Query

what if I just stopped
answering
hypothetical questions?

30/30 #7 also #4 of Revision Series "My Stupid Heart" (2011)

There is something living inside of me
too fast. My heart forgets limits. It falls,
it falls and loses itself, rising and dives
like my favorite song, and I am dragged
behind it- unwilling passenger with all
my baggage. Surly actor in my drama
series. I carry a cane because I have to,
I want to. I want something to anchor
me to slow movement; I want to come
to a stop, safely. I want to live a while
before my body wears out and I'd like
to be able to enjoy the scenery as well.

When you accumulate age, things shift
around, but it is the gathering inbalance
that convinces me everything else hasn't
settled. It's just change waiting to move
around, because nothing is tied-down
to the ground, everything I am is bound
to everything I am. This is not life-web,
it's a web of fuckery I wove from whole
cloth. It's something i wear like a suit
made from lost chances, absent friends,
and missed signals. It is the loss I need
to feel warm in my own small, isolation.
It's the candle I use to curse the darkness

with; the flame I moth myself towards.
In the end, this is just another life story,
unremarkable; one of billions, and not
even one built of great accomplishments.
You could say that it has heart, but that
heart beats too fast, races over too much
ground to ever anchor itself to anything.
You could say my head is full of theater,
say the balance is thrown off, say I flew
too high and now just look at me: a man,
a cane, a heart that has taken me flying
all the way to the age I am, where I dream
of moving slow; my heart, a stable thing.

Blurred Photograph of Sharp Memory

I ran for years off the pain of memory. It's been
30 years and I marvel at the freshness of the hurt
I hold on to, harbor, treasure; the scarification
tells a story all it's own, fills in details as I recall

them. I have done this for years with out a photo
of you. Not one. My memory's still sketching
with a brush that exaggerates both the good and
the greatness of that love. It set my stars in circles,

overhead. Someone shared a picture: all of us
that summer, group photo, memento, a keepsake
I never kept. And although everyone is blurry,
caught at a cheap camera distance, the photo still

refuses to lie. That is you, standing next to me,
struggling with leaving. Us, holding on so hard
to each other for the last time. Time has frozen us
in the moment of counting what time we had left.

How to Become an Elder in the Slam Nation (a 30/30 haiku)

keep writing, don't die,
you give back, and try not to
piss everyone off

30/30 Revision #3 "This House is More Than Empty" (2012)

Radio carries ghosts in certain songs. Screen-door, left open, is unhinged, slamming, fickle with the wind. Food on the table, left mid-meal, goes cold. One chair askew, one chair knocked over. Phone is cradled, mute. Radio chooses that moment for Daryl Hall singing “She’s Gone.” There are two piles of mail, only one of them grows, calling for her. Lights stay off, day and night. Internet is desperate to please, will show anything, anytime. Dishes beget

more dishes. Refrigerator speaks in beer and microwave. Bathroom is a sad mess. Bed is half-haunted and hasn’t been slept in for days. Radio bargains “Come Back and Stay" for good this time..." Magazines get trashed. Who wants to be reminded? Porn no longer does anything. Radio sings louder, radio howls. Batteries died days ago. Radio rages “Ooh ooh Baby, I Want You Back,” Radio weeps “Until You Come Back to Me,” Radio surrenders...

“Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.”

30/30 Revision #2 The Clock-Cutter Confesses

Time is vital. Bricks are important. Both
of those things can be stacked. You can trust
things that stack well. They are reliable, possibly
very tall. Time uses the sun to cast shadows.

I have a job I do. I work with time. There is time
layered on my hands. I work in a chronos-mine.
I pick at time. Digging into a deep vein. And
stacking. Stacking, always. I am keeping time.

Time is tactile. I am paid a stack of days. I work
for time. It feeds me. Time to eat. Time to grow up.
I make things with it. I make a bed. Time for sleep.
Then there is dream time...

I have this dream. Time is in my veins. My blood
 is ticking. I need a doctor. I say something in time.
I am given pills for every hour. Time for medicine.
I have a job. I work in a mine. Until I got clocked.

I killed time. There is time on my hands, big time
and there is little time left. I run out of time. Now
it's time for justice. There are 12 jurors. One each
for every hour.The jury is stacked against me.

The prosecutor is on the court's time. The verdict
arrives in a timely manner. I had a job. I worked
with time. Now I'm told to do my time, hoping
I receive time off for good behavior, someday

to return to the mines. I've grown lazy, off
the clock, there is so much time left to waste.

The Words We Never Made

Human lips never learned to form
the word. We taught ourselves speech,
and breathing and kissing, maybe not
in that order, and we learned to hold
things close to chest, like each other.

We made a lot of words, many of them
from only four letters, but not that word.
It simply never occurred to us to name
that feeling; it was a feeling. You feel
those, you don't need to isolate them

unless you are trying to control things
better left unnamed. A word that anchors
things into a static shape, time, place;
binds feet, clips wings, calls things bad.
So much unhappiness in just a sound.

Whatever the world was, this time is
different and we never made that word;
instead talk of praise, as in praise songs,
praise letters, and those three little words,
I praise you. We never made the other

word, so its four-letter mirror reflection
was never made either. We substituted
praise for one idea, and never worded
the other, period. Our language works
better with Love and Hate  unnamed.

30/30 Revision #1 Prayer for Impostor Syndrome

It's the learned language of the abused, "Congratulations!
...you fooled them again, you fraud." after anything good.
How I can be sure the only thing close to commendable
is my illusionary juggling skills, keeping so many pieces
of utter shit I call "anything" from falling to full failure.

I am the things that lie to me the most, more than mirrors
and the way they hiss...hideous; more than happenstance;
even when I win I am positive I'm not worthy of Good
Things. I feel the need for caveat as much as confession,
I can never apologize for myself enough to be forgiven.

Here is to the wounded, here is to survivors, to those of us
weeping over broken mirrors, a finger's edge from falling.
Here is to the ugly ducklings, and swans of every possible
feather; flaws that blossom as sidewalk flowers, and weeds
that are amazing for the way they feed us medicinal gifts.

Here is to the lonely, may you be met. To the broken,
may you see  through that illusion. To the isolated, you live
in a time of instant message, you don't have to be alone.
To anyone who never before dared whisper "I am beautiful"
to reflections until they used a mirror they built themselves.