ah ha

i need more jazz in my life.

confidence

I might pretend I don't feel well, even though I'm strong as ever, just so no one minds when I spend the evening in bed.

And you might stop by to visit anyway, not minding the blankets pulled up to my chin, and sit down on the floor next to me and talk for three hours about melancholy and the end of the world and elections.

When you say, 'I feel like I'm never going to be great!' I bite my tongue so I don't say, 'me neither, but I honestly don't mind,' because the last thing I want to do is bring me back into the picture.

It's one of those days when your best friend tells you, 'I've never seen you like this--you're being so vulnerable,' and you wonder what the hell is wrong with you to never have been been vulnerable before.

The New Me

I adored my home, so I burnt
it to the ground
and slept in ashes.
I worshiped the moon, so I embraced
cold earth.

My dog was irreplaceable,
so I dropped him in wilderness
and drove away,
watched him grow small in the mirror
watching me.

Traveling was my life,
so I abandoned my car in weeds,
sheared my wings,
slashed my feet,
moved forward on my belly.

I loved you above
all others. So I betrayed you,
left clues crumbled
for your pillow, waited
beneath our garden's unturned stones.


- Gaylord Brewer

A Color of the Sky

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn't make the road an allegory.

I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I'd rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

Otherwise it's spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.

Last summer's song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,

which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Last night I dreamed of X again.
She's like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I'm glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,

dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

so Nature's wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It's been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.


~Tony Hoagland