Standards and Guidelines

They took it apart

slowly, piece by piece.

One piece at a time—

labeling them clearly,

piling them neatly,

placing them gently.

They drew up the plans

and captured each step

of the deconstruction

for the reconstruction.

 

There’s a lot of trust

required of you

for tearing down

anything one loves.

History is a weight

not so easily displaced.

Losing even a small thing

can impact integrity

regardless of foundations.

 

You must make sure

to place each element

where it belongs.

Clear away the dust.

Refresh all the surfaces.

Clean all the edges.

Old things can be renewed.

They need not fall apart.

Failures

Sometimes people are exhausting.

 

Expectation is a trap.

 

That time we stopped talking.

 

I have always walked with a limp.

 

I’ve always been an internal processor.

 

Please see your dentist on the regular.

 

There are some things from which you don’t recover.

 

That night you never came to bed.

 

We spend too much time rehearsing arguments.

 

We have all played the waiting game.

 

I bear the weight of too many transgressions.

 

How many times have you said the wrong name?

 

Maybe there is still more to say.

 

Maybe we should both walk away.

failing

sometimes

you just need

someone

to say it:

you are good.

 

not just good—

really good.

 

i mean really,

really good.

 

so good

it hurts.

 

especially when

you fail, or

feel you’re failing

 

or keep failing, or

flailing

 

in the fields,

filled

 

with promises,

or regrets,

 

or maybe

both

 

and.

Testing

You asked me to dance

and I wanted to dance.

 

You asked me to sing

but I didn’t know the words.

 

You asked me to love you

and I didn’t know how.

 

You spoke of friendship

but we never really spoke.

 

About the heart—

is it desperately wicked?

 

Or merely deceitful?

It is full of grasping.

 

I constantly fool myself.

Hold onto the wrong thing.

 

I have played the fool

too many times to count.

 

I am so full of foolishness—

Incandescent.

 

Bones burning within me

in the depths of silence.

 

Lay me on the anvil.

Fashion me a sword

 

or leave me a ploughshare.

Just break the skin.

My first poem

I don’t remember

when I first fell in love

with poetry.

Every grade had poetry;

every year we wrote

a poem. 

              Or two.

But there was never a moment

when poetry stood up and

announced itself to me.

                                      Or two.

 

I do remember,

however, discovering

e. e. cummings—

for the first time

poetry seemed playful,

or that t(here was a mystery)

to be discovered;

that language was

a puzzle

to be put together

and taken apart

to be put together.

Even now,

he and Donne remain

my favourite sonneteers.

Sonneticists? Sonneticians?

(O! no disrespect

  to Shakespeare

                           intended)

 

Remember:

to fall in love with poetry

requires you to keep reading

poetry, to remember words,

ways to shape them—

to sow poems like seeds,

to perhaps hand them

to a loved one,

or a stranger.