A Morning Ritual That’s Safe To Try at Home
The alarm rings
whether I want it to or not.
If not in reality,
then there’s always the clanging
in my head.
It’s time to get up
and more sleep
is not an option.
For the mirror
has already seen me.
My bladder needs attention.
And my morning breath announces,
“I just can’t live like this.”
Then coffee pats me on the back,
says, “Everything’s OK.
I’ll have you up and about in no time.”
And the bran whispers,
“Don’t worry about your indigestion.
I’ll take care of that.”
Only the raisins
bathe in their own stillness.
They don’t abandon that milk
until I swallow them.
Current Events
Log abandoned to the current
thumps against the bridge
to test its nerve,
then sideswipes the bank
before barrelling on its way.
All else is on shore and steadfast,
from the full moon
paled by rising sun
to the canoe, dry-docked,
oars buried in long grass;
and the fisherman,
tree trunk at his band,
line loose but for
the tug of a night crawler
as it withers out of sight.
The air is crisp
but the breeze gentle.
Here and there,
where light prevails,
clusters of red bellflower
infuse the day with blood.
The Gravity Situation
Another dream of flying—
why can’t I save some of this for the day
when gravity has at me
no matter whether I’m walking, sitting or lying down.
My night, my imagination
has it all over work and family, even romance.
Sad but with one of your soft, wet kisses on my lips,
I can’t levitate worth a damn.
I should have known when I bought this house,
leased the car, signed the marriage license,
that I’d be earthbound,
that Newton would call the aerial shots, not me.
But, at 3 a.m., you should have seen me.
I was soaring over rooftops,
across lakes, flitting in and out of the forest canopy,
even through the mountain passes.
It got so I couldn’t see the point of ever landing.
But then I woke.
The sun broke through, lit up the room.
Reality, that unfeeling prison guard,
put me back in my stripes.
You rolled over, gave me a hug.
“I love you,” you whispered.
Yeah, you and gravity both.
The Candle
I can take the candle to mean anything—
spirit, love, courage, stamina.
It can’t just be flame and wick and dripping wax.
Not when the storm outside
is ripping into sky like the horns of an angry bull,
and the thunder’s as loud, as piercing,
as the headaches of an elephant herd,
and the lightning shreds the night
into 10 billion pieces
that only the dark can puzzle back together.
The candle can’t just sit there,
throwing off its meagre light,
and not enter into our story.
There’s a torch to be lit,
a fear to be settled,
a conversation to flicker in and out of
with consummate shadows.
Refrigerator’s silent.
Lonely filaments curl up inside their dusty bulbs.
The house is husked down to its heartbeats.
They need the bodies only a candle can provide.
Every room’s pitched into blackness but this one.
With boom and crack, the outside makes its case
for being left alone.
Two people sit together on a couch.
It’s a small world, enclosed by shadow,
set aside by nature and need.
A candle is doing what it can.
Get Yourself Out There
Come out from behind
that grey door.
Quit the couch,
your sheltered sleep,
make contact
with forms of life
other than your own.
Get to the afternoon
before it fades,
wield the glare like a knife
to cut away
the gauze from your eyes.
Double, triple,
your sense of life
in waves of being
that dart and dazzle,
dip and rise,
flap wings or flutter in place.
Stay inside
and you may as well
toss your dissolute life
into a bottomless pit.
There are no enclosing walls here.
No frayed curtains.
No carpet scarred by cigarette burns.
Stub out the illusion
in the ashtray provided.
Step outside.
Step more outside.
Step so outside,
brilliant boy,
the sun will take it
as a compliment.
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image: jrydertr