Daring Self-Love, I Risked Learning to Cook

When I first suspected this might be the case I stopped,

hardly able to taste the word I'd prayed for all my life.

I imagine floating, whole and golden, in mid-air, sound

surrounded by what contented angels sound like, sighing.

Music becomes food through a series of simple magicks

Having exchanged smudged forests for individual trees

that exist, I started to see possibilities I had missed,

(so obvious, this): just start with premium ingredients;

know how to allow them become their own eloquence.

Cooking is like Comedy, like la vie; timing is everything.

There is power in small details that gets lost in the dreary 

catch-basins of generalities: it is all the same, does it matter?,

hide everything under garnish... all these words want to do

is weigh-down, and take all the fun out of cooking for one.

I am not the magic, but I can know how heat conducts.

Try to learn the real names of the people who bring the food,

their families and their farms; savor the names of vegetables;

how flavors are layered; the best sources for everything;

and how the turning of the year sets different dinner tables;

how that simple, nutritious meal is my first act of self-love

How to Be Alone for the Rest of Your Life

First you must believe you have
telescope eyes that can smell
the future. Next, you populate
that time- not-yet with absences.
Name each one and give them
faces of people who have left

you already. Build this city,
this lonely city, from skin cells,
old love letters never returned,
and the memory of phone calls
you will not get to answer again.
Stir the wind up with this dust;

stir up all the dust that is dust,
that is what ashes become. Yes-
lay there in your sad bed, imagine
every bad thing, possible or not,
that is going to happen to you.
That you most certainly deserve.

At this point you have cursed
yourself enough. Bone links
and blood links; subconscious
making consciousness; bricks,
mortar, but not in that order.
A lonely city falling upwards.

You have presented yourself
with the key to this ruin inside;
you are sitting in a graveyard
of things that have yet to die.
as if a small, cold room could
be trusted to tell your future.

Mother's Day 2016

19 years of pain, both fresh,
and wounds that linger on
way past when they stopped
being scar-tissue. I miss you
Mother. Some years are better
than others. This year isn't
one of the good ones. You

would tell me we should
pull ourselves upright, show
up to work; let that be structure
when your heart bones break,
your legs are tired of years,
and photos holding nothing
but symbols and keepsakes

for loss. I wish she had lived
to see me rise up from crisis,
finally alive, human, present.
She died knowing I was adrift
and she could no longer help.
She tried to give me apologies
from her deathbed. I refused

to let her feel she hadn't done
her job. What mistakes were
mine, were mine; I absolved
her as an adopted child should
(were they as lucky as I was),
"Mother, you were always just
like a mother to me, every way

that mattered." I don't believe
in Ouija Boards; I don't feel
we should assume the dead
yearn to do anything else but
rest and move on to whatever
is next. Mom, I'm ok. Missing
you just reminds me I'm alive.

New Poem up on "Drunks in a Midnight Choir"

... which is a stellar site and you should go there and read everyone's stuff.

There... there is NO bad stuff there... at. all.

https://drunkinamidnightchoir.com/2016/04/30/hank-williams-the-ghost-train-ryk-mcintyre/#more-7006

The End of Things #12/30

(Another song lyric...in which our Author seems to be channeling Early Black Sabbath, maybe Dio. Then again, maybe Uriah Heep, so let's keep things in perspective, eh? Odd, me'thinks)


Lights are falling.
Heaven's come undone.
End of the universe,
or maybe just this one.
Either way, unsteady legs
knocked out from under us.
Turn off the radio,
I need someone else

that agrees with me.
Endings, beginnings, both
had little to do with this,
we just ran out of rope
when we got down to the end of our coping skills.
No need to hang ourselves,
just let go of everything.
Turn off the radio in case
the sirens start to sing.

(chorus)
Bloody skies overhead.
Beautiful, fiery red.
Apocalyptic myth.
But all I can think of
is your goodbye kiss
to all of this...

We can watch the falling,
cities into wreckage, ruined.
We can wave at horsemen
joking "How you four doin'?"
We could enjoy little deaths
waiting for the big one.
We could swallow Jesus,
and wait for Him to come.

(chorus)
Bloody skies overhead.
Beautiful, fiery red.
Apocalyptics predict.
But all I can think of
is your goodbye kiss
out of all of this...

Heaven is unraveling,
you can wear it like a wreath
The universe is being consumed
out from underneath,
and from the inside out.
entropy at the end of things.
If we could find a whole radio
we could hear the angels sing
goodbye to everything

Chorus
Bloody skies overhead.
Beautiful, fiery bright
In the end, unworthy
of Apocalyptic hype.
Still, the only place
I want to feel safe
is your goodbye kiss
to all of this...

Real Life Story: Trying to Be an Ally #11/30

Pardon the formatting. I cut/pasted this from a FB post I made that seem to resonate with a lot of people, shared many times. I share it here, again, not to be the hero of the piece, but merely to show how easy it is to try and be an ally to POC (and not just appoint yourself the title) and also, just how mundane and common systemic racism really is.
________________________________________________


"So, earlier today, a group of young black women (teens maybe?) knocked on my door and said "Hi, we're a group of kids that have rented out the space next door. We're going to have a party and wanted to say we might get a little loud if that's ok. We won't be here later than midnight."

Very appreciated. I've lived here for over two years and no-one has ever, ever politely informed me (or anyone) of their presence beforehand. And they were hardly that loud, even when groups of them were hanging outside. There have been heavy rock shows there that were much louder, with drinking outside (and bottles left on the lawn of my building) and none of them ever went around, introducing themselves to local residents as a courtesy.

I'm surprised later (and probably shouldn't have been, after all these kids were CLEARLY GWY&B-ing* (Gathering While Young & Black) all over the place they rented legally), when I see police cars show up. I see the young woman outside, talking to two cops who were acting as if they'd never seen the Mediator before. "Do you have permission to be here? You seem kind of young to sign a rental agreement. Is this an abandoned building? Is there electricity and running water in there?" You could tell he was kind of playing with her and/or trying to get her to blurt out enough info so he could have cause to shut the party down. He looked like he'd put in some years in the police force, so his claim that "I thought this place was abandoned" was pretty suspect as, The Mediator Stage is rented out nearly every night and a few times during the week (Also available for function rentals and I hear it's cheap. Guy who owns it is a nice guy. So... shout out to The Mediator Stage (who were not there and had nothing to do with this story, save renting the hall to the people.)

So, I go outside and say, "Officers, these fine youth actually went door-to-door earlier today, politely informing us of their party. This building is rented out frequently for a number of uses, among them open mic nights and a regular Sunday morning worship group. This is actually a Unitarian Congregation, and they are registered, as is the building, with the Unitarian Universalist Association, in Boston, MA."

Afterwards, I gave the woman my name and number and told her to call me if she needed a witness to that interaction, or if the police arrived again.

Later, when the night was over and youth were waiting for their rides, I heard some of them yelling at others "Get off those steps! You don't know those people!" so I went down and told them I lived there, and they were welcome to wait there, out of the rain. I understood their caution, but I was stating they were welcome to wait there, and if anyone asked, they could knock on the door, I'd be up for a while.

All this is not about me being the hero. I'm saying that it took so little to see something not right was about to happen and no real effort to help, and when I took the cops' attention away from her and other organizers (and where their line of questioning might be going) it was nice to be able to use a little of my white privilege to confound the system. Organic Judo, whatever.

But do you see America, how easy it is to be ok with each other?

So easy, a crippled old white dude can do it.

A Heaven of Starfish and Coffee #10/30

"I think when anyone dies now, we just say Rest w/Prince bc...Prince"

                                                                                        - Rachel Wiley
There are deaths that merely cease

a life, and there are deaths that change

the whole shape and cloth of living.

I wonder was the word genius easy to wear;

it would have to be, right? So many

people throwing it over your shoulders.

But you knew it is better to be naked &

those shoulders of yours smoldered molten

as you guitared, the way u sing, everything

you held in your hands given exact magic

you wanted it to become. Your mystery? Magic.

Every instrument quicksilver blessed;

how your throat caressed every sexy part; 

your heart was orchestra, your vision rocked

in every purple shade of praise and fire.

The first time I heard your music, I didn’t

know what to fall in love with first, I was

too busy shedding tight hetero-normal,

and dancing like a Kinsey 3. I don’t know

there’s another artist that was something

to everybody and everybody got something

My friend said your passing should redefine

the afterlife, and now, when someone we love

dies, we should say “Rest with Prince, bc…

Prince.” I agree. We can say “Dearly beloved”

we can say “Electric Word: Life” we can say

“They’ve gone to a better place, a place

of Starfish and coffee, of maple syrup and Jam…”