Muscle Poems

                                                                    —-tribute to e.e. cummings

 

I find aspects of their personalities furnished, while I’ve got a sweet garnish.

 

 

 

Men will say exactly this:

“In heavenly realms hell has dwelt.”

She swells in the glow of them,

Though she laughed and ran,

Hoping they’d melt.

 

 

 

You can’t eat a dollar bill when you need a piece of pork or steel.

 

 

 

An “us” town is not so pretty.

 

 

 

“all nearness pauses” when that moment inches to the face, the seal the deal moment, the one I’m most afraid of. I hope I don’t pull back, or more, I hope they reel me in and don’t give me any more choices.

 

 

 

I found

This time the cigarette to blow a bubble of despair into my lung. You think, well, when? Yet for now, a relief from the bump against the thick membranes of happiness that surround me, supposedly.

Thin as I was on that diet for years, I realized I was also very, very lonely.

Sorry, sir, I cannot cry here, but the recognition is, if I pass you by, how can I say God? My lonely. We already believe such a pollution as that has “thickened the veil.”

 

 

 

“since feeling is first”

Since feeling the first time,

The first you, the first touch,

I am surprised if I do not

Faint only a little later than

I thought I would.

I “take back the tingling”

A little enough

To rub your whole back,

To swallow getting to know

Each other, (I hope it was you first),

I traumatized myself with love poetry,

And I make sure I look

Over your shoulder

To give you enough back,

To be enough.

                                     

Writing and music are coping skills

The news is for work

Work is for the birds

To carry messages to the world.

 

A release for suppressed frustration at a collective low self esteem.

 

The violence in the middle of this country truly looks like everyone is packing a gun in their guts. Hospitality has run out of homes, no place to be a hero, a state of unspoken solidarity bearing a code on how to greet strangers, a don’t ever come back or in, because not all towns are said to be asleep after all.

 

 

 

She communicates to people a natural non-judgment about the reality she approaches, and especially the one that affronts her.

 

 

You are feeling people’s panic, but looking around there is no commotion. Cloaked in a fear merchant’s shroud, you can yet feel the signal from animals encroaching, across the field. The slowly approaching, the crawl of the forbidden allure, the attraction of enemies we must go towards. Because it is the end of the road, or end of the world for both.