Biography written by a bystander (#329)

His clothes don’t quite fit him right.
He is waiting until he loses weight
Before updating his wardrobe.
That’s been the plan for the last 15 months.

He changes his name when ordering his coffee.
He goes in alphabetical order.
Today he is Gloria.
Tomorrow he will be Hieronymus.
The baristas know him and usually just write Bob.

He actually likes clowns and spiders.

His father taught him to never lie about facts.
Only about feelings.

He drops pennies from his pockets
Hoping little kids will find them
And believe in luck.
He used to believe in luck.
Now he believes in foggy days.

His mother no longer understands him.

He prays most days,
Creaky knees bent and hands together,
But he spends the entire time
Apologizing to God
For not believing in Him.

Yet he still believes in foggy days.

When he sings in the park
On his daily walks
He hopes a random stranger
Will join in and write his biography.

Today’s song is Seasons of Love.

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after the rise comes the fall (#328)

when did I start writing
more about death
than about love?

notice the waves
leaving the shore
instead of breaking at my feet?

when did I give power to fear
instead of hope?

feel my breath escaping
instead of filling me?

when did I start counting the silences
between my heart beats?

look toward the shadow
rather than toward the sun?

will I ever let
Spring come again?

 

Friday, 2:15 PM (#327)

Today
I watched a woman
Dressed in jeans
A lavender blouse
And black flats
Walk straight into the ocean waves.
She did not hesitate nor flinch
Until she stopped when the waves
Peaked at her shoulders.
She dipped her head under a wave
Then flipped her wet hair back.
She stood and stared at the undulating horizon.
After two or three minutes
She turned around and walked back to shore
Never hesitating nor flinching.
As she walked past me sitting alone in the sand
Her wet hair dripped down her back.
She had lost her shoes.

 

Deciduous (#326)

It is easy to love a tree in Spring
Budded and budding
Showing you colors you are expecting
Or in Summer
All shade and soft smells
Or in Autumn
When they age with dignity
Trembling
With leaves dancing
Like couples who learned to waltz
50 years ago.

But in Winter?
Can you love a tree in Winter?
Overly thin
And awkwardly standing
Showing their skeleton
Like a hospital patient
With their gown unintentionally open.

The weather is cold.

The breath I have remaining
Fogs out of my mouth.

Will you love me
In this unforgiving Winter?

 

Our First Night (#325)

You woke me from a dream about you
To tell me you had been dreaming about me

You would think this would make us soulmates
Or something
Already connected through the ether
Of the subconscious

And maybe we are

But I had been dreaming
Of you trapped in a black room

And you had been dreaming
Of my body separated
Into jagged pieces

 

Tidal Beats (#324)

I want to write a poem
to the beat
of the
ocean
the BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper
of the waves dying on sand
and somehow
tie it to birth
and death
and maybe God’s breath
and,
man,
waves are so consistent
insistent
that the world
keeps moving
no matter how many times
I tell it to STOP

and here’s another wave
BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper

my voice reading this is too loud
endowed with my human pride
but the tide will keep pulling me down
pulling the sand from around my feet
back into the ocean
so any notion I have
of my superior humanness
is lost in a whitewater wash
of those whispers

BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper

and, yes,
maybe this is about birth
and death
and even God’s breath
and life moving beyond
my yells of help
and how the cycle continues
and I’m less than that whisper

I know I need to stop writing this
speaking this
needing this to give me
a sense of who I am
or how I fit
it’s time for me to quit
this self-pitying
self-aggrandizing
philosophizing on what the
ocean
means to me and everybody else
and just
jump
into
the waves

BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper

 

6th Anniversary (#323)

I graduated summa cum laude
With a major in Sorry
And a minor in Whatever You Say

You’ve asked me to go back to night school
Because,
Apparently,
I didn’t learn the material
Well enough