Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Thunder, Free

Thunder, the gray even longer now
there have been better days.
Something closed and the sky
opened to its own defeat,
released a wall built on itself
and left me the rain
to walk in.

Thunder clap lay me down
to dream in clover, rolling
green and hillsides of
thatched rooftops. The air
is free and breathable here
and if you close your eyes
now and listen close, I swear
you could hear the sound of
pipes low in the distance.





...I don't want to keep feeling this way. They say silence is golden. No. Silence hurts, silence hurts.

Friday, February 27, 2004

Cover Me

Only when we are
together again for
the first time, I'll
watch you trace your
path through images
like falling snow
and shadows

Winding your way
along the ups and downs
across arches and long
stretches of my patience
I am waiting...

Cover me and show me
the ache from these
things you dream of,
how your breath can melt
frost against skin, tasting,
turning the tide against time
and distance, how longing
can overwhelm, how I wait.

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Rapid Eye

In the recesses,
collective you
with the sub-self image
under memory, under water,
under lock and key.
They were lost in an instant
those visions, only during sleep.
A mistake to believe
they could be found on waking.
And there it happens again,
that I was too lazy, too tired,
too cold to search room to room
for a pad of paper and a pencil.
If this was a quest for
a dream tonight, would I
have remembered those
circles spiraling knots and
overlapping like the rope of
a lifeline just out of reach.

Friday, February 20, 2004

Truman and Sterling

"Cheer up... It'll get worse."
He's the lead, he should know
these things, such perky banter,
and I'm listening, listening
to the overlays like hours in
the day expanding into the dark
with no way to and fro..
It's dangerous out there at
night, just last Tuesday, a shooting
right there on the corner, where I
turn, at the corner where Regional
appears in the distance...
I wonder, which of the four corners
heard the report first. A shot to ring
just once, grazing the arm of the
victim. Still something to consider...
"Oh cheer up, it'll get worse"

(One aspect to this poem: There's someone where I work who does actually tell people that... at first, I thought he may have been kidding. But as time goes on, with more and more of these changes at work, I'm starting to wonder how much of a joke he really means it as.)

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Text

Words so powerful they accost
my eyes, my need when I am alone
and you tell me how to imagine
your hands.
Words like heat, like rythm
built from the campfire
or the rattler poised to strike
in the foothills
of Yosemite.
I realized no sense of place
there then, or here now
except in the past,
so I say onward and upwards
and toward a journey which
is adventure, destination
known as passionate, peaceful

Monday, February 16, 2004

Watcher Of The Skies

In summer, twilight,
jeans on the beach,
feet burned and branded
now in criss-cross patterns
by leather sandals and the sun
earlier in the day.
Then as darkness begins
its seance, calling spirits
that appear upwards in distance
beyond miles...
The whisper of his touch
brings a comfort,
his hand having found mine
to lead me to that favored
spot suitable for viewing
with the naked eye.
This is the place,
and so we sit, waiting,
watching for them, one
by one. And the whisper
again, this time his voice
in my ear, conveying the legends,
histories, the science and magic
of the skies at night.

Saturday, February 14, 2004

Paper Machete

That frustration flies pell-mell at all of us
like a rude pinata swinging through the air
on a vine from branches of some ant-infested
skeleton, hell-bent as it is with a vengeance
on creating conflict within the ranks,
undermining autonomy...
"Take that," it screams to the next in line.
"I'll grab what isn't broken and fix it up
even better than before, blasting out miscommunication to an unheard of level, the decibels of such
silence will burst the eardrums
for the lot of you.
Will there not be anyone willing enough to stand against me after this? This decomposed shamble of organization, this hollow shell you see imploding under the weight of pure idiocy
before your very eyes? Before I'm done here, there will be no weapon, no paper machete strong enough to cut
through my red tape.


(I know this isn't all that appropriate for the day, lol. But I had to get this out on paper last night. ... and after I told myself and others I wouldn't think about work on my days off, haha.)

Friday, February 13, 2004

Amazing... I was planning to sleep in today since it is my day off. But here I am, up at 4 a.m. just like any other day. I find that once I'm up early in the morning like this, it's impossible to go back to sleep, so I'm up for the day, I guess. Just as well, I have tons to do. Get a plan of action and go with it.. a big move, simplify the accumulation.. This is the goal, and I take it seriously. Now that I have my space back, my dreams are my own, my life is my own, I'm doing with it what I choose to do. I have the freedom now to make these decisions for me, and never more have to babysit the tantrums of a videogame addict. Freedom... is good, is a new start from scratch, is being able to choose this.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Spooked

In somehow chilling ways that
the paranormal begins to haunt
with words, a combination of presence
growing in faith, dreams, images to
call home, to rest... to rest.
Full throttle, they travel east
from here with each step over these
grounded whitecaps frozen in time.
The air is bitter, unstable footing
and a twisted ankle, ice packed for
both. It was a force, for lack of
something more specific to recall,
that made me repeat those exact words
and then read them again for the first
time in spooked context.

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

The mood at work has been chaotic, morale is way down to an all time low, there's people wanting to leave, move on... and if the new management can't see that, they're more of a collective blind fool than I ever gave them credit for. It's all a mess.
I can't seem to get into a good writing mode lately. There's always something going on, at least for the past couple of days. I need to simplify things or something. Just cut out all the extraneous crap, like tv, even the internet, where I tend to browse all the stuff I don't really need to go.. such a time waster really, when you think about it. I think all that has to do with the fact that I was not able to access anything for a while. It's all kind of brand new again, so to speak...I haven't posted much, haven't given as much attention to the groups as I should have in the last few days, since I got back online.. That needs to change. So - I guess the word for today is "focus." Focus on what's important.
I'm tired of talking about work.. A friend from Lee's Summit came by last night and it was pleasant and everything but the conversation was mostly about how messed up everything is out there, and at the hospital I work at. Sometimes it just seems I can't get away from it, haha. When I'm there, I just can't wait for time to clock out, and for my days off.

Sunday, February 08, 2004

It's good to be back. Online. I've been away for a while with no access to any of my poetry groups, no email, no xanga... the list goes on. It's amazing how we come to depend on technology like this. Sometimes you take it for granted when it's there everyday, to use. It's a tool, faster communication, sometimes the only communication in some cases. And when it's gone, there's a big hole taken out of you life, like something took a big chunk of your humanity. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is communication is key. Essential to the well being of anybody, really. Take that away for too long and I would guess you'd have some type of dysfunction. Well enough "Deep Thoughts" by Bailey....
It's been way too cold out here in KC. Got some snow last week, ice underneath it. Makes for dangerous roads with no traction, hard to get to work in all that. They closed the schools twice... I know my daughter is thankful that since she's a senior she doesn't have to make up the snow days. What else...
The hospital situation is in chaos. Awful timing for that, with joint commission coming up in a few months. They're hiring an outside cleaning team to come in and make ready just for the inspection. Why do that when they should have been keeping some of the full-timers on to begin with so that we can keep up with things and on a regular basis the way it should be done, the way it used to be done. *grumble, grumble* Idiots. Haha, I even asked "Hey since I went through joint commission last year at Lee's Summit, do you mind if I sit this one out?" It was a no-go. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

Friday, February 06, 2004

Someone For Agnes

After ten years she sits
beneath a desk partition
that holds a telephone,
an appointment book,
a rolodex page dogeared
with the name and number
of the local vet.
Day after day she's there
near the source of communication
as if understanding the one-sided
conversations that sometimes
mentions her by name.
It's then that with ears perked,
the slow wag of a tail, one paw
after the other, she emerges from
shaded sanctuary, lifting
just her head; to move with more
energy would surely prove
too painful now. Day after day
the wait is for the one-sided
to change everything, the wait
is in vain, grows more tired,
perpetual, listless there, now
barely able to move, now fed
by hand, now the merciful has
been called for Agnes, and now
with the few final breaths,
rests painless forever under
a full moon.