Theme
11:21pm
June 17, 2015
Moth in my screen.
Computer screen shows
Moths flitting through air currents
Halfway cross the world
11 notes
2:14am
May 26, 2015
New Moon in Spring
sun goes down, no moon
darkness crosses young grasses
protects baby birds
8:54pm
May 11, 2015
Elements
The repetition and the symmetry
I would sing them without surcease
Going in a circle
Ritual and its power
My gorilla family
Often born of a spiritual, an aesthetic need
Value and beauty of ritual
My need for repetition
Silently acknowledge landmarks
Flowers and trees
Had memorized everything
Each flower, tree
Was a person, a being
If I did not see it,
It missed me and felt abandoned
(A poetry technique where you black out words on a page and the rest become the poem. This is a page from Songs of thez Gorilla Nation by Dawn Prince-Hughes.)
6:57pm
May 8, 2015
Death of Squash (with apologies to Terry Pratchett)
death’s in our garden
picking out which squash will live
and which squash will die
6:52pm
May 8, 2015
Spring
plants bud and blossom
rain and mud replacing snow
as the sun comes out
dad’s old red backpack
hangs expectant on doorknob
awaiting a hike
9:53pm
May 7, 2015
The Ghost of a Kitten (cw: cat corpse, decay, decomposition)
ghost of dead kitten
watches decomposing corpse
shakes with private laughs
8:51pm
April 28, 2015
Mirror
I accidentally took a peek
At myself
Through your eyes
Right at the moment
You took a peek
At yourself
Through my eyes
Are we two people or one?
And are our eyes windows
Or are they mirrors?
7:36pm
April 28, 2015
mom’s not a widow
she’s still married to my dad
even though he died
she brings him morning glories
he brings her one pure white rose
1:54am
April 27, 2015
Pillars made from trees
Mushroom nightlights, clocks with cats
My home welcomes me
8:47pm
April 22, 2015
They never told me mourning would be beautiful.
mourning happens most
when forest plants die, decay
underneath our feet
feeds new life and feeds new love
mourning: sad but beautiful
4:56am
April 19, 2015
Dear (late) Father…
You visit the shrine I made for you
In remembrance of who you were
When you were alive
You like that I put rocks there
You visit my mother
And bring her flowers
You tell her not to visit your grave so often
You’re not there anymore
You walked straight into Love
With no fear left in your heart
And now everything you express
Is through that Love
When I wear your clothes
And carry your rocks
Next to my heart
And wear your whiskers
In a locket
I feel who you are
And who you were
Seeping into me
Down deep into my bones
Everyone tells me
I look more like myself
In your clothes
Than they have ever seen me
That for the first time
I look comfortable
In my own skin
In my own culture
You speak my language
A language of things
Not words
You gave me
All the right things
To find you again
Even past delirium and amnesia
I hope I can be in life
Half the person
You are in death
11:02pm
March 31, 2015
Infants smell fresh
They have just entered the world
You can smell it on their heads
They are fresh, new, and ripe
Like a good canteloupe
And they know so little
Of the world they have entered
They are all hardware
With bits of software
The software will come
With age and experience
But I like them
Before that happens
Because I remember
Before I had much software
And I remember
Being an infant
Ever since I was barely more
Than an infant myself
I have gravitated towards infants
This has never changed
And infants have always
Shared a silent understanding
With my own gaps in knowledge
That I have shared with them
5:27am
March 25, 2015
poems every day
I promised myself
to write poems every day
springtime in my heart
flowers blossom inside me
I plant poems by the road
4:18am
March 22, 2015
Recurring Nightmares
Screensavers in my brain
I’ve seen that one before
Could you please load
Another one?
Screensavers in my brain
I’ve seen that one before
Could you please load
A less disturbing one?
4:13am
March 22, 2015
Hoofbeats in your stethoscope
“When you hear hoofbeats,
Think horses, not zebras.”
That’s what the doctors say
They mean think of obvious diseases
Before the obscure ones
But my life has been a testament
To when this doesn’t work
So I have some lists
To guide doctors on their way
When you hear hoofbeats
The first thing you need to do
Is discern what country you are in
And what country your patient is in
As well as what country your patient is from
What country their parents are from
How far they have traveled
And where
So when you hear those hoofbeats
Galloping up your stethoscope
Here are some things to look out for:
Horses, cows, pigs, sheep, goats, donkeys, mules —
The farm animals and beasts of burden
Familiar to Western doctors
Llamas, alpacas, camels, dromedaries
Asses of all sorts
And not just horses’s asses —
Like some of you
Oxen, buffalo, tapir, rhinoceros
Yaks, wild hogs, deer, antelope
Peccary, chevrotain, and of course zebras…
Can I stop now?
Do you get the idea?
Do you know how many times
I’ve almost died
Due to doctors thinking
“It’s either horses or psychiatric”?
I have a list of non-horse medical diagnoses
Some rarer than others
All confirmed by rigorous testing
Performed by standard medical practitioners
And so does my whole family
So when you hear hoofbeats
Think ungulates
Then try to figure out which ungulate it is
That is, after all, your job
And whether you find horses, zebras, or miniature deer,
You will save lives.