mornings

i wish to live a life of more simplicity

a life in which yes means yes and no no

though i admit to more disappointment than success

i am far too easily distracted too often

amused by activities that don’t bring joy

it’s not the same as evenings filled with reading

rubbing the stories into my skin like lotion

trying to keep everything soft inside

i find myself wake late at night

watching the light creep across the walls

the minutes slowly advancing to the morning

my hands empty with yearning

entry

where the palms?

where the donkey?

why all the cloaks?

why the procession?

what other branches?

all this green.

how many candles?

find me the evloghia—

where the blessing?

what time of day?

what is the meaning?

how this mystery?

how this victory?

first the weeping.

then the joy.

carve it into everything.

remember this

with ceremonies.

morning

Later that morning

I returned to the room,

gathered up my things:

the watch in the nightstand,

a pair of socks, toothbrush,

a pair of leather shoes,

fedora and a half-empty bottle.

There was no recovering

unspoken hopes and spoken

desires, broken promises,

the smell of sweat, dried

tears on the flattened pillows,

words spoken in the rush

of heat and release,

the uncertain future.

I will say the sun was shining,

the cold and wind bracing.

The finches sang their songs

and claimed their territories,

hawks watched them

flitting back and forth,

everything nervous,

shivering in the light.

the cloud

the cloud sat over the city for weeks

no larger than a man’s hand

and not even a large man’s hand at that

dogs howled and howled

all night and day     the birds

went silent as if afraid to sing

there was the occasional scratch of lightning

usually one thick skein crabbing its way

between empty road and captive sky

its announcement an itch on the eye

that cloud seemed a judgement

its thick inky presence seeping

into the streets and alleyways and homes

murders of crows the only croaking

sound jabbing the air electric

with potential     the fear     the waiting

they sent planes to test this apparition

that haunted our sleep     this imposition

that cloud invaded our dreams at night

and our conversations during the day

it felt like a judgement staring at us

implacably     like stone     every moment

hovering above us like a black sun

one day it dissipated on its own

somewhat anticlimactically    

the dogs stopped howling

the pigeons cooed     mice scurried    

the roads filled up again with distractions

until we forgot what it was

to face our fear and give it a name

slowly, but (version 2)

surely it pushes up ends this progress wends its way from somewhere deep within the “belly” of the soul’s secret the innermost being ascending into dust

it’s all well and good, but that sort of thing doesn’t go down well in these here parts all you can hear are the parts, that same old same old melody tripping down the memory swells of longing and what if? there is an answer and i asked all the wrong questions until it was all out in the open square of the city every crack a door for roots or stems pushing their little rhizomatic noses into every empty space until they are fully entangled like your locks the right question is a key, that makes me whole or even holy because healing is a miracle that starts small who knows when?

it begins when we stop begging