Memory Fades

Do I forget
What things may be gone for good
Let the probe touch just that spot where
My grandmother sits with blue smoke curling
Between lip and nose
And I am before any entered
Touch another memory and
Marbles are pushed in the dust
A circle is drawn for the game
How do we hold
The ones who are already gone
Without recalling who we were
Before the person we seem to be
Forgets today as tomorrow begins

After

Say it one more time
That lovely thing inside
Green hills and your hand
Villages in the distance
We shall never go
Call back your kindness
The wonderful newness
A blue sky pierced by your lens
Old stone steps you walked
You captured our history
Fragrant life of painful loss
No lecture could explain
Where grass grew long after
We were dead and gone
And all that promise
Swept away as scattered atoms
No one else the whole world over
Has any knowledge of our dust
And all that might have been

gray and buzzing squish

something is constantly buzzing
low or high
morning and night
underneath every moment
this noise
one thought, two thoughts
blue thought, new thought
deep thought, fleeting thought
and all arise out of gray squish
no invitation was sent
no purposeful intent
nevertheless they arrive
file through, perform
some are familiar and tiresome
some are brand new in time
and the world keeps on turning
and the universe keeps on expanding
and atoms keep moving apart
entropy is a contradiction
we are stardust on earth
and all these thoughts that buzz
all these unbidden thoughts that arise
the familiar, the hooks, the novel
we discover galaxies and name them
we vicariously explore the red planet
yet these buzzing thoughts
no idea from whence they come
no idea where they go after they arise
mysterious winds within and without

The Learning Who We Are Together

Palm to palm our bodies locked in wonder

Fierce desire pushing memory out

Every turn of earth the moon is chasing
Here we are flying through this galaxy
Stargazing from where we lie entwined
My head rests upon your naked chest
I hear your heart beat steady deep within
This orb rushes us toward the unknown
Alert asleep separate together whole

Morning Haiku

Morning Haiku

I love this high bed
I get to sleep all stretched out
Diagonally

If there were a man
Sleeping at my side he might
Not have enough room

What if my man fell
Out of bed because of me?
He would wake with a thud

Say I had a lover
Who pulled me close while we slept;
Would I dream this much?

I had so many
Dreams last night; no surprise. I
Wish I could show you

If I had a way
To capture my vivid dreams
You would understand

For the time being
I love dreaming and sleeping;
Do not wake me up

Written while lying in bed the morning of September 20, 2012

As I post this, I am laughing to myself at how much last night's "evening haiku" sounded like one poem, made up of stanzas. Same with this one.   I actually wrote both--all--of these haiku as separate, free standing verse.

I had been thinking, the night before, about how much I'd love to have a wild and brave man lying next to me, but when I awoke, I realized that some of the time, anyway, I just love sleeping all by myself.  However, this is probably a moot point because out of many hundreds of nights in the past handful of years, I have only slept next to one man, and that only for four nights.  He did not turn out to be nearly as brave as he pretended to be, much to my chagrin.  So, again, I set sail nightly in my own ship of dreams, my bed.   

Evening Haiku

Haiku for Bedtime

I climb into bed
The way I might climb a tree
Knee lifted up high

My bed is higher
Off the ground so that I am
Closer to heaven

When I lie in bed
Just before I fall asleep
I let go and hope

I like this high bed
My cotton sheets my pillows
Bedtime is welcome

One day I would like
To have a steadfast lover
Who sleeps by my side

Written lying in bed late on the night of September 19, 2012
Meant to be separate haiku, but they read like one poem.  So be it.

Three Little Haiku

Haiku for Right Now:

1
How I love to sleep
My bed is a ship of dreams
Morning comes too soon

2
How can this be true
I have to get out of bed
Time to go to work

3
I can hear the rain
It lulls me back to slumber
This is so unfair

Written lying in bed on the morning of September 15, 2012
'Twas raining out, and how I longed to stay abed and sleep.

night under light

in 1967 i dreamt of you
outside my bedroom window
i looked for you
too young to know how
differently i lived
you were waiting in the future
for me and i was on my way to you
years stood between us and
fate took its time
it tarries yet

when it gets real

still unaware like your primate brothers
too damn scared to stay
no strength outside your form
words pile up like armor
but lay down that shield
let go of being right
uncover your fear
uncloak your sadness
let me into your darkness
let me feel the heavy torrent of your life
pour over my soul like water
rinse the rigid rules from your mind
shake the earth from your blanket
gather me into your tentative longing
where man and woman are born
give way to this naked us

Prayer

Lord I need Your healing touch

I am far from the jostling crowd

Where a woman took some of your virtue

You said You felt her take it

And all who listened wondered what You knew

Jesus grant me amnesia

I am tired of trying to forget
My history of crimson expression
Loss seeps out and stains my life
And yet I do not give up this fierce fight

New Embrace

(a little blues to hum or croon)

We ain't got no need for trouble.

Baby let me loose to fly

No one wants a lover who's unwilling
With ego stiff afraid to bend

I got no need for books and methods

Be brave to let your history end

Circle like a mourning eagle
Piercing call for aerie rest

Cover me with tears and passion
Your tattered body lies above
Pull me down from highest heaven

A thunderstorm of naked love 

Lover let me lean into you
Press me to your heart and soul
Maybe I was born too weary
My shattered dreams my shattered dreams
Hold me, darling,  don't let go

discovery

I love myself for joy of heart
Love spills out and floods
The earth and washes the sky
And scours the sea bed

I love waking up to sunshine
A morning rich in new breeze
Each leaf trembles with possibility
Here come autumn fires

Give in to glory
There is mystery in living
Whirl in fragrant discovery
Of all that was hidden inside

Come Home

Sodding poetry
Limit: two per day
More than that might
Make him think about things
He has buried underneath
Layers of time and grief

Once he loved a girl
(This is how he remembers his life)
He has the trajectory of their life
Firmly in place and described
Although she died before they
Ever had a chance at all

Still he does not see that
All these years later he has
Never laid her love to rest
Too soon a frustrated woman used him
Just enough to thrill and confuse him
And ruin him for anybody else

Sometimes we live our lives as though
We are visitors from another galaxy
Nothing on earth is real
Someone is shaking you violently awake
Sleepwalking is a strange disorder
You do not know you have

Our Tent

under the covers
i want you
most of all
inside the tent
we have made
of words and hope

let the sunlight tarry
until dusk then
send it off to bed
night time never
fell so gently
on this earth

the world becomes
a whisper
you are now
the sky wrap me
in the cloak of
everything you are

how we transform

when compassion begins 
it awakens the sleeper
draws her up to light as
sunshine woos the seed 
out cold within the soil

something hurts and
something breaks open
a little deeper penetrates
the light and something
warm spreads through

the seed bursts open 
in wonder and change
silent pulse transforms to
tender green shoot
and rises through dirt

the heart is rent again
fissures in the dark
leak blood like blankets
wounds become scars
turn sorrow to surrender 

injury breeds two things
bitterness or love
we are all so broken here
jagged edges thorny brows
murderous ignorance

rain falls softly upon
what lies hidden underneath
blood seeps into earth
spreads itself like morning
coaxes compassion out of death