The Blackbird
The Blackbird
There’s a blackbird outside my window,
but he doesn't sing.
His golden eyes glow like horizons,
pupils like sinking ships.
He smiles sometimes,
his crooked smile.
He says “Embrace God
and embrace love;
Indulge in the silence
and enjoy words only half begun.”
I stand on the corner,
at the place where the crumbling curb
leaks like oil onto the road.
Someone spoke to me;
something about dreams and memories.
But I trudged on,
fighting the torrents as I went down the "mobway."
The ceiling has a murdered look,
something adults don't remember
and children can’t explain.
Ice drips down like fingers on a crooked hand,
reaching to pick up something dropped along the way.
Winds blow like deep breaths,
and hearts beat like waters flow.
That is where the blackbird sings.
He flies up to heaven on wings of wax.
He holds onto grace with knuckles white.
His mourning defines his day,
and his thoughts drift like secondhand smoke.
He loves like Hemingway
and dies like a bad joke.
But he still speaks to me,
whispering sometimes.
His smile is the same,
His laughter still fills rooms.
He still teaches about the good kind of love.
“Do as I say,
not as I do,”
he says.
“And the world will be
all the better.”
Maybe he was right.
I’ll ask him someday.
The Voice
October 2024
Listening to Wind
It is September, yet I can still hear the beach. The sea moves and swells; it tumbles to the shore, dusts itself off, then rushes back towards the sand. I think this could heal me: the sound of wind,...
I Bake America - Inspired by the "I, Too, Sing America" poems
If my life, my American life, was a table setting Laid out lovingly by all my ancestors. It would have the usual trappings: A garnish of good fortune, a pinch of the salt of stability, A hearty main c...
Need Less. Give More.
Need less. Give more. Stop looking for the sorrow in life. Watch the good things grow. Don't give up. Live your life to the fullest. Life is the one thing you can't redo. Find the joy in the ordinar...
Escape
With the curtains thrown wide we see the world gray and we know it's the fault of our own Spent far too long bearing crown, sword, and shield we forgot from what it was made and let's pack up our ba...
Getting Older
I'm getting older. I often struggle to notice. I'm with myself all the time, I know myself better than anyone. The thing I always fail to know is how much I've grown. I don't notice until I think ...
Nothing Can Reach Me Here
Sometimes the drive home is just too good to end. The darkness envelops the road ahead, the road behind, the fields of either side. Nothing can reach me here. The tires whine on the road's pavement,a...
Birthday #2
Aging is such a hard concept to get your head around. The world moves, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that you do too, in ways that are impossible to see or fully understand. You blink and suddenly...
Hand-Scrawled Lines
I want to breathe Both with looming skyscrapers, And mountains stretched high, To feel the sun Smiling on my skin, And cold water Enveloping me in a splash, To climb trees Not just to have a new persp...
The Blackbird
There’s a blackbird outside my window, but he doesn't sing. His golden eyes glow like horizons, pupils like sinking ships. He smiles sometimes, his crooked smile. He says “Embrace God and embrace lov...
To Be the Fox
Now, I know it may seem common, even shallow — to answer with such a simple thing, but 'tis what draws my heart — the Fox, silver fur, dancing in moonlight. Could I choose, I would be one with her, s...
Behind the Perfect Imperfections
Behind the walls, behind the fences. Behind the perfect, the imperfections. Swallow my pride, I am not constantly terrified, fearing for my own life. I live amongst jewels compared to others' scraps....
Ourselves
We are running from Ourselves Because we have built Ourselves As a single entity Connected by invisible strings Wiring the universe Together but Tethered back From living From breathing From existing ...
The Sky Was Red (No, Orange)
The sky was red. Okay maybe it wasn’t completely red. Kinda orange. A scene from "Dune" when you think about it. Just bizarre. Things like this usually don’t happen in America. (At least what some peo...
Credo
Those who are lost have forgotten the body does not stop or start at the skin, but continues to be one being. You are the world as much as the world is you. You are a patchwork of experiences, eroded...
The Ocean
I’m at the ocean again, and I feel at home again. The salt breeze always reminds me of seaweed, green string stitched into blue silk, brown tangles piled on the rocks' edge. I just say it all adds to ...