Daily poetry 2012

I love this poem so
much, I wrote it instead of
falling asleep at

a logical time.
I needed to say this so
I could turn in for

the night. Love poems take
dedication and proof by
lack of sleep. I court

this poem and bring it
flowers. I want it to be
happy so I can

dream in peace. It’s a
bit demanding, but I want
to lull its eyes closed

with a serenade,
a quiet aria. My
poem, you are my heart.

I served them ‘til there
was nothing left, she said. My
force has been exhumed;

exhausted. I’ve turned
into dust from the fertile
field I used to be.

‘You have to serve
somebody’, he sang, but that
was only a song

sung with a funny
voice, a bit out of tune, like
a raspy wheeze you

might hear sitting on
the 36 bus going
north on Broadway from

the Gold Coast on the
way to Uptown. It’s packed and
neck full of bad ideas.

Never work a day,
life’s a perpetual couch.
We relax much more.

Theoretically,
it shines on us. We’re
all made of it, and

its glint is strong and
blinds us. Takes us years to get
acquainted with its brightness;

strangers, and shadows
cast in cold. Shivering and
stuck to the metal;

frozen quick, we pray for
warmth. Star stuff, but not entirely,
we beg for moisture

and air. We aim ourselves
to breathe. The rock astounds us,
but we exhale over

air, water, earth, fire.
We long for distant stars, but
fear intimate contact.

This will be secret,
a solitude poem, a sweet
little place that we can

make our home. This poem,
a cabin off the rural
highway; it’ll take us

to the trailhead’s mute
and tranquil gate. A humming
bird flew by, so small.

It required solitude,
a day’s drive to Albert Lea,
winding bluffs and calm.

Talk of music long
past, creative projects and
longing for where it

disappeared. ‘You have
the soul of a healer.’ But
no, I assure you.

I once sang the hearts
out of skies and roads, and trees.
And danced the souls of

long gone gods. Different
then, I was a bird, the soul
of a wing catching

the breeze and writing
it all down, and flying
westward into clouds

These little stones were
reminders of when death strikes
so gently and one’s

soul is like water
in a glass bottle, capped
and quiet. I held

on to them, oddly
seeing the sacred in the
imploding silence.

Put them back in my
coat pocket, like stones from the
Paris Catacombs.

It was unequal
to how we saw it; it brought
the standard up. Good.