Hallway to Nowhere

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  • The Date (Poem)

    I’m not excited about your arrival.

    I’m not.

    (The world is poised in anticipation,

    Breath held, one hand slightly extended with a tremor.)

    I don’t care how I look.

    I don’t.

    (The trees have rearranged their leaves multiple times,

    Dropping the yellow, one leg swinging forward to showcase ripped jeans .)

    I don’t wonder about my voice.

    I don’t.

    (The birds exchange songs back and forth,

    Deciding on a warble, one hello deepens in tone.)

    This is just a date. I’m not bothered at all.

    (Please let her like me like I like her.)

  • Cry and Response (Poem)

    Sometimes (ofttimes) I want to be finished with this life.

    The wearisome minutiae of the body demanding attention,

    Insistent muttering claims that needs must be addressed over and over and over.

    I answer these as best I can.

    I do so in full knowledge that these efforts are but a slight delay.

    Everyone crumbles in the end and flees their particular carapace.

    Mine was not well constructed or comfortable or nice,

    A hasty and ill-conceived effort from the beginning.

    Like all fleshy dominions, it has pride of being and the illusion of remaining.

    I want to shrug it off and move on to whatever comes next,

    Sick of being sick, and harried by the futility involved.

    Let me be done and close my eyes.

    (In my worst moments I fear doing just that.

    Only to find on awakening that I’m once again here.

    And here. And here. And here. A cicada who lives on,

    Dying forever.)

    Still, suffering mind. Breathe and know you’re breathing.

    Let the beads slip with that rhythm through your fingers.

    Om mani peme hung. Om mani peme hung. Om mani peme hung.

  • The Lithic Dare (Poem)

    Scientists discover the shape of a lithium atom:

    In the absence of corrosion, the crystalline structure

    Is that of a rhombic duodecahedron.

    The die used in Dungeons and Dragons, also a particular 12-sided throw.

    So perhaps the universe does provide a gamble.

    Should I chance this?

    Or will I find that rather than the orderly form,

    I’ve thrown instead metallic bones with spiky filaments

    That ultimately produce an explosion.

    No good result there.

    I am no scientist, merely a wordsmith.

    I’d better not tinker with that sort of risk.

    Words alone can be tricky enough,

    Sometimes becoming spark to a fire that burns uncontrolled.

    Then I stand bewildered

    In the midst of an unintentional conflagration.