Mother

Pointedly dropping her shoes

on the floor, she laughs.

She just swept. And mopped.

And put everyone else’s shoes

away.

There is deliberate

Rebellion in her act.

A quiet, momentary anarchy.

In her most victorious, almost convincing,

Confidence,

She walks away.

The shoes lay there

In stoic homage to her uprising.

Until later, when

She silently returns to

put them away.

 

 

Weight

She shrugs off the

expectations of the world

living free, if only

for the moment.

A life lost on

longing

for acceptance

for approval

for arrival.

Daring to allow

an honest look

at how beautiful she

really is, how smart she

really is.

How significant she really is.

A moment free,

then gone.

The world waits impatiently

to saddle her with its baggage,

to confuse her into thinking it’s her own.

 

Inside

We are surrounded

by the accumulation

of our successes,

proof of how meaningful we are to the universe.

Lights, sounds, noise, static, speaking without

words, writing without thought.

We grow ever outward in our

pursuits, building, building

ever upward, ever layering

innovation upon invention.

Wild with our triumph

we neglect the hidden,

the truth, the foundation, the place where we

began our journeys and the

undeniable core.

Weakened with our ever-growing

heap of victories, we are

crumbling beneath its weight.

Inside our bodies
 

inside our minds, inside our world,

 

that prized, glittering, triumphant world, 

 we rot.

 

 

Greatness

There is a greatness within,

silent, powerful,

but subdued by doubts

and fear and hate and

loss and the overwhelming

pressure of a reality that

won’t make room.

Lie here silently. Listen.

It breathes within you.

It breathes within you.

 

 

Mother's Poem to a Young Boy

He sits at my knee,
crying his broken heart
to pieces.
They laughed at him
or teased him
or said no to
playing his game.
He doesn't understand.
I hold him, as closely
as his bruised boyish
independence allows.
“I can't help you understand
the hate, or the
hurt,
or the thousand of other
things in our world
that make no sense, child.
I can only tell you that
I'm here,
and will be,
forever.”

Copyright (c) 2012

My heart hangs heavy tonight.
This journey over thorny earth
has pricked my soul,
sapped my strength.
I lost my map,
my pack,
my way,
long ago.
So long ago.
I lay myself down now
unarmed,
naked to the wolves
and all creatures of the night.
I no longer have the will to fight.

Copyright (c) 2012

A Poem

Mirror, mirror
on the wall,
who’s the fairest of them all?
The brave, child,
and the strong.
The truth seekers and speakers.
The fighters and the learners,
the survivors who tell their tale.
Those who stand for what is right
and stay up, child, when the
world beats
their knees
with fists of complacency and greed.
And the growers, my dear, the growers!
The ones who make our minds and
our earth
fertile and ripe and ready for seed.
The dreamers and the doers.
The hopers and the prayers.
The thought-makers
and risk-takers
and those who believe enough to bleed.

Copyright (c) 2012

Poem

You speak
As though it were normal
As if I belonged here
And you there
And the miles between, nothing.

Copyright (c) 2009

Bugs

The insects keep
Melodic beat
With the night
A pulsating buzz
Confident in its
Ability to give dimension
To the dark
The hum lulls
Even me
To sleep
To sleep

Copyright (c) 2009

The Nap

I slept on the sofa
Lulled by the whir
Of the ceiling fan
And the steely gray of the sky
Not a foreboding gray but
One full of the promise of warm rain
The kind against which
I did not draw the blinds.
And outside the window
I heard the lady neighbors
Enjoying the first laughter
Of spring
The warmth of pavement under their feet
And the way their voices once again
echoed around the lot.
And with my eyes sliding shut
I painted the scene in my mind
So I would remember it was a good day.

Copyright (c) 2009

Noise

I hold my hand up
against the din of the world
fighting the noise.
The pointless
irrational
soul-destroying
Noise.
Lost somewhere in there
I know
is the relative silence
of dreams and youth
and the simple belief
in hope.

Copyright (c) 2009

Today the tears dried
But still no relief
And tomorrow the
Rage subsides
But still no relief
Only when the dreams die
Can she begin to breathe.

Copyright (c) 2008

Life...

How did I get here?
How, in the name of God, did I get here? Sitting at my desk, the door shut, the tears streaming down my face. My hatred for my job, my life, the world in general building and welling up out of me in frustrated streams. My stomach sick, my head throbbing and every inch of me feeling alien. Is this what I created? Is this pathetic recurrence of a pathetic moment the result of my own doing?

How did I get here? I am 30 years old, that fine age when the vitality of youth is tempered with just enough life experience to allow one to move with energy and passion in a chosen direction, a time when life has substance, meaning, purpose. I am surrounded by this recognition in my peers: all around me they have graduated from the hapless, delightful ignorance of their twenties to families, careers, vocations. To life. I feel that, despite my pleas to the world to hold the train, it boarded gleefully, leaving me at some abandoned depot as a left-behind, an almost, a passenger perpetually waiting.

I tried to make the train. I had my schedule, my itinerary, I packed for warm weather and cold. I had back-up maps and contact information and everything I needed for the trip. I thought, “I am ready, world. Take me.” And now here I sit prepared for an adventure that I’m not on. The years I spent getting ready – the schooling, the jobs, the love – seem heavy now, more load than I anticipated, crowding me here on the platform. They look ridiculous, superfluous trappings whose purpose no longer seems valid.

I was close – so close; I could feel the wind from the passing dreams, the hopes and aspirations barreling along the track. All I had to do was reach out and flag them down, harness them, make them mine!

I had gotten comfortable waiting, though. I felt sure there would be another train. I questioned the safety – wasn’t it moving just a bit too fast? Is it an express? Will I have a chance to change trains if I get on the wrong line? Is there an emergency brake, a conductor, anyone in control besides me? I don’t have the experience to drive a train! I’m not ready!

And so it passed. And so it passed.

And I am the lonely passenger, a fare paid but no destination. A coward left alone in a once-bustling station. I am humiliated at standing here alone, at missing the train, at my excessive luggage, at my worthless itinerary, at my inability to find the next scheduled train. I am tired, here. I am sore from the hard bench. My heart aches from the strangeness of my surroundings. My head spins at the confusion of my life, at the frustration, the bitterness, the fear eating at my soul.

How did I get here? And why can’t I leave?

Copyright (c) 2008

The Triathlon

My heart swells with pride
as you gasp for breath,
at this moment, you question
your sanity: you are only one-third done.
But you are my rock.
And you speed away, the
background, our nation’s history,
a blur to you. I scream and yell and try
desperately to capture this moment, your moment,
on film. And wait for your return. And watch
and scream with the hundreds of others
unable to ignore the power of the body, of the
Moment, of the feeling of conquering – fear, doubt,
self-consciousness. They are dissolved here
at our feet, with each stroke, each stride, they fade. And
you, all of you, are stronger.
You return.
Strong, solid, amazing.
And you are off, running, pounding the earth
with the solidity of your form.
I make my way to the end, to wait, to cheer, to
be caught up in the emotion of the finish,
The final push.
You come through, jubilant, triumphant.
I run to you, but step back to watch
you and him and her and everyone
soaked in the sweat of their efforts
gleaming in the sun, radiating with the
power of what was accomplished. And in
that moment, I am thankful for the hot day, the sweat
that hides my quiet tears.

Copyright (c) 2008

Self-Appreciation...or Egotism, Refined

I will be turning 30 in a few short days.

30 years alive. Now that’s something to celebrate.

A lot of people I know who have already passed this milestone – many of them women – bemoan the passing of time, the waning of youth, the inevitable creep of old age. How terribly pessimistic. I consider myself lucky to have never succumbed to the aging trap: the belief that with each passing year, a little more of the self withers and dies. I admit, most of the time I can’t even remember how old I am, but the landmark 30th birthday is, I’m quite certain, the next one.

I adore my birthday. Perhaps this is childish or egotistical, but I cannot deny the impish pleasure I find in having a day just to celebrate my own life. I’ve been looking forward to this one since January. Thirty years walking the face of the earth: that’s a pretty amazing concept when you look at it objectively. When someone gets sentenced to thirty years in jail, we think, “Wow. That’s a long time.” But somehow our own life seems to move so much more quickly. That same 30 years has passed in an instant. And we grapple with ways to slow it down, to actually allow ourselves to absorb what’s passing before our eyes, to somehow avoid that inevitable feeling that everything has amounted to nothing more than one, ill-defined blur. In the unavoidable games of irony, of course, all of that effort to slow down so often makes life more hectic, more stressful…and even more of a blurred landscape.

Lost in that blurred landscape, unfortunately, is the potential to reflect on what an accomplishment life really is: the struggles you may have faced, the sadness, the defeat, the joy, the love and loss. Compounded by the (undeserved) negative connotation that aging bears, the gift of being alive lies neglected, an unwanted present among the trappings.

I suppose you could call it an epiphany of sorts, but as I was considering the impending birthday, I felt a sudden sense of self-contentment. My mind wasn’t on overdrive contemplating the physical flaws, the too-slow running pace, the inability to become a writer. I looked and saw, rather, a muscular body, a runner, a writer. Each within my own terms, my own definition. I felt an appreciation for myself, for my life, an acceptance of who I was. I realized, then, that spending the energy on trying to “fix” my life – slow it down, make it better – was blinding me to the very fact of my life. It was (is) a refined egotism: I am content with all that I am. And it took me nearly 30 years to be so.

Most startling in this entire moment was the force with which my marriage suddenly struck me, how sharply it came into view. Over the past five years, my landscape has been blurred with his, both of us in love with each other but not really differentiating or elevating that love beyond all of the other chaotic elements of our life together. But now it stood before me clearly, paramount to anything else. How could anything else have ever mattered when I have the love of the most amazing man in the world?
It was that thought, I think, that truly gave birth to my sense of refined egotism. He loves me. And if he sees something in me worthy of his love and his promise of a life together, then surely it must be there. And surely I can love myself for the same reason.

Both feelings – of the power of my marriage and of my newly-defined self-appreciation – are intoxicating. I smile more. I look forward to my runs. The gym is a pleasure. Even work is exponentially more tolerable. There is a happiness so profound that it colors every minute of my day; the sheer joy of being comfortable in one’s own skin is indescribable.

Life – at any age – is such an opportunity to grow, to be introspective, to wonder at the person you were and are and can be. At nearly 30 years of age, I know that, as long as I never lose sight of that, I will never feel old. I am just starting a new life, one unencumbered by self-loathing or wasted energy, one marked by an appreciation of myself and my marriage so sincere I feel it in every fiber of my being. I know that each year my age will steadily tick up, but by relishing in my life, my spirit will persist, ageless.

I wonder what I would be thinking right now if I ignored that gift of being alive, if I continued to be caught up in the blurred landscape. If, instead of using my milestone birthday to reflect, I chose to wage a battle against my age. If I continued to be blind to the limitless possibilities that the next 30 years could hold.

Perhaps I would just feel old.

Copyright © 2008

Cursing & The Soul

I decided, this past Friday, to stop cursing.

Let me note that I am passionate about my curse words: the freedom to accentuate an otherwise hum-drum sentiment with a well placed “shit” or “hell” was one I held dear. Mere anger can explode with power when laced with a few “assholes”, and excitement just seems more vibrant when colored with a lively “fucking” or two. There’s fire in cursing, a command for attention and a statement of precisely how serious you are.

And on Friday I extinguished that fire…or, at least, smothered it slightly and stomped on it half-heartedly; it’s hard to banish such a well-loved semantic tool, no?

The decision stems from a broader, much more far-reaching realization that so much of what I do – even seemingly mundane daily habits – is slowly poisoning my soul. This is not a religious awakening; I reference “soul” with a much more general intention. Remove the artificial, the superficial, the minutia and everything we so often to fail to recognize as unimportant. What remains – that concentrated core of humanity residing in each of us – is soul. It transcends religion. It is spirituality in its most organic form. And it’s being poisoned.

It seems a far leap from colorful cursing to poisonous soul. I am coming to realize, though, that with each utterance I both robbed myself of both my ability to weave language in masterful ways (or at least as masterful as I can be) and relegated the true passions of my soul to some quiet corner, where no voice is given them. The English language is blessed with a ripe and robust vocabulary; surely I, a graduate in the study of the language, could capitalize on it without resorting to the tired and uncreative realm of curses. Likewise, wasn’t I confining my communications to the arguably limited world of the simplistic “shit” “damn” and “fuck”? Isn’t what I held inside myself so much more ponderous, so much more worthy of discussion? Yet I ignored this, choosing, even enjoying, to operate within the safe realm of the common, the acceptable, the simple.

You see, this realization is two fold: most noticeable is the deterioration in my communication skills and the surrendering of any command of the English language. But beyond that, and more importantly, is that there is a soul within me – there is something within me that is deep, significant, passionate…and ignored for far too long. Painting simplistic language with curse words rather than exerting the effort to deepen the language is merely symptomatic of a systematic failure to acknowledge the soul. It’s easier to curse than carefully select meaningful words. And it’s easier to coast through life worrying about money and clothes and American Idol rather than find and nourish the truly significant.

Lost in all of that coasting is the soul, that core that makes me human, gives me dimension. It’s poisoned by my ignorance of it. Caught up in everything that society tells us matters – the corporate success, the bank account, the luxury car, the expensive school, the luxury vacations – I am finding myself feeling anything but fulfilled. On the contrary, there’s an unsettling feeling of emptiness, a growing wariness that maybe society has it wrong, maybe we’ve all been chasing an illusion of happiness, an imagined oasis in what we’ve contrived to be a barren world.

I’ve never felt this before: life has never been barren or empty for me. And it cannot be a coincidence that only after chasing an imagined happiness did the world seem devoid of passion and joy. Only after I dismissed the soul as too weighty, its passions too much work. Only after I embraced the easy path of superficiality. Only after I learned how to curse and forgot how to talk.

There is a soul within me. There is power within me – beyond the power of a well-placed curse word or of a corporate title. There is reward in the work of cultivating that power, be it the perfectly-crafted sentence or the deep, transcending feeling of true happiness. There is a cathartic joy in deciding not to curse anymore.

Copyright © 2008

Solid

He runs his hand down
my spine
the fingers linger
mindlessly on each
defined ridge
his touch not
arousing but comforting,
assuring me that
I still have mass,
a shape:
that I am not
entirely invisible yet.

Copyright © 2008

A Note to My Family

So I am listening to Christmas music at work, and this one song comes on – you know, one of those depressingly melancholy songs – and it made me reminisce about Christmas growing up. How incredibly fortunate we were to have such a beautiful and warm celebration each year. I can remember sneaking around with Bill – purposely walking past the tree with our eyes closed just to build anticipation. Or leaving a note for Santa that was answered every year (funny how Santa had the same handwriting as Dad!). Or Doug INSISTING that Sputnik gets a place of honor on the tree. Or Dad holding Mom up by her pants as she tried to get the old glass ornaments high up on the tree before we destroyed them. Mostly, I remember how fun it was. With Manheim Steamroller playing in the background and all of us lounging around the living room. I think how many kids (or parents) never have that sense of warmth and of belonging. How many associate Christmas with materialism. How many rush to get out of the house because they can’t stand being with family. How many struggle just to find enough food for the day.

People wonder why I love Christmas so much.

With those memories, how could I not?

I love you all.

Emotions Spill

Emotions spill out of me
Faster
And with more
Force
Than I can handle
Anger, to the point
Of silence
Then an overwhelming
Joy at some
Moment which I don’t remember
And that begets such a
Sense of sadness
And despair
I am stuck here for a minute
In despair:
It has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?
But then gratefulness for some
Random kindness suddenly remembered
And just as soon forgotten as I
Am overtaken by rage
Shaking, blinded,
Angry stabs at the paper
(but strangely the words come easier now;
Rage the most powerful
Of all inspirations)
And exhaustion
Exhaustion
But not sleepiness ,
The current keeps flowing,
Restfulness, agitation,
As awkward moments,
Embarrassing gaffes are
Relived
Regretted
These, too, find their way
Into my poem

Copyright © 2007

Fabric

I watched a woman
In the store
The other day
She was touching
The fabrics
Of the clothing
Her fingers skimmed down
A beautiful turquoise silk dress,
Lightly trailing along its softness,
Relishing the vanity of it,
Her eyes closed for a
Moment as the silk
Slid along her palm;
She paused, and her eyes caught
A velvet coat, purple, with satin trim
She let her hand rest
In its luxuriousness
A full minute, fingers
Sinking into the purple fabric
As if nesting, relaxed, warm.
Her hands found texture
Worth relishing
Even a simple cotton shirt,
Holding it, almost tightly,
In her fist, perhaps
Finding strength
In the cotton’s sturdy nature;
A lace scarf delighted her,
Tracing its intricate design
Slowly with her index finger,
The gracefulness of the lace
Echoed in her soft movement.
She turned
And walked out
Without purchasing a thing.
I was left with the feeling
That she went home with
More than any of us,
Though, who never bothered
To feel the fabric with anything
More than our skin.

Copyright © 2007