The trouble with Sonnets

Is that they don't write themselves. You have to

follow the rules and none of us like that.

Fourteen lines, Ten Syllables, like Twitter, 

only Shakespearean. It's like a song.

The first three stanzas, the verses, the last,

The chorus. It's also like the modern

essay. Body paragraphs are the three

quatrains. The final couplet? Conclusion!

The kicker is rhyme scheme: ABAB

This brings unity and harmony,but

It's hard.  Like a puzzle. But it's good too.

It forces verbose vocabulary.

In breaking the rules, I've struggled to show,

how important revision truly is.

Nothing is ever Wasted

Nothing is ever wasted, only spent. Time, money, calories,  all calculated parts of us. Pieces of past decisions.  Tools to determine how to proceed. But not things to regret. They are not useful to us as instruments of shame, although that is the preferred method.

These things are part of us, like DNA, but instead of determining our future,  they map out our past. A timeline of where we've been.

Maya Angelou said that when people know better,  they do better.  I think it's mostly true. But we also get ourselves stuck sometimes, playing out dynamics on repeat or in rhyme.

Our decisions are the rhythm of our lives.  The tempo of is being us. Figuring out what that means, for us and the world.

Our struggles may be an object lesson for someone else.  That badly timed move has ripple effects we never see.

I think that's the crux of it, to do all things with love, to the best of our ability.  The most crass mistake,  done with love carries our intent into the universe.  It is not what we do, but how we do it.

Yes the way we spend our time, money, and calories matter, everything we do has weight.  But not to create a burden of shame or self-defeat. Instead, it's the gravity we create, grounding us more solidly to the world.

Don't try to love me

Please don't. 
It ends badly.

There is nothing crueler.

The absence in the eyes of
your lit up face would
create a dissonance.

I would contort myself
this way and that, checking
behind my shoulder, from under
My legs, for
your approval.

Which would never come.

If the candle burns out,
blame the wind,
but don't say you can see
me in its light. 

Just walk away.

Balancing

At the root, I am afraid
of misplacing my trust again.
In my core, I desire
love's warm embrace.
In my gut, I know
I am stronger than
my fears.
In my heart, I know
I must heal from within.
Self-love is the key.
The words stick in my throat
I need to say so much.
I see with so much
clarity--how close I came
to losing myself, by giving
over too much.
I readjust my crown,
and remember where
I came from.

I am pure love.

The Secret

is that freedom is love.
Not corporal, but that too.
A free spirit who knows
and shows their true
nature.  Those who
feed us soul food
of encouragement
are angels.

Those who try
to drown our inner light
are devils.

Be an angel.
Make more angels.
Bring your light.

Shine with the sun.
Create new worlds.

Light the way.

Aping Breath

The gulf demands our attention, closes our eyes, empties our minds

so all we feel is her breath like heads on lover’s chests.  We anticipate

the rock of the ship.  It’s trying to ignore the breath, the life, that causes

motion sickness.  I know this from pregnancy—the only cure is to lie

down and focus on the life inside.  I do this with the sea, the roll of each

wave draws me into the life below.  Watching Lion’s Mane and Tiger Sharks

and Long-armed Octopus, I open my eyes when I’ve seen too much and stare

at the place where the sea and sky folds into itself like so many bolts of blue fabric. 

This is what brings Ahab, Pip and Starbuck together in one zen moment: the perfect

crease of each blue jutting against each other like a chair pulled up to a table.  We know the amorphous expanse of each, so watching the illusion of simplicity, with nothing to distract us, brings thoughts of other realities beneath other surfaces.  The Styrofoam cup

in front of me carries a history, links me to its first handler at the Winn-Dixie plant. 

This baby girl, Emily, and her loving grandparents, Bob and Edith, are linked

to my story as I stare at the bag of cheerios, packed to bribe silence.

Emily is me, babbling, gurgling happily despite the low angle of the morning sun.

I am the toddler yelling “Chase Braden!” to his brother’s friends as he squeals

on his Big Wheels down the street.  I am Brooke, five and practicing ballet as my friends

chase boys.  I am Brooke’s friends, playing with the neighbor baby, practicing for

motherhood; and I am Dakota, beaming at his brother, and bike racing his mom.

A Jumbie-bean pod on the pavement becomes all life and death, Dakota’s front tire

becomes my own, on Becker Street, with a Strawberry Shortcake bike.  Braden stares

in awe at a bird on a wire while I cry, not knowing who to be; the child or the bird.

Edith hums “Frere Jacque” to Emily, not knowing she is also singing  “Braden Mikey”,

Her voice becomes my own.  I am Bob, smoking a pipe and absently stroking dreams

from my hair under the palm frond umbrella at the El Rancho Hotel.  I am Jerry, reading

the Miami-Herald and drinking coffee after a dip in the hot tub.  I am Ramon, talking on

the phone with his girl back home, assuring her tomorrow will come soon; I am Walter,

Sleeping in the middle of the bed in a still dark hotel room, while my wife gently brings

in the morning with coffee and poetry.  All of us breathing on the same morning,

our lungs rolling like waves.  The Bottle-Palm fronds criss-cross in front

of white lattice, showing the way we still echo what’s already there. 

The human desire to mimic and contain lines and colors from nature

rages on—we want to bring the whole world into our

living room.  I want to sleep outside and turn my living room into the whole world.

Gossamer

For some of us, childhood only grants

A ghost of a chance, a gossamer

Thread of truth and right in the midst

Of the stony silent cave of our lives,

Lined with dank walls dripping with empty

Promises and forgotten dreams.

In the cold and all alone, leaning

Against the hard walls that line

All we know of life, we must

Ignore the dripping water, the formation

Of the staligmites.  All movement

Leads to  stagnance all around us.

We must close our eyes and hold

Out our hands, feeling for the spiderweb

Strand of hope, careful

neither to let it fall from our grasp,

nor to hold too tightly, making it snap,

dropping the end in the muck

losing, forever, the line that spells

freedom of the soul, freedom from

fear, freedom from the desolation

we see around us, freedom from the

isolation that haunts us. 

That single thread of truth holds the

Promise of nights not lying in stoic

Silence, afraid of the boogeyman

Waiting to snatch our dreams the

Second we awaken

within our Subconscious. We must

hold that thread with brave tears

and trust that we will not always

feel alone and not quite of this world.