Tuesday, April 26, 2011

THE MINE


While in the desert,
I stumbled into a mine shaft.
Even in its depleted state,
I found hidden riches…
Once I survived the fall.

In this place of Death and
Wait,
Sight is not given but
Created.

While in the desert,
I stumbled into a mine shaft.
In this gaping tomb,
I found a chance to go forward and a
Way back home.


-For One Shot Wednesday http://onestoppoetry.com/

Two news pieces inspired this poem.  One was the story of a miner who fell into a Nevada mine and died there after many failed attempts to save him. The other was a report about how scientists study mines for clues about the earth’s beginnings and life on other planets.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

THE BOTTOM

We waited together, but
She got there first.
I saw her, as I walked up to
The bus stop.

She was small and frail in
Her tight blue tank top and
Way too big khaki pants. 
She looked like an ancient child
With her sunken face and
Concave chest that trembled with each puff of her cigarette.

“We just missed one,” she said as I sat down.
“That bitch saw me, but she just kept on going.”

As she talked, her hair,
As red as her thin cracked lips,
Waved in the breeze like the weather beaten flag of
A nation that has been long forgotten.

She muttered more curses, but I didn’t hear them.
I was looking at the dark pink scar above her chest.
She caught me staring.
Touching the scar, she moves closer to me. 
Her toothless grin reveals a darkness
Like a deep well that’s
Been waiting to reveal its secrets.

The thin low tank top did not hide it:
The memory of seared skin that bubbles,
Then crusts and finally smooths out.
What remained had the appearance
Of often used candle wax.

“That’s my ‘bottom,’” she said as she fingered the scar.
“Your bottom?”
“Yeah, he come for it, but I wouldn’t give it up.”
“What?”
“My last 10 dollars.  I needed my ‘rock.’”
“Your rock?”
She saw the confused look of the uninitiated on my face.
“Meth.”

“Weren’t you scared?” I said.
“Yeah, but I needed it.”

She went silent and looked down at her feet
As if she was admiring her white high heeled shoes
With yellow at the tips that covered her toes,
A yellow with the hue and curve of a small just ripened banana.

Still looking down, she said as if talking to herself,
“I cried later when I got straight.”
“I almost died for 10 bucks.”
“I quit after that.  Been sober for nearly a year.”

She turned away from me and
Took another drag of her cigarette.
Then, she used a free finger to dab a piece of debris off of her tongue.
She examined her find with great interest,
Totally oblivious to any thing around her.

I saw our bus off in the distance.

WHEN ETERNITY COMES

When eternity comes,
We will stop protecting ourselves
From our feelings
With words that confound like
An outstretched hand that,
Alternatingly, pulls close and pushes away.

When eternity comes,
We will embrace truth and refuse to utter
The niceties that feel
like the kiss of a reluctant lover; 
a pout planted flatly on the lips.

When eternity comes,
We will reject shallow beauty
And embrace the
Penetrating wit
That is our birthright.

When eternity comes,
We will leave the banality of this life
To those who fear the fall.

When eternity comes,
We will, finally, give ourselves over to
Flesh that does not obey.

REGRET


The cry is not heard.
The grief can no longer be consoled.
The knowledge comes too late.
What we took for second best was, actually, first.

Friday, April 8, 2011

THE END OF THE AFFAIR


Your eyes-
speak recognition,
mine…loss.

LOVE


Love,
Without self-consciousness
Gives of its self,
Expects nothing,
Lures everything, and
Has no rival.

LOSS


I search for the meaning
amongst tiny bits of wreckage that
dance in slivers of light and
quickly disappear.

I try to touch,
I can't.

There is nothing to embrace,
except,
the forgetting.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

THE TWO

Inevitably,
we wake to
an inscrutable restlessness
feeling our mutual masochism:
the perfunctory invasions
the passive depletions.

Presently,
we are united only in our regret for
what has been lost and
resentment of the instinctual and
inherent pull.

Fearfully,
we persist, because
we know that partings do not
always lead to better things.

Silently,
we endure until
the fear of paralysis becomes greater than
the fear of the unknown.

Finally,
we part, but
the taste of the old love lingers
in our memories
forever
like the tastes on the tongue:
bitter, sour, salty, and sweet.