I am only a fool

 

The days I feel I am a fool, it is as if

I am dressed in a billowy canary jumper

dotted with a rouge of polka dots

and a foam ball on my nose.

With floppy ketchup shoes and French fry laces

I waddle about

trying to say serious things that come out like

"Life is short, call your mother!"

"You are what you do, not what you say you'll do!"

and the eyes settle on me

unwavering

for a moment

and then they laugh.

I am earnest in all things

on these days

but when the big daisy on my lapel

squirts them in the eye,

I'm just not taken seriously -

but this is me.

Just me. 

Gluttony

Mac sauce in the corner of your mouth,

crumbs in your moustache,
hours of porn on your phone - 
eating and fornicating 
like a bloated rat on a satin pillow - 
you want to swallow up all that is beautiful -
and even all that is not.

With each bite the gullet grows -
the sin is in the ratio -
nothing created, only consumed.

banishment

From the Seven, Envy is my sin
I would banish first -

They are always behind all the others - 

always wanting, seething, moaning -

I would catch them by the ear

and drag them with boots scuffing

to the high city wall of my soul

and hurl them from the parapet

as they wailed about

inequity and injustice.

the path between worlds

Will you follow me on this path

between worlds?

I gesture to where the grass has been worn down

by the feet of generations.

You say, it's just the trail behind the school - 

it comes out by the plaza with the pizza shop 

and the liquor store where the kids try to shoplift booze

if they can't con someone into buying it for them -

Not now, I say, not at this moment, I say,

as the sun retreats leaving the last gentle gold

of a summer day drifting along the horizon

You take my hand and we step past the crushed soda bottle

as if it were a guardian

and we pass into the darkening wood -

you look back for a moment and feel  

the trees close behind us -

we walk and become aware - 

the sound of tires and doors and shouts faded away

while we were not listening -

you draw a bit closer

and I say, it's going to be ok

even as the branches come close

It's too dark - I can't see you, you say -

it's cold.

and now we stand still and I close my eyes,

breathing in mud from the last storm,

mulched leaves, and the fresh growth -

This is what was needed - 

it's not dark, I say -

see now the faerie lights - look through my eyes -

and you see it too - 

dim, but enough that we step toward a clearing -

it's not cold - feel with my hands the radiating fire

and I hold out my hands to the center of things

and you do as well -

now you are telling me about the magic - 

all around us the holly draped and woven with the ivy -

we see it together, hands likewise held.

The Cat is Awake

The cat is awake and

unlike the sun-worshipping rooster 

who begins his ululation 

without thought of you,

the cat begins to howl with intention. 

It is an hour before your alarm clock is set to go off. 

There was dream-work to be done

whatever strange twists on reality

your subconscious was working through

taking out the trash of the previous day

rearranging what was left, Tetris-like,

to save space for tomorrow so that

you don't find yourself forgetting mid-sentence

who you have been talking to - 

all of this is interrupted

leaving piles of irrelevant details 

like bits of film strip

scattered around the editing room of your brain.

The cat does not care about any of this - 

that his howling each morning

steals a day from your life outside of the nursing home.

The cat is awake and

he wishes that you would be too. 

And so you are.

Office of Days

The shifting office is half constructed 

and half demolished when we arrive today.
The carpet is gritty 
and the fluorescent lights in the drop ceiling are aseptic. 
Yet here we are again - 
and the choices pile up like bricks.

Hello, hello - 
that's another wall over there -
or is it a doorway? 
Hard to say
until it's all done, which it never is -
but we all leave sooner or later. 

Steve is such a jerk. 
How is your family? 
I brought in some donuts! 
That witch in finance...

At the margins where we all reside
we add one brick at a time - 
or maybe today that's a window frame going in.

Collective Action

The cast iron door of the wood stove swings open 
and I can feel the weight despite the gentle ease -
I can also feel the heat on my face and hands,
and smoke wafts up and out.

The split wedge of oak that I feed in on top of the orange coals
is seasoned grey with three years of drying in the stacks out back.
It will burn well and hot. 
I close the door to the stove and lock the handle
like a banker at the end of the day. 

Winter is upon us.

Where the grass shows between the snow, 
faded and brown, the ground is frozen to rock. 
Where the blades bent cool beneath our bare feet,
there is no forgiveness now. 

Up the chimney and into the night air we send the smoke of our fire. 
There are other chimneys doing the same - 
and there are yellow lights in the windows.
I imagine a couple walking outside with boots and jackets and wool mittens
on the dark street.
They are a little less alone, a little less cold, with the smell of woodsmoke
hanging in the air. 
We are all a little less alone, a little less cold.