me everything’ (2)
salve solution verbs that bounty-wipe spills in entirety,
vacuum up spillage spoiling of 17 days of terrible nouns,
uncovered-unknown rages caused by inflicting prepositions
released a hatred rising,
safety rebury it deeper, drug & destruct the sleeper agents,
and let me start over again with
‘telling me everything by saying nothing’ (2)
the pausal silence, the quieted spaces tween the heartbeats,
where ‘reflection,’
the noun,
and its world of alternations,
reflection,
the noun,
look inwards, but shining outward,
this, this!
is where the poem goes to do!
enervating & arresting
its contradictory powers
rock you into wild docility,
possessive and submissive,
contradictory interferences,
smoothing the roughness,
closing the gaps it opens,
healing the caused truthful cuts,
with words that tell you
everything and nothing,
open the holes, filling the gaps,
that is what a
poem do,
in and by
the manner it is spoken…
<~>
“Sometimes a poem is the stone you carry in your pocket—the one you rub when you’re worried. Let’s fill our pockets with poems.”
(see (1) Maggie Smith)
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 10:10 PM UTC
Not the worship of ashes
but transmission of fire
Time at its best
will the Muses inspire
Nostalgia and tears
rebury the past
With passion incarnate
— this moment to last
(Connelly Center: September, 2025)
Sep 5, 2025
Sep 5, 2025 at 3:42 PM UTC
Cottonball girls with Q-tip legs dance gently
On Epsom salt beaches
As waves of rubbing alcohol lick their feet.
Father, let us run among them.
Let us clean and clear our faces in their festival of mirrors.
We shall rebury the awful jewels I found
With the failed veiled assassin's prescribed directions.
Rx marks the spot.
You may keep the map, for it keeps you in knowledge.
I do not wish that curse upon my conscience.
You may keep the knowledge, for it keeps you in power.
I do not wish the crown in that course.
Molten
Molten
Forty milligram
Molten
Sterilehappy
Nov 15, 2010
Nov 15, 2010 at 8:09 PM UTC
I love you terribly, and because of it
I am become completely impotent.
And I love you impotently,
And that is a terrible thing to behold.
I love you patiently
Because the root of me is a grave impatience,
And I love you impatiently
Lest the present root begin to die in earnest.
My flesh loves the scarlet sin in all of you;
Being that itself is made entirely of ruby-blooded flesh.
And my spirit loves the resounding hollowness
Of your souls thin, empty rails.
My love is an imperturbable being
That is too soon ground beneath your wheel, like an acorn;
And it is an impenetrable wheel
Which pulls me under, on it's return travel around.
This love is a decomposing hand
That's rising up fist-like, out of a newly closed grave
To grab my ankle as I run past, trying to scream out your name,
Through some shadowed cemetery, at some ungodly hour
In a world that looks suspiciously like this one.
And this love is a panting hound,
Trying to rebury its last remaining bone scrap of hope
With two lame legs impeding;
While this love, a one-eyed crow
Sits taciturn in a tree, just above a tiny, dead sparrow-
And fluffs its jet feathers, unconcernedly.
Mar 6, 2010
Mar 6, 2010 at 3:50 PM UTC
I’m going to each of my suitemates' rooms. One at a time, methodically. I pause, for dramatic purpose, until I have their full attention. Once I have it, I rushingly, excitedly, breathlessly say, “I’M getting pizza later, for the GAME!” Like a seven year old child.
Now, my roommates KNOW we're ordering pizzas later. They’re all “on board,” everyone’s submitted their order and venmo’d their money to Sunny who will actually place the order for delivery at 5:30 pm. But I’m excited. I LOVE pizza (and American, NFL football) and I love being childish.
My roommates, like my brother, sister and parents before them, know this and love my manic, overactive way of excising tedium. Besides, I won’t do this more than once or twice - ok, maybe three times today before the pizza comes.
Since you’ve read this far - allow me to opine, for a moment, about “self restraint.”
Have you read about how they’re using familial DNA to solve old cold-case murders? I think they should use familial DNA to track down whomever it was that invented self restraint.
It was probably some old Protestant. I mean, Catholics only have sin - it’s yes or no - binary. So without researching it (at all), I think we’re dealing with someone born after the protestant reformation of 1555 - but I’m flexible.
Anyway, they should track that person down, dig them up, beat them with a stick, and then rebury them, in unhallowed ground.
I hate self restraint. It’s so.. restraining.
#restraintsux
Jan 23, 2022
Jan 23, 2022 at 9:06 AM UTC
I'll write a poem about the rain.
Some other day when the weather is less sane.
Raining down hard like a duck pond made big.
Out in our lawns, drowning flowers,
Now uprooted;
I've found Grandmother's wig.
Torn up grass from the rain's major pellets.
Leaving me holes in my front lawn.
I'll even it out later;
the dirt,
Its so uneven.
But for right now, let's rebury Grandmother's wig.
Apr 4, 2012
Apr 4, 2012 at 8:13 PM UTC
I'll write a poem about the rain.
Some other day when the weather is less sane.
Raining down hard like a duck pond made big.
Out in our lawns, drowning flowers,
Now uprooted;
I've found Grandmother's wig.
Torn-up grass from the rain's major pellets.
Leaving me holes in my front lawn.
I'll even it out later;
the dirt,
Its so uneven.
But for right now, let's rebury Grandmother's wig.
-April4.12
I am angry,
I am mad.
He is happy,
She is sad.
All together,
Mixed confusion.
Mixed emotions,
Like intrusion.
Tomorrow is a brand new day,
When happy memories;
Here, do stay. -April23.12
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 3:37 PM UTC
I am
Utterly
Petrified
To open the graves
Of my past hidden in
The deepest part of my being.
For I
Am
Petrified
Once they are out
I won’t be able to rebury
Them before they consume me.
I am
Utterly
Petrified
To release the words
Of which have become rusted
Barbed wire imbedded in my throat.
For I
Am
Petrified
During their release
I will find those words have
Sewn themselves into my tattered soul.
I am
Utterly
Sure
I will not survive
The verbal barbed wire
Demolishing me on its way to freedom.
-ARI
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 4:53 PM UTC