words to heal a broken world
Home is where the heart is. When you leave home, you must follow the proper procedures in order to maintain physical integrity. Remember to have a loved one present to put your heart on ice after the gray, tattered angels pull it from your chest …
Walk me out beyond the boundaries of brownstones and townhouses and fire escape alleyways Away from the raucous of inebriated fireworks, jaw-shaking sirens, dumpster lids crashing at dawn to the tempo of the shopping cart peddler’s janky wheel before garbage trucks lay waste to salvageable …
Seven days steady make a habit.
So what is to be made of seven
days fifty-two times over
plus one?
One voyage around the sun spent
Noticing
The ways people spend
their time on the train
not
noticing each other
Root patterns crashing
through concrete, disrupting
footpaths and thought trails
The power of words to
loosen levees of self-doubt
and let flow litanies of
healing
Leaning
With trepidation into the
void of null thoughts,
placing pressure against
creativity’s blockade
Against palpitating
tension built behind
the eye socket, art
despite periodic pain
Training
An intrepid voice
to replace the one
that tremors at its
own echo
Grieving
Incredible loss
Celebrating
Unforeseen milestones
Prayer
To honor the Creator Goddess
Partnership
With a kindred brother
Visioning
Fifty-two more sevens,
pages yet to be written
On days when the wind whips sharply and with vengeance off the edges of the Lake and temperatures hurtle decads beneath the nulled degree, I find myself grateful for the warmth that comes with deep belly breaths and a second pair of socks.
More so than disembodied spirits
or the icy, blood-chugging undead,
or cracks that creak in the floorboards
when all signs of life are still and quiet,
I find terror in the cruelty that humans
can inflict upon one another.
The despots of history have
Impaled their foes from end to end,
gutted from bowel to soft palette.
Nailed limbs to slabs of wood
so that chests hung forward,
lungs buckling under the
weight of vertebrae,
death by suffocation.
Immersed essential airways into
depths of gelid water, causing the
mind to constrict while limbs thrash
Employed such technology
as barbed wire and blow torches
in exchange for information.
Idealistic battles breaking the human body.
Boys will be human beings who face their own emotions with vulnerability. They will use their words to express desires and listen deeply to the wants and needs of others. Nothing less will be tolerated.
The bar on the corner
of Lawrence and Kimball
plays muted Soul Train videos
on vertical flatscreen televisions.
Dancers’ limbs wobble,
distorted by the sideways slant,
threatening to snap like rubber
bands and disappear from view.
Piped in through the overhead
speakers, an indy jazz / neofolk band
The old familiar lost among the gentry
Speak to me of absolutes, inescapable truths haunting the human experience Child rearing households stir in small hour stillness, soothing anxious fits of fright, calming consternation beside bedframes The craving for community meets desperation for internal intimacy. Seclusion quarrels solitude, camouflaged as the latter to …