NaPoWriMo 2025 - day thirty

1.      define “fool”.

2.      can you find it in a book.

3.      the foolishness of strangers can be a revelation (never mind your friends’).

4.      i have been foolish too (often).

5.      even so, i will continue to sing.

6.      or is it better to be silent.

7.      foolishness is a bitter fruit.

8.      is it something we share.

9.      i don’t have the answer.

10.  is it like worship; an emptying?

11.  am i repeating myself.

12.  i keep wounding; loudly.

13.  foolishness is an emptying.

14.  *

15.  words and actions / thoughts and prayers.

16.  promises. regrets. promises.

17.  i have been a fool for love.

18.  words filigreed about your waist.

19.  until you were buried.

20.  until you emerged again.

21.  until you were no longer afraid.

22.  or tired.

23.  desire is a fool’s weapon.

24.  it turns to dust in our hands.

25.  i didn’t mean to.

26.  what else can i do.

27.  i have suffered fools too often.

28.  all those words. and actions.

29.  such a fool.

30.  Oh! deliver me.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentynine

it could be worse
it could have happened
twenty years earlier
it could have happened
twenty years later
 
i wouldn’t trust myself
to make the right decisions
and you would have
trusted me too much
to make the right decisions
 
there are so many stories
i’ve never shared with anyone
there is no evidence
you can touch with your skin
it is better that way

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentyeight

Sometimes I talk too much.

*

(I have entire conversations in my sleep.)

*

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

*

The limit of my world is the limits of my language.

*

No ideas but in words.

*

You are not your words.

*

Are you talking to me?

*

You have the words of life. Or death.

*

I’ve wanted to tell you that for so long.

*

It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.

*

Come; let us reason together.

*

The right words in the right order?

*

That’s enough, now.

*

Use your words.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentyseven

We were looking for ways
to move a body through space.
And time. We were looking for more
ways to reflect the body
with words. With light.
 
We spent so much time
in the dark, light leaking
through the cracks.
Lines spidering the lens
every time the eye moved.
 
Or the body. Perhaps
the body is an eye, a hand, a mouth.
A song, a regret, a mystery to be solved
or never solved.
 
Or it is a surrender.
A decision to wait and keep
waiting. To fill ourselves
with light as it etches
the details onto the eye.
 
I wish only to see you
how I once saw you.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentysix

The corners keep getting tighter.
The edges keep getting sharper.
The margins keep getting thinner.
 
They told us to prepare for the future.
They told us “things will get better.”
They told us to just. Keep. Moving.
 
If only I had worked harder.
If only I had made better decisions.
If only I had said yes more often.
 
Let’s just keep facing the mountain.
Let’s just keep searching for what was lost.
Let’s just keep asking too many questions.
 
I can’t possibly do everything you ask.
I can’t pretend to “do it all for love”.
I can’t do more than that.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentyfive

go ahead,
fill your pockets.
or  empty them.
 
go ahead,
fill your hands.
or  empty them.
 
this is the hard work,
the things we carry with us always:
the ways in which we’ve struck out
in anger, or held tightly in fear;
the hurtful words spoken
in public or in secret, foolish
acts committed on impulse.
we begin again
once we exhaust our excuses.
 
go ahead,
fill your boots.
keep walking.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentyfour

They told me everything had burned.
There was nothing they could do;
the fire moved too quickly.
Like gossip. Like anger.
No one had taken an inventory.
How would we rebuild? How much
do we really remember? Years
of stories, milestones, memories.
Everything fades. What we once held
as true becomes too much work,
or the weight of marking time
throws us off balance, pushes us,
pulls us one way, then another,
the ground shifting, wind,
fire in the ground smouldering
for days, weeks, months.
Now we keep watch. We try
to keep our footing.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentythree

let your yes be yes
your no, no
 
we shed our layers
we trade our skin
for lies and imitations
so easily convinced
we are right
 
find yourself
another holy war
find yourself
a new enemy
in Gaza, in Ukraine,
in downtown Edmonton
we erase faces
we pretend we know
the reasons
for our judgement
our misplaced rage
 
we build fences
with words and excuses
we dig holes
and are caught ourselves
we cover our fear
with the latest fashions
forget what we want,
what we all want:
to be seen.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentytwo

just after sunset
just before sunrise
earthshine halo
glistening skins
sweat of our bodies
way we dance
we conduct
ourselves flash of
pleasure neurons
flaring like this
do this and
now do that
and right there
and right here
the sky fills
with light

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twentyone

We leave the doors open.
We leave the lights on.
Celebrate like it’s yesterday;
like it’s been 2,000 years.
The day becomes a week
and we celebrate.
Everything is sung.
Our mouths are full
of songs and feasting.
We greet each other
with holy kisses
as we have been kissed
by the holy.
We gather around the bread
blessed and broken.
Or shared.
 
What a day
to find ourselves
full of rejoicing.
A rejoinder
to the world’s great wound.
We say come and eat.
Let us find a song
to sing together.
You are welcome here.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twenty

there is always a garden.
and a tomb.
 
and spices.
perhaps an earthquake.
 
he is not here.
this is not a time for weeping.
tell your friends.
they may not believe you.
tell them again.
 
let joy be your witness.
 
let me tell you again.
there are many kinds of resurrection.
choose one. choose another.
this is a time for feasting.
he is still here.
 
here is a table.
and spices.
 
an empty tomb.
there is always a garden.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day nineteen

now there is only silence
and the waiting.
 
three days. three days. three days.
 
where do we place the body?
how long?
 
i was never sure what to believe.
all those stories.
 
i told you again and again.
 
it’s not all the weeping;
the gifting of spices.
 
the echoes of the past.
 
the portents of the future.
 
all of us sitting together
quietly.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day eighteen

1.      i don’t know if i have it in me. there are too many wounds. i want revenge too often. justice too rarely. i can’t wait any longer.

2.      i only have these words to bridge the gulf. i want you beside me. who you have wronged. stay here. or wait until my return. either way.

3.      i’m tired of you being alone. it is such a burden. is there another way of being a family. can we discover it together. there are promises.

4.      we have all been forsaken. i am tired of all the waiting. what is the use of hope. you left me here and i still reach for you. your voice. your absence.

5.      i am full of hunger and need. full of thirst and desire. everything i want is wrapped around pain. is that what was promised. find another way.

6.      nothing is ever finished. sometimes things are completed. i waited here beneath the tree and there was only darkness and rain. and silence.

7.      we will meet again. one day or another. it does not matter which. perhaps by a tomb or under the stars. with the sound of trumpets. perhaps, perhaps.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day seventeen

We have so many commandments
already. Make your lists.
Choose your favourites. Certainly,
no killing. No stealing.
Let people keep the things they love,
lest there be fire and thunder.
Lest there be earthquakes.
 
We were always bound to fail.
How to say sorry; how to bend our shame.
Let me shave my head.
Let me shave my beard.
Let me come before you
naked and afraid, or
simply face to face.
 
Let us wear white robes,
impractical as they may be.
We’ve been called to a feast:
bread and wine, oil and lamb.
Wash your feet and sit beside me.
Tell me the old stories.
Peel back the layers
and open up my ears.
My cheek on your chest.
My hand in your hand.
Only the one command.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day sixteen

How many times I’ve been a spy.
In the houses of lepers. In houses
where women wash feet with tears.
Where perfumes fill the air, and
we speak of funerals and goodbyes.
You tried to buy me with money
but my heart was already sold.
We all have secrets we carry with us.
Sometimes we bury them in the yard.
Sometimes in the back of the sock drawer.
Inside a book. An old pair of shoes.
I burn the incense. Sit in silence.
I play my role. I wear the right clothes.
I keep saying goodbye.
I’m not sure what that‘s worth.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day fifteen

And then there are
those moments when
talking is so easy
you forget how little
you really know about
anyone unless they
reveal themselves.
 
So reveal yourself
to me once more,
tell me what you know
about the things we forget
amidst all the talking.
It’s those moments
we’re looking for. 

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day thirteen

the drive was long
the evening quiet
 
the room empty
 
i keep reading
the same pages
i keep writing
the same lines
 
i hear people
walk the halls
 
though it is late
 
how strange it is
to be alone
in this room
away from home

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day twelve

we spent the evening
speaking of leaving
 
we spoke of need
how we find healing
 
the roles we play
with families and lovers
 
how we carry our wounds
and wound each other
 
how we wend our way
through our past
 
how we so often blunder
into our future
 
how we bury our shame
how we carry ourselves
 
how we are carried
through the moment
 
by a kind word,
a warm embrace 

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day eleven

unless
unless unless unless
 
if it be not that
 
we just keep repeating
the words
 
as if it’s an incantation
 
as if it can protect us
 
as if we could get on our knees
and pray everything away
 
unless
unless unless unless
 
we could make excuses
we could tell ourselves the lies
 
we could get on our knees
make supplication
 
let it be this
 
let us be prisoners

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day ten

We didn’t almost have it all after all.
When the children left we had to rediscover ourselves.
I suggested birdwatching.
You suggested cross-country skiing.
How easily we fall into distraction.
It’s too easy to always blame our phones.
We can’t always lose ourselves to pleasure.
At some point the hard work begins.
The direct and plain work of devotion:
with my body I thee worship.
I suggested we kiss more often.
You suggested we take more walks.
We find new ways to empty or fill the days.
We measure our reserve and return to it.
Full of patience or resignation or hope.
The hidden and dislocated things.
Whispering around the edges of our waking.
How they are fragile, broken with just a sound.
I suggested there should be more poetry.
You suggested there were already too many words.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day nine

i asked a question
you would not answer

(it’s none of your business)

(you said)

you asked a question
i would not answer

(how is that your business)

(i said)

i asked a question
i would not answer

(that’s my business)

(and?)

you asked a question
you would not answer

(that’s your business)

(even so)

(turnabout’s fair play)
(i said)

you would not answer

a question you asked

(i don’t trust you. yet)
(you said)

i would not answer

a question i asked

(we need some secrets)
(i said)

i would not answer

a question you asked

(that’s one's still fresh)
(i said)

you would not answer

a question i asked

(we are all wounded)
(you said)

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day eight

i can’t help thinking that
in some cultures
we would sit closer together
touching
 
we would share a meal
reach into the same bowls
sing the same songs
or learn the words
 
we would talk of our families
where they came from
the things we wish
for those we love
 
perhaps we would sit in silence
let our bodies tell the stories
slowly leaning into each other

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day seven

every time i eat an orange
i wonder why i don’t eat oranges
more often
 
i mean a good orange,
not those dry, pulpy, tasteless
soulless versions of an orange
you get at your local Safeway
 
i mean an orange,
skin thick enough to peel
pith from the inner fruits, sticky
finger carpels easily separated
 
the flesh firm between your teeth
juices bursting in your mouth
so sweet you forget to savour it
(i will admit to some involuntary sounds)
 
--but this is enough talk of oranges,
how to peel one, how some are bitter and
some are sweet; then again,
i may not be speaking of oranges.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day six

There is always one more thing to grieve,
One more memorial to loss.

The friend who turns away or
The one where distance and time
Create silence and it keeps growing
Ever and more awkward.
The thing placed in our hands that beats
With joy and somehow that holding
Becomes grasping and desperate
Without any space at all.

It is always someone or
Something turning strange—
The connection corroded,
Eaten away piece by piece,
Choice after choice;
Cowardice instead of courage.

Would that I were made of
Braver stuff. I am not
A hard man, though I have hardened.
I miss more things than I thought
I would have at this age. I thought
I was finished with this longing.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day five

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NaPoWriMo 2025 - day four

For our children, and our children’s children, and our children’s children’s children, and our children’s children’s children’s children, and our children’s children’s children’s children’s children, and our children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children, and our children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children, and.

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day three

NaPoWriMo 2025 - day two

you loved women
you loved books

you lost yourself
in both

the knowledge of bodies
a body of knowledge

this story we dive into
opening it along the spine

touch both sides
every surface a door

inside, outside
left, right

tell me where
to put my hands

how to hold
the book of your body

how to fold
myself into you

a confession
a new myth

NaPoWriMo 2025 – day one

the fool says
in his heart
there is no God

the fool says

in his heart

there is a God

i was a fool
for love and so i remain
a fool

i have said

so many foolish things

i regret still

so many foolish things
done in secret
in my heart

in my mind

every foolish word

spoken or not spoken

in my mind
every body
that ever fooled me

believing

i knew the truth

such a fool

falling fully
into every
embrace

so full

of foolishness

this heart

so fully
convinced
of every word

still so foolish

and still

not yet full