squinting as a child

there is soft, white, particulate matter
hanging in the air,
like snow without gravity.
sometimes it feels as if i've surrounded myself
with so much of it, I am trapped in a
perpetual cloud of chalk dust.
it's as if I've clapped some erasers together
and the world just froze in that moment.
dry clouds in my eyes that leave me swinging my arms
and grasping for the handrails.
the world a stinging fog.

i sometimes think about Christmas time as a child,
in my parent's old house with the brown shag carpet,
and the really big windows that made me feel so small.
i remember sitting in the living room alone,
squinting my eyes at the Christmas tree,
forcing the lights to bloom and streak within my vision.
i remember when i first realized that i could do this,
that i could make lights smear by squinting my eyes.
that i could change the entire world by something
as simple as pushing my eyelids together.

but now, here i am as an adult, sitting in all this dust,
wondering how i make the world shift again,
with the simplicity and ease that i once did as a child.

when you're an adult, you harden your thinking
to the experiences and environments you've
been exposed to. 
the world doesn't change when you
squint your eyes,
you do not make the world blur,
it is you that change.
it is your eyes that are different. 

although there are exceptions to the rules,
it is my position that the inability to believe
your own fairy tales
and follow your own inner dialogue to
strange and unsual places,
beyond the realms of explanation,
marks the death of
your imagination.

so go make your own fog
and blur the world
with anything but
your own logic and reason. 

 

dinner in the yard with old friends

an ashy, rickety, wooden table
sitting on the crest of a mound of silt.
an admiral, velvet window curtain
thrown over the tabletop and
seasoned with grape tomatoes,
wine, bread, and pesto.

a frail breeze to push the music.
the sky's veneer, a net of frosted light,
and then the entire city, in the pinch of a finger,
just sitting there as if we had
something to do with its placement.

a quiet night with old soldiers
gathered around the table.
good friends that have been fighting
the same war for decades,
each through their own glasses,
feeling the world push itself upon them
one at a time,
with an unaplogetic force that
whittles lines near the eyes.

a deep breath into the evening.
into this one quiet night.
it is the way I imagined every night would be
when I was older.
candlelit with friends, wine, music.
simple joy.

and then suddenly I was older.
and mosts night were just nights.
much like how most mail is just mail.
because handwritten letters are rare.
as is this night.

just enough wine to be
glossy and bloom the stars.
just enough breeze to
quiet the neighborhood.
and just enough union to be content
with each other's silence.

simple and quiet.
love and respect,
as subtle as it can be.

 

 

the last train engineer

a few miles east,
over the Broadway Extension,
the 3AM train would barrel down.

 it was always on time and
unlike the 7AM,
the 3AM
never
stopped.

its thick whistle blew the duration
of its passing

 and i listened to it every night.

i suppose the engineer,
knew his time was limited
for his responsibilities had been diminishing
with the rise of automation.

 and so, sitting in a dark engine,
a lone passenger watching the world smear,
there was probably no sweeter thing
than to crack that hard cable
and stain the night with sound.

 a last desperate cry for the ghost trains. 

another heavy, steel toast to the failed spirits
of John Henry and Casey Jones.

 

 

The Middle Ground

some poets... well...

they write way over here,
on the right side of the page.
you know, for dramatic effect.
because English text ain't supposed to be
way over on the right side,
all by itself.

it's supposed to be over HERE.
on this side, where
it has room to run across the entire page if it really wants to.

 

but sometimes it isn't sure what to say or where to be.
so it just sits in the middle,
and pouts.