aayoungi blame robert frost
his cold methodology
his need to fill disused graveyards with
death’s dazzling white snow glamour
a slow creep crystalline across
an already shattered windshield
i blame robert frost
as i cannot blame
my father
my friend
or an absent god
for them forgetting
they had promises to keep
ice blue shimmer
swaddling a snowy city
morning is being delivered
at the library’s
side door
i crosswalk dash
through breathy billows
from my rose red lips
a parliament of cellos
cooing ave maria to a piano in my mind
focused on the coming coffee and time clock
when the man walking passed me
lifts my trance by smiling
sweetly, simply he says,
“beautiful…”
she adorns her hair
with holly leaves
cardinals singing carols on
her sweater sleeves
crushed rose petals lips
angels for earrings
a scarf woven of silvery tinsel
each candle lit
a prayer for earth
sent to the mail room in heaven
all this
and a love poem
on Christmas Eve
Winter has been left
at the altar
by Spring
in a Kentucky church
full of faded wood panels
battered hymnals
pews creaking with
suspicious Baptists aghast
carrying tissues
judgment and peppermints
in pocketbooks
bathed in beams
of stained glass light
containing confederate
dust particles descending
certain of
gossiping daffodils
and death
winter
was a crime scene
blood splattered onto frosted windows
red lipstick curse on the vanity mirror
high rise
victim dismembered
meat rotting
in poorly wrapped packages
to be toe tagged
orphans whisked away by the government
appointed neglectful
pearls fallen across the sticky floor
to a police radio symphony
Mahler fatalistic
smug detectives
sipping black coffee
no sugar to be found in the city
a glib act
notebook scratches
with no hope for answers
or finding the perpetrator
who caused
the whole mess
“Every mile is two in winter.” – George Herbert
January
has a way…
of making atheists
of Englishmen,
country folk,
and poets.
It’s as though
they have forgotten
their prayers
and the inevitability
of cherry blossoms.
february 2cd
(cue booming hollow sports announcer voice)
super bowl SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY
ground hog day
on which
punxsutawney phil saw his fictitious shadow
in the epicenter
of manufactured battles
man vs. weather
man vs. processed cheese polymer
man vs. traumatic brain and spinal cord injury
my war
is that my personal health is at a tipping point
the choices i make now
will determine the length of my life
and my overall wellness
2014 must be the year i stop
abusing myself
with smoke
with drink
with bad jobs
with bad men
my sons are 18 now
i choose to see them live as flourishing men
i want to put my best face forward
for the coming apocalypse
this leaves me with only one drug
words
my sword dipped in ink
in the contest between good and evil
good wins
know why?
books
kisses from children
and puppies
but even they won’t stop the earth
from feeling the need to
cure itself of us
we are coming to our unpollinated end
so all you lesser demons can fuck off
i would tell you i love you
so loudly
the next-summer crickets would hear
if the gods turned out the lights
if they failed to hang the stars
because they got weepy drunk
one lonely winter night
he was
beautiful and brilliant
more talented than most
in countless things
quick
agile
cunning
sharp tongued
smooth
well traveled
and tastefully dressed
he knew the password at every speak easy
in brooklyn
and the drummer of all the world’s local bands
i remembered the way he loved me tonight
during the three hour drive home
in the white death
passing cars stranded
off the road
a three car pileup
and people bleeding
even the plows couldn’t get to us
but not me
because
he found me all weather tires
at good year
researched
and saw to everything with one phone call
even made sure the men were extra nice to me
yes
he was each one of those things
the way all the best monsters are
fuck him
for my remembrance of this
for this poem
fuck him
for being a tragedy
woke up this morning
full of
would-have-been-words
and the calm which descends
upon a woman in her mid 30’s
who fucking knows
exactly what life
isn’t planning on giving her
and what it almost did
my six year old frame
was just one of dad’s bottles of canadian mist
and a few tiny white pills away
from being raised
in abject poverty
in a town so poor
even the mayor is on food stamps
no escape no escape
thank you for having the good sense to die, daddy
so mama could drag me to the safety
and fluoride filled waters of the north
because i’m 400 years removed
from indian princess
but only one generation away
from the whitest trash on earth
you spared me the fire
the dropping out of high school
the five snotty lice ridden children
and worrying
about sealing the broken trailer windows
in plastic sheets
and kerosene heaters burning
the half retarded baby
come winter
you spared me from a walmart complexion
mcdonald’s thighs
and the crack toothed meth head
transient sometimes truck driving husband
who beats me regularly
now here i sit
too educated for my own good
i’m damn near intolerable
and my most cumbersome problem
is that the dog keeps dragging
my expensive plum robe from nordstrom’s
to the couch to sleep on it
i’m mixing irish cream into my coffee
fully aware of what class i’m boxing in
grateful for the blood
on my teeth and tongue
i could have been helpless
but instead i’m merely wasted
and enjoying the life
of a bourgeois drunk
jesus turned water into wine
before he got put up for the night
but you, father, in death
turned regret into gratitude
that’s a god damned christmas miracle
if ever there was one