Empty Classroom

There is a sense of the color having been drained from the air
in the classroom, after the last lecture.
The emptiness takes on an echoing depth - 

like a whale singing a seeking song into the darkness -

the song reaches out and out.

The chairs with their arm desks are the same,

and the lectern has not moved. 

The white board needs to be washed down

with its layers of blue and black smudges

like a boxer's face, two days after a fight. 

But everything is different 

the moment the door closes behind the last student.

You may see them individually

on campus or in town -

a year from now one will write politely, asking for a recommendation.

But the class - this leviathan with which you have wrestled

and tried to tame,

struggled with late at night in the waters of darkness

strategizing the maneuvers for the next day -

this thing you have intermittently loved and been enraged by - 

it existed in and in between.  

Now it has dissolved into component parts

and drifted away like driftwood in clumps of two or three -

with a friendly wave and a "thank you"

it has ceased to be. 

And who are you, standing unopposed,

nothing to challenge 

and nothing to confirm?

**

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Empty-Classroom-e11ol0q

YouTube: https://youtu.be/pbyWL80F9-A

the game

I didn't hear the coach at first

pulling me out of the game early -

I thought I had another inning or three -

or was it another quarter? another period? 

another match? a few more holes?

I thought I'd be walking off of the field

with everyone else, shaking hands, slapping backs

and maybe in years to come,

I'd sit in the stands

and reminisce about the good old days.

Instead, here I am walking back to the locker room

alone.

I wave to the custodian sweeping the halls

under the hard fluorescent lights

pushing a broom that looks like a giant white moustache.

I take off my uniform and fold it neatly on the polished bench

and pull on my jeans.

As I push the aluminum bar to open the door to the parking lot

I am struck by how dark it has become,

how quiet.

The game goes on

and on,

but I no longer hear the cheers from the fans

or the referee's whistle.

I played well, I hope, as I step through the threshold.

I'd like to imagine they will talk about

a while

over beers tonight

or next season when the play 

would have been just right to put me in.

For a moment,

it would be like I was there again.

**

audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/the-game-e11ibke/a-a5m4p8p

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZrWFDSliOzY

Bargaining with the Devil

I've been bargaining with the devil -
I've promised him every winter morning's brilliant sun
reflecting off of the snow,
and I've laid on the table, like a street merchant,
the quiet of the house just before midnight.

I've handed over, as a gesture of goodwill, 
the smiles and small gestures
of my friends and colleagues, and even strangers.
And of course, as an ante,
my ability to sit and listen to the rain or wind.

The devil nods in gratitude with each proffer,
as if I am so close to his reservation price,
but he only takes
and he has never really said
there was a deal to be had.

**

audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Bargaining-with-the-Devil-e105q7r

YouTube: https://youtu.be/G3qeAd0alws

this thing

In the beginning, you said

"Let there be us", 

and there was us.
Truly, I say to you,

this is the one God-like thing
by which we recognize each other -
it is the capacity of the soul to create connection

where there was only void.
This thing we call love,
it emerges to fill empty spaces,
invisible except in action,
unlimited by superficial happenstance.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/this-thing-euqk13

YouTube: https://youtu.be/n98YdOiddcU

A meditation by a tree upon the noble truth that the root of all suffering is desire

At fifty I'm coming into my Buddha-hood -

I'm finally starting to let go of desire.
Not the immediate lust
for sex and wine and song -
that is a thing of the body, not the mind.
No - I'm beginning to loosen my grip on should -
the corrosive expectations 
that have been scourges on the present,
the slave master who wielded the whip
driving relentlessly toward power and wealth,
driving with the indifference that comes from knowing
there were a long line of bodies 
to step up when this one failed.
But the hand holding the whip
is attached to the same body 
as the back upon which the blows land.
"To what end, all this toil?" I ask
in my best 18th century diction,
and try to sit still with an empty mind,
here,
beneath this tree,
with its leaves still heavy with spring,
but I am only beginning to let go. 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/A-meditation-by-a-tree-upon-the-noble-truth-that-the-root-of-all-suffering-is-desire-etd208

YouTube: https://youtu.be/kIzS7j0bqu8 

sailing in company

I wouldn't have chosen you as a friend -

we had no common anchor 

in a sea of choices of companions.

But here we are, decades later

laughing on the phone -

An accident of wind and tide tossed us together

and the things we have in common

are the stories we have shared -

the common weather of 

disappointments and triumphs -

as the world stormed and washed over us

letting us know with certainty

we were single-masted boats in a vast ocean.

We have willed our friendship into being

first weaving strands from the salty air

then rope from those strands.

It is a thing from nothing,

but as our grip on the rudder 

diminishes arthritically,

its strength binds the distance between us.

I wouldn't have chosen you as a friend

when I was young

and did not see below the waves,

when I did not know anchors are meaningless.

I would choose you now.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/sailing-in-company-estojn

YouTube: https://youtu.be/_HuPpbN0SB4

 

cancer killed my mother

Cancer killed my mother this year -

the year I have at last arrived at after so long a latency.
I have wondered about this year -

fifty.

It's a weighty word in your mouth -

it has to be spit out

like a lemon seed.

It lays on the ground afterward,

hard and sterile.

I've resented this year

since her skin took on the yellow of a bad sepia filter

on some influencer's feed.

Cancer is not coming for me this year -

perhaps a heart attack

or a car accident is in store.

But it won't be cancer. 

 

audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/cancer-killed-my-mother-esrh1i 

video: https://youtu.be/lDIGrswWh_I