Category: Poetry

So I’ve been living the isolation life for almost a week now, experiencing the strange mental state that some have called plague mindset. The easiest way to summarize the feeling is the innate sense that something is very wrong. So very wrong, in fact, that you feel an urge to act…except that the best thing you can do is nothing. Nothing at all.

It’s a paradox of panic and tedium. Anxiety and boredom. DO SOMETHING and do nothing.

All of this is to say that I’ve had a lot of time to think and to try to write. (I say “try” because it’s a little more difficult to get into the appropriate creative mindset during a pandemic.) As I wrote poetry last night, I put together some words of hope and shared them with my wife. She thought it would be a good idea to share them with you.

Afterward

We all breathe
and wait
and listen,
pining for the normalcy
we always dreaded;
the burgers we’d grown used to,
the sights that had grown old.
And though all this is terrible,
though considering it in full
reaves my soul,
I can’t help but think
of that moment
when this dismal pall rises,
and we return to the world
we’ve left behind.

That world will be different.
The old will not
have grown new,
but it will have become beloved.
The small gifts and
pleasures of the city
and the country
will be received
anew.
Every smile will be welcome
and well-earned.

And, perhaps
for the first time in many years,
we will all remember
the childlike joy of
stepping through the front door and
feeling the world unfold around us,
decked with trappings of
sun and summer, and
in that moment,
we’ll begin to heal.
To live,
truly live,
again.

Feel free to come say “Hi” on Twitter using @Dreamertide. The sun will rise, my friends. In the meantime, let’s get through the night, together.

Another day, another heavily rhythmic poem exploring the themes I find most frustrating in the current national debates. We need conversations; not yelling matches. We need understanding; not “agree to disagree.” The longer this goes on (and it’s already been going on for quite a long time), the farther we’ll get into the:

Deep End

We have enough villains
without making more
or pretending that facts
like rich or poor
can define
whether you, I, or them
have any value in this system.
Stop and listen–
or don’t, frankly I don’t care–
I’m writing this to keep
from drowning in air
on the rich oxygen filling
each lung to bursting.
You know the worst thing?
Conversation cures all
but you won’t have one,
short of more rage
you refuse the salve.
Gun in hand,
you proclaim
this your age of freedom
but I think you know
that’s sad.
One question:
what if you didn’t talk down
to people unlike you,
unsubscribed to the false truths,
and left your comments in your head
rather than anywhere
the future’s soothsayers will see and judge?
I prefer words I can see and touch:
the ones still dangling with emotion
like a tooth pulled hard and soon.
But the way you talk…
I can’t tell if anything
means something
or nothing.
Hell, you could offer me everything,
and I still think you’d be a liar.
The fire you’re burning
ran out of fuel
long ago,
short of the shit you’re piling
made from the gruel of easy falsehoods
you want to be true.
I get where you’re going,
or at least where you’d like to,
a safe place unified against
those unlike you:
strawmen and snowmen and costumes
rigged on mannequins
to usher in again
some illusion that safety
comes to those who fortify,
but you can’t deny
that richness in life
comes in the variety
of mes, yous, and thems;
the colors of eyes
that can smile
in every language,
tongue,
and tribe.
Even you celebrate the sight
of family, but real kinship
comes from knowledge,
not blood,
and in the quiet,
I think you know
we all share the same blood anyway.
So concede your way–
screaming or not–
but know that concession’s
the only end of this rodeo.
Your bull ran out of muscle
back before I ever took breath
and only artificial ties
keep its limbs hustling
and lithe in death.
I’m not saying your voice doesn’t matter,
far from it;
most can’t hear a thing
over your clattering demands,
but we want to talk, not prattle
or battle in petty words
that, by next week, won’t stand
for much besides a waste of time.
Here’s the line–
an offering of communion,
bonding over bodies broken,
to take up this token of friendship
not brinksmanship
because loose lips sink,
you know where I’m going.
So get rowing.
This ain’t the Delaware,
and God knows we don’t have a captain
yet out there
to stand at the bow,
but still we start now.
You take one oar,
we the other,
and together
maybe
we can keep this boat from spinning
until we sink
because if we fail,
no one will get the chance
to swim.

As promised, I’ve returned with another poem to share. Like the last, this work is driven by my ongoing heartache and frustration with the way many prominent political leaders have responded to the tragedy in Parkland. More than that, though, today’s poem takes a stab at the breakdowns in communication that have been ongoing with these issues for years.

Unlike yesterday’s piece, today’s fits into a category I call rhythmic poems: best when read aloud, this type of poem is built around combining meaning with an accelerated flow of language to pull you from the start to the finish like a snowball, gaining speed and mass all the time.

Middle Ground

What’s left after outrage,
when the moment, cold and vacant,
sublimates under our gaze
and we’ve still not been placated?

Will their thoughts and prayers find answers
for interrogations old and new?
Will we find some ground to share
or dare to stand accusing
those who in care of self recuse
our words of air?

We say “enough’s enough”
and stuff ourselves with platitudes
meant to smooth the rough
discussions sloughing
to the wayside–
giving up to pride, on either side,
the notion that only our opinion matters;
but God, I see the same words
sputter and cough from lungs burned
black by repetition,
digging into fiction that there is no middle ground,
backed by our decision
to sanitize those found
abounding in conviction.
Where’s the interdiction?–
the questions of the answers
of the queries of our time–
the sensible souls between
emotions, words, and lies
who, with unveiled eyes,
parry the notion that we’ve got too much
or little to say,
standing on the ground of the slain.
Have you seen the graves?
Not the tombstones, no;
rocks never gave a woman, child, or man
a damn–they just carry on.
I mean the actions of their hands,
the things these kids can and can’t:
the unbound love of life,
the beauty, the fight,
that made each one shine?
Do you know their names?
I admit I don’t;
I’m more afraid to make this more real
than to sit in shame that I have a voice
but have said nothing.

So I’m saying this:
staking a claim on empathy
beyond me,
a heartache too big to hide
but we compartmentalize
it anyway.
Even if you don’t agree
with the cause–
and I pause here
to say that I understand
fear
of
change
or rearranging the paradigms,
you know those things we find
when we interrogate ourselves–
agree with the hurt,
hurting, and scared.
Repair some element
of this bridge between us all,
not “giving up your right
to stand tall,”
but admitting that right now
no one’s attacked you,
only asked you why your right to have
can outweigh a right to live.
I’m not demanding you give
“yourself” away
or betray some iron credo
you repeat at sunrise each day,
merely that your intent
shift from zealously cemented
defense of an amendment
to a question of what we mean
and meant when we declared
this nation a safe place for any child
to face tomorrow.

I don’t intend this to change your mind,
God knows better speakers than I
have already started to bring
all sides to a middle ground.
I’ve just found my fill of silence
broken by more violence
that we could have brought
to an end long ago.
Again, I know, you have your own fears
held dearly,
often sincerely, with a good heart,
but so do the rest of us,
and until we find a place
for the best of us to agree,
we’ll repeat this conversation
with rising frequency.
We need less questions
of who’s behind
this or that line;
less time paid away
to those who only want to say
what they’ve been paid to.

Real people settle grievances,
bonding over beliefs and instances
of shared community,
not accusing or using these tragedies for gain:
let no malice remain.
Let voices resound
that though we cannot claim peace
we’ve at least aimed
for middle ground.

It’s been over a week, now, since the tragedy at Parkland. If you are at all like me, you were devastated that such horror could happen again…and again…and again over these last years.

Though I cannot imagine how those directly affected feel, in the days that followed I read the burgeoning crop of stances, responses, and outrage with heartache. For me, heartache means writing. Especially heartache on a topic so vast as this. Thus, I started drafting poems and after rereading them separate from the emotion in which they were written, I’ve decided that they’re worth sharing. Each day this week, I hope to share some new piece of writing with you, starting today with a poem titled, “Ad Nauseam”.

The first of the pieces I put together based on my feelings in these last two weeks, “Ad Nauseam” focuses on those who–in response to the terrible pain these teachers, parents, and children have endured–want to fight “righteously” by degrading, denigrating, and seeking to trivialize/ignore those who are in pain. Most specifically, it’s aimed at those who have the most direct power to make a difference, but have written this situation off like countless others without truly having even a conversation about why. This is a heavily metered, rhyming poem; very archaic in style and inspired by my favorite poem of all time “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen.

Ad Nauseam

There are no glorious battles,
though there are causes worth our lives.
Every fight begun unravels
the goals for which we strive.
Yes, there may be times
when, in defense of our ideals,
we set aside our pencils
to take up our swords and shields,
but there are no glorious battles,
despite whatever you have read.

We pay by incremental lot
a tariff on the soul
for every battle fought
that we could not avoid.
And that’s not even speaking
of that direst of crimes–
letting others suffer
because you could not grow a spine.

So do not claim in gladness
the righteous cause that you stand for,
if you are not prepared
to march and fight your own damned war.
Children should not suffer–
whether fear or something worse–
merely for the preference of some,
and others, for their purse.

There are no glorious battles,
though each true hero earns their place,
through strife and courage persevering
in hope to make us safe.
Sadly, most such heroes
go forgotten but by few
who will remember when we fail again
as we seem content to do.

There are no glorious battles,
despite whatever you have read.
There are no glorious battles;
only tragic dead.