DANGEROUS DAYS INDEED
The lost child is found.
The mother's on TV
struggling to stifle tears
as she thanks all fifty searchers.
I can remember
wandering from the playground
as a little boy,
into streets of strange houses,
alien trees.
I never felt the once
that I shouldn't be there.
At the beach,
parents nervously watch their brood,
fearful of a surprise
undertow at ocean's edge,
a small helpless body pulled
into deep dark water.
Yet I remember tumbling
in tricky waves,
going under,
nose full of salt and eyes of sand.
I momentarily erased myself
from adult protection.
Then I resurfaced on my own,
not for the last time.
THAT MOMMA'S BOY
Anna blames it all on David's mother
even though he's forty,
fifteen years out of the family home.
It's why other women
just make him angry, frustrated, disappointed.
According to him, she was perfection.
These harridans, these painted tarts,
aren't worth a thread
of her brown., woolen stockings.
Anna's been married to him
for five long years
and the constant comparisons
put her own nagging to shame.
"Why don't you go back
and live with her,"
has burst out of her mouth
more than once.
It wouldn't surprise her
if he took her up on it.
The old woman would
wait on him hand and foot,
showing him around her friends
like a balding, paunchy trophy.
She'd constantly belittle Anna.
He would nod in agreement
while he downed a plate
of syrup-smothered pancakes.
Anna's pregnant.
She worries that she'll end up
like her mother-in-law,
spend a pointless lifetime
trying to shove that poor thing
back in her womb.
Especially with David around
and always eager to remind her
how good he had it in there.
WHEN BLISS STRIKES BACK
it was a place
awkward with sense of self
but bristling with.
art and magic and reincarnation
and floating hemispheres of being
all voices
traffic
an airplane passing overhead
fed each other
flakes of their own sounds
until their satiation
became a perfect silence
passionately still
I reached out and touched
my surroundings in different ways
without one single drop
of wasted energy
I slowed the present
spread it like a net
over all of time
it was a joy
a revelation
a reconciliation
of all my scattered pieces
sadly
the moment of nirvana
was the beginning
of its dissipation
its escape out through
the wretched pores of my existence
eventually
I was left barren
and coarse and empty
the moment claimed me
forever moved on.
The lost child is found.
The mother's on TV
struggling to stifle tears
as she thanks all fifty searchers.
I can remember
wandering from the playground
as a little boy,
into streets of strange houses,
alien trees.
I never felt the once
that I shouldn't be there.
At the beach,
parents nervously watch their brood,
fearful of a surprise
undertow at ocean's edge,
a small helpless body pulled
into deep dark water.
Yet I remember tumbling
in tricky waves,
going under,
nose full of salt and eyes of sand.
I momentarily erased myself
from adult protection.
Then I resurfaced on my own,
not for the last time.
THAT MOMMA'S BOY
Anna blames it all on David's mother
even though he's forty,
fifteen years out of the family home.
It's why other women
just make him angry, frustrated, disappointed.
According to him, she was perfection.
These harridans, these painted tarts,
aren't worth a thread
of her brown., woolen stockings.
Anna's been married to him
for five long years
and the constant comparisons
put her own nagging to shame.
"Why don't you go back
and live with her,"
has burst out of her mouth
more than once.
It wouldn't surprise her
if he took her up on it.
The old woman would
wait on him hand and foot,
showing him around her friends
like a balding, paunchy trophy.
She'd constantly belittle Anna.
He would nod in agreement
while he downed a plate
of syrup-smothered pancakes.
Anna's pregnant.
She worries that she'll end up
like her mother-in-law,
spend a pointless lifetime
trying to shove that poor thing
back in her womb.
Especially with David around
and always eager to remind her
how good he had it in there.
WHEN BLISS STRIKES BACK
it was a place
awkward with sense of self
but bristling with.
art and magic and reincarnation
and floating hemispheres of being
all voices
traffic
an airplane passing overhead
fed each other
flakes of their own sounds
until their satiation
became a perfect silence
passionately still
I reached out and touched
my surroundings in different ways
without one single drop
of wasted energy
I slowed the present
spread it like a net
over all of time
it was a joy
a revelation
a reconciliation
of all my scattered pieces
sadly
the moment of nirvana
was the beginning
of its dissipation
its escape out through
the wretched pores of my existence
eventually
I was left barren
and coarse and empty
the moment claimed me
forever moved on.
