there is a place inside of you,
a place that can never escape.
a place where you once were
but is now inescapably within
your mind. it haunts you,
but you haunt it too. you keep
going back, and it revisits you.
landscape changes as a setting
sun’s long shadows fade away.
presence, awareness,
awake now and breathe.
inhale. exhale. burdens
give way to small birds
sounding transformation
from nights into dawn.
all is silent in between.
are you here? waiting
at the entrance of a crumbled soul?
arranging the rubble to resemble
a door and knocking upon a hollow shell?
i am here. unable
at times to answer as i clear a foundation
and wonder whether i can build something
with a clearer view of our horizon.
a politician mailed a half
dollar to me and asked
for fifty in return to help
his cause. i have heard
preachers on tv promise
the same things in different
ways, always asking for more.
so i buried the half dollar
in a corner of the churchyard,
near the dead politicians
and tv preachers, imagining
the squabble taking place
on the shore when charon
stretches forth his ghastly hand.
breath and bones, heaps of walking ash
burned badly by life. the skin is an urn
lined with scenes and scars. smoldering
fires flame within as we exhale. smoke
dissipates slowly toward the silent stars.
what was it like for him
those few days when he slipped
somewhere beyond our universe,
peering into it somehow
as a child admires a snow globe,
lifts it, shakes it for a moment,
and waits for the exact time
to reappear within the chaos?
the lips of the dead
whisper no final words.
no comfort, no signal
of pain or rest. no parting
blessing or curse. only
the child’s vacant eyes
that never saw it coming.
– written after parkland
She poured the light
into the shadows
to give the day
a place to rest.
Now all is dark
except the flecks
of silver stranded
in the sky.
She ran away
to another galaxy,
where, I imagine,
someone waits
in silence, like me,
wondering if she
will ever return.
Now it is clear that he is
the object of his anger.
Never quite good enough
for attention or praise
from others or himself.
Enclosed in a small box
he peers through a tiny hole
at all that is marvelous
in the world, knowing he will
never be enough. Just beyond
what he can see, carefully
placed, are rows upon rows
of boxes whose captives stand
bewildered by the winter sky.
i shut everything down during the storm,
never quite recovering anything. so i keep
digging, searching, following the trail back
through the wound, through the pain, through
questions that have no answers. revisit the place
somehow. retrace the steps of sorrow and excavate
that life from the past – reconnect – have mercy upon
the soul laboring beneath the burden of my expectations.
Awaiting the Images 