On the eve, age comes crashing
like a furious wave against
the shoreline of my thoughts –
the receding hairline of indolence,
the growing gut of greed, half-spent,
half-endured, as catcalls rise
from the gallery, and I am speared
upon a crescendo of longing.
We bid welcome to this new generation of thought.
The unborn children are squealing at the font
of our loins, that fear infects
like a cancer, noting
the ages I’ve reached
and bodies I’ve spurned
without ever creating something greater
than myself.
Wisdom refuses to descend; the old
goat beard growing, but shaking no pearls
from its wiry form. The curved blacks
of my inheritance not permitting
rescue or relief from the
misanthropic tendencies
that echo still like rung bells from my core.…
...continue reading
The world is around again,
knocking on the door.
I pull on the chain and
open in it.
I am trying.
She is beautiful and
I let her in.
She says that starting
again is hard.
I agree over wine.
I don’t drink wine,
I am trying.
I work my way out of
the cocoon. She says
that it would be a good
rule not to talk about
our exes. I tell her that
it sounds good to me.
We kiss, letting the movie
play in the background.
I move forward, and
she pulls back.
She says that starting
over is hard.
Through the wine I agree.
– Pigpen Madigan…
...continue reading
And then there’s that thing you do where
you swing by a rope from a tree
and magically disappear
without announcing if you will reappear
or not, and everyone left standing
asks, “Where’s Ben?”, some claiming
there’s nobody by that name in our databases,
then suddenly you’re on display in a box
in a strange room filled with solemn organs
and everyone is bringing you flowers.
So we’re left wandering around from place
to place thinking if a glass is raised that somehow
you’ll rise up through the floor or start
laughing at us from behind a curtain.
Of course, this never happens but we find ourselves
on tenterhooks, thinking we’ve caught a glimpse
of you.. lucidly there.. hazily not here.…
...continue reading
You are always looking
for an adventure and
you find it in the wild
hearts of lovers
perhaps that is all
I should’ve been
an uncertainty
the soft white
of starlight
freckles
across my skin
you trace
like constellations
a flush of pink
rising to my cheeks
when your lips
whisper sins…
...continue reading
You needed help
and because I neglected to give it
your favorite ceramic cat was never found
and the reddened sheets stayed bunched in a heap
in an oversized trash bag
near the front door.
You made the mistake of falling in love
with things and ideas
and gave none of your attention
to disconsolate matters that created
the filaments of life
or caused the vendetta in your lithe hands.
I’m enamored with the idea
that your choices are cast with inevitability
and even more so with the remnant tinge
of strawberry stain that still lingers in your hair.
I may be just one of the old men drinking coffee
in a donut shop late at night
as you tend to an array of simple needs,
observing erratic orbits of sadness
or I may be a different sort of man
staring at an unshaded framework brought low
by an involuntary lapse of moon,
watching you watching them watching you.…
...continue reading
I’ve restarted many a wood stove’s flames
from sleeping embers when the firebox
remains warm. In the darkening evening,
a faint glow glimmers beneath snowy ash.
We watch it as sleep seeps into our veins.
Some stone tablets I suppose say the
Phoenix rises from ashes. But I cannot
catch those who sleep below the tinder’s
reach, or rekindle those beyond the oak’s
broken trunk that spirits signals into the sky—
all red streamers, white steam, black smoke.
– Michael Dickel
Author’s Note: My wife and I visited the too-new grave of my mother-in-law (of blessed memory), along with family and friends. A rare snow had fallen and the air chilled our bones. I listened to Psalms read in Hebrew, recalling the love we felt for her and she for us warmed me.…
...continue reading
You ask
and I say delicious
(that cell/splitting glory that
unfolds until we expire)
angels on fire
come remind us
that this life
is just a prayer
we have been
rendezvousing with the dead
in the small hours
they say death is nothing
but a change of clothes
and setting the stage before
the next act
we are corpsing
our way
through a comedy hour
so as not to let on
that we are amused
so as not to expose ourselves
as alive
while they climb Jacob’s ladder
we drive along the coast and
make waves with
one hand out the window
pushing through air with an open palm
and it is our prayer
(all this living
is just a prayer)
– Julie Henderson
Note: This piece was previously published by TheBeZine.com…
...continue reading