Once upon a 1am dream, a plot of grass and dirt I was looking at became a conscious being.  The grass and dirt swelled as it began to breathe air for the first time.  And as I watched it come alive, I looked down at a patch of violets where its hand should be if it were a large human lying there, and I thought Hm, how clever that the flowers would bloom there.  It looks as if he's holding a bouquet in his hand. 

Things I like about Charleston SC...

1. Our sea-green hostel building
2. Slanted porches
3. Tiny houses and buildings
4. Old brick structures
5. City Lights Coffee
6. Bonfires with Canadian educators/educationists
7. I know water is close
8. Nutella
9. Taking pictures of Bill and Matt
10. Taking pictures of anything
11. Polka dot sheets
12. Good conversations, and we know we're changing the world
13. The colors
14. The farmer's market

blues meet greens meet polka dot sheets
after lyrics have floated, climbed over bright embers
to purport polity and maybe some social equality
into foreign ears and familiar faces
The End.

Introduction to Poetry

By: Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.



"keep my mind from control, my mouth from slander, and my pen from violence. Let me be to poetry what it is to me: hopeful, open-eyed, open-souled, alive, and offering a place to be. And always, always, keep us in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Thee."

On watching the couple next to me

Her glass of red wine is a little less

full than his is, and the 

bottle is almost empty.

His mind of jumbled thoughts is 

a little less clear than hers is, and

his glass is almost full.

That merlot only sends away thoughts

if you let them go.

His are wrapped around his mind

like an ivy, and I can't find its

beginning or end.

A single candle flame shines between

them on the table and is scattered

through its broken glass holder into

tiny reflections, such as this one, on the 

wall at their back.

Just a minute or two

1. Stop staring, she said, and the lips in the mirror moved in sync.  She felt brand new, or maybe not as much newly made but definitely newly defined.  Perhaps she would leave town, drive a few hundred miles, introduce herself as Francesca Wilds, and become a fashionable yet unbelievably talented dance instructor.  Oh, she could see the dreamy-eyed men and perfectly balanced hopeful young women twirling around her now.  

Excuse me, may I help you? the slightly perky saleswoman asked, leaning over the counter to examine scratches in the paneling.  That is a beautiful color on you; do you wear hats often?

2. He asked so many questions that the posh ladies eating their summer salads next to us actually stopped talking to hear my responses.  Yes, I have a sibling; yes, my parents are still together; yes, I earned my Bachelor's degree; yes, I have volunteered for the United Way for 8 years; yes, I am married; no, I do not have children -- Posh Ladies are still listening-- yes, I have taken drugs before; yes, I have been convicted of a felony (in a quieter but loud enough voice I explain that I ran a small operation that smuggled iPhones to Polk City and Panama Beach, but was actually convicted for the armed robbery of a store formerly known as Burdines).   This long-awaited interview would be postponed until facts were verified; however, the Posh Ladies' small gasps and critically shaped eyebrows told me I had successfully delivered my answers. 

watching

The way you sat across the cafe bar and didn't look

up for 15 minutes reminded me of the time I

fell off of the balance beam twice during the qualifiers

at Ormond Beach and knew both my parents were

still waiting, watching, hoping. -- I hated beam.

Lost in a regretful thought of words

you didn't say, visits you didn't make,

calls not returned, love you didn't let yourself

requite. -- You hated that For Rent sign.

She may as well have put that faded yellow sign

on her heart, and you moved out quickly.

You couldn't look up, but took a slow sip

of the strong full coffee in front of you.

I remember when I used to wish I was

in that cup being taken into your heart warmly.

But I've never been as strong as that coffee,

and she was Kenya, Ethiopia, Sumatra,

offering all of their boldness and spice to you as she

drifted down Orange Avenue every day toward her

ever-changing destination: but she always came back

to her yellow studio apartment to breathe,

and to love you. -- She hated that apartment.

I saw you lift your eyes to the cars rambling

down the street outside. Once we rode home from a

party together and my hair was frizzing wildly;

I imagined you cringing when you

turned to say goodbye and knew you

should never talk to me again. -- My hair hated me.

Now this room is cold and so am I,

and I would like to ask you for your jacket,

the one with the patches on the elbows

and the pretentious collar, folded down.

I imagine you will hold my hands and warm them;

But in real life I watch you hold your

waitress's hand and smile as though

you were imagining warming her instead.

--I hate that waitress.

Yesterday morning I dreamed:

Blood smudged on light green walls irks me,

especially after they've just been painted .

The rooms are almost ready,

And I'm trying to attend both birthday parties; 

I'm invited to both and feeling torn.

You danced that instrumental song, 

the one that almost sounds like some made up

electric piano keyboard instrument,

the one from Thicker than Water, and

You seemed so happy, and I was happy.

am I one?

Who am I?  They often tell me I stepped from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly like a squire from his country house.

Who am I?  They often tell me I used to speak to my warders freely, friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command.

Who am I?  They also tell me I bore the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.

Am I really then that which other men tell me of? 

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to all?  

Who am I?  This or the other?

Who am I?  They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

 

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

After reading this several times, I've decided I'm relieved.  

We are so much more whole than we can understand, but these questions of identity do mock us; they do pick and prod and leave us restlessly lonely.

These questions come from a dismembered and lonely residence, and that is all that they can reflect.  But whoever we are, we are one, not segmented, and not in pieces.  I, of course, struggle to remember and see the oneness in myself: pieces are easier to control and manipulate, if sad and solitary.  Let us be whole beings, believing that we are connected to all of ourselves at any given moment, and as such, we have love and envy and light and anger.  At any moment, we are connected to that which overcomes all things with unmitigated love because we are whole.