It seems when things are going right
We forget how precious this experiment in life is.
Our cells divide a million times
Before we blink
As we drink our morning coffee
It becomes a part of DNA
Spiraling in a helix toward
Our irises and fingertips.
A billion cell-divisions can be flawless yet
One reaction forms a tumor,
Cyst, or cancer cell
To slowly unravel threads of life
Spun with such precision
In the body’s apex.
That tomorrow every organ,
Every function is capable of halting –
Like an engine that’s begun to smoke
And swiftly overheats –
Shows the futility in petty grievances
And postponed dreams.
.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Saturday, October 09, 2010
E-Love
You can play my fast money
Fertilize my Farmville.
Go ahead and poke me
But be gentle.
Leave a smile,
Like a photo.
We can stay friends
Or select the option for relationship.
Our first date can be a Youtube clip
With popcorn and the internet.
We’ll share a box of candy
From the image off a bumper sticker.
As I stare longingly into your Facebook pic
We’ll colon-dash-asterisk goodnight.
Until it’s complicated and
We’re single.
.
Fertilize my Farmville.
Go ahead and poke me
But be gentle.
Leave a smile,
Like a photo.
We can stay friends
Or select the option for relationship.
Our first date can be a Youtube clip
With popcorn and the internet.
We’ll share a box of candy
From the image off a bumper sticker.
As I stare longingly into your Facebook pic
We’ll colon-dash-asterisk goodnight.
Until it’s complicated and
We’re single.
.
I Remember Being Friends
I remember being friends. Things were different then and so were we. Sure, the world was fucked – it’s always been – but we could deal. Now, you’re there and I’m here. We’re the parallel lines the teacher used to talk about; never intersecting and slanted slightly so we drift toward different corners of the grid.
We’re so far off the center that even calculators can never find our dots. Sure, a teenager in Trig might scroll and scroll absentmindedly in a daydream haze but it won’t matter. He’ll only find the faintest trail of something that no longer is and can’t return.
My mind goes back to the last time I saw her. She was in a cap and gown and it seemed as if we’d meet again. But things aren’t always what they seem.
We talked over movies with another friend. I had mistaken one actor for another and felt dumb, but I still smiled. Or maybe I edited a smile in my memory. In retrospect I don’t see how I could have frowned. I was young and I had everything. If I messed up I could just start over and no one would think twice. I believe they call that leeway.
The line. We had to find our spots in it. We waved goodbye and got in place. One by one they shook our hands and sent us to our destiny. I wish now I could have shouted out to them; don’t drive the car two years from now… don’t try the heroine, just stop at weed… don’t marry him he drinks too much.
I’m thankful she turned out all right. It’s always amazing when someone makes all the right choices. She went to graduate school and eventually got married. He’s not the most caring husband but he’s never took a shot at her. More than most can say.
She’s walking to the stage, she’s gotten her diploma. Now she’s climbing down the steps and mixing with the crowd that might as well be the entirety of the world and all the years since.
My turn. I went up and shook hands, the owners of which I can’t recall. I got some paper inside a portfolio that we had prepared ourselves earlier that year. But now I’m too jaded to find any sort of joy in it. It was less a celebration and more the deep breath before the plunge, despite the fact a cute sophomore girl, now living in Japan, had made the effort to call out to me.
I watched the rest of the procession, which seems so artificial in the current light. It was like some sort of living funeral, as we suffered through kind words and then, the burial. The principle, teachers were pallbearers that carried us to graves with the epitaph reality.
The last student descended and all took to the crowd. I looked for her feverishly to share that last moment of joy to no avail.
Yet, as I and everyone else around me threw our hats and tassels in the air, the moment of airborne serenity was in essence our friendship. The swinging fibers so alive and high reached their zenith and then as life and love will always do – they fell. Cascading down they tangled with a hundred others, so that even those of us desiring some token of our time devoted could not make out the ones we threw. And, as some, like me searched feebly in vain, others left contented – not looking as the janitor began to sweep up caps with dirt and other trash.
.
We’re so far off the center that even calculators can never find our dots. Sure, a teenager in Trig might scroll and scroll absentmindedly in a daydream haze but it won’t matter. He’ll only find the faintest trail of something that no longer is and can’t return.
My mind goes back to the last time I saw her. She was in a cap and gown and it seemed as if we’d meet again. But things aren’t always what they seem.
We talked over movies with another friend. I had mistaken one actor for another and felt dumb, but I still smiled. Or maybe I edited a smile in my memory. In retrospect I don’t see how I could have frowned. I was young and I had everything. If I messed up I could just start over and no one would think twice. I believe they call that leeway.
The line. We had to find our spots in it. We waved goodbye and got in place. One by one they shook our hands and sent us to our destiny. I wish now I could have shouted out to them; don’t drive the car two years from now… don’t try the heroine, just stop at weed… don’t marry him he drinks too much.
I’m thankful she turned out all right. It’s always amazing when someone makes all the right choices. She went to graduate school and eventually got married. He’s not the most caring husband but he’s never took a shot at her. More than most can say.
She’s walking to the stage, she’s gotten her diploma. Now she’s climbing down the steps and mixing with the crowd that might as well be the entirety of the world and all the years since.
My turn. I went up and shook hands, the owners of which I can’t recall. I got some paper inside a portfolio that we had prepared ourselves earlier that year. But now I’m too jaded to find any sort of joy in it. It was less a celebration and more the deep breath before the plunge, despite the fact a cute sophomore girl, now living in Japan, had made the effort to call out to me.
I watched the rest of the procession, which seems so artificial in the current light. It was like some sort of living funeral, as we suffered through kind words and then, the burial. The principle, teachers were pallbearers that carried us to graves with the epitaph reality.
The last student descended and all took to the crowd. I looked for her feverishly to share that last moment of joy to no avail.
Yet, as I and everyone else around me threw our hats and tassels in the air, the moment of airborne serenity was in essence our friendship. The swinging fibers so alive and high reached their zenith and then as life and love will always do – they fell. Cascading down they tangled with a hundred others, so that even those of us desiring some token of our time devoted could not make out the ones we threw. And, as some, like me searched feebly in vain, others left contented – not looking as the janitor began to sweep up caps with dirt and other trash.
.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Trees
Some trees invariably die before they take root –
For one reason or another, the environment has failed them.
Perhaps the climate is too hot, too cold
Or the soil lacks a certain nutrient.
Insects may just slowly eat away
The ability to photosynthesize.
Men might come with axe in hand
And greedy eyes…
Or, a seed takes wind and finds
No ground will mate with it.
.
For one reason or another, the environment has failed them.
Perhaps the climate is too hot, too cold
Or the soil lacks a certain nutrient.
Insects may just slowly eat away
The ability to photosynthesize.
Men might come with axe in hand
And greedy eyes…
Or, a seed takes wind and finds
No ground will mate with it.
.
Drifting
Do you ever feel as if you’re drifting,
That your universe is vast and shifting?
Perhaps I shouldn’t mind the rifting
I know I could embrace the sifting
If the waves would only stop their lifting
And set me down in pleasant shrifting.*
*From shriven: to impose penance
.
That your universe is vast and shifting?
Perhaps I shouldn’t mind the rifting
I know I could embrace the sifting
If the waves would only stop their lifting
And set me down in pleasant shrifting.*
*From shriven: to impose penance
.
Friday, October 01, 2010
The Blip
Human beings are a blip in the history
Of a planet that’s a blip in the universe.
In the infinite we’d find realities
Of little purpose or concern to us.
A star may die too early or too soon;
Saturn’s rings perhaps are less magnificent.
Asteroids colliding, wreaking havoc in Andromeda
Appear to us mere specks inside the Milky Way.
Yet, as we divide ourselves from vast statistics
We find both hope and endless possibilities.
Beyond the density of neutron stars –
The crushing weight a black hole
Lies solace buried in baryonic dark matter;
A treasure that may orbit here someday.
.
Of a planet that’s a blip in the universe.
In the infinite we’d find realities
Of little purpose or concern to us.
A star may die too early or too soon;
Saturn’s rings perhaps are less magnificent.
Asteroids colliding, wreaking havoc in Andromeda
Appear to us mere specks inside the Milky Way.
Yet, as we divide ourselves from vast statistics
We find both hope and endless possibilities.
Beyond the density of neutron stars –
The crushing weight a black hole
Lies solace buried in baryonic dark matter;
A treasure that may orbit here someday.
.
2010
I want things to be simple
Why can’t they be simple?
I don’t want to doubt my faith
In people or in God.
I don’t want to think
There’s nothing left.
But how can I have hope
When economies are failing,
Bombs are blasting convoys,
Religions grow more militant and
Money’s used for senseless killing
As people everywhere are starving
From pestilence, disease and famine?
.
Why can’t they be simple?
I don’t want to doubt my faith
In people or in God.
I don’t want to think
There’s nothing left.
But how can I have hope
When economies are failing,
Bombs are blasting convoys,
Religions grow more militant and
Money’s used for senseless killing
As people everywhere are starving
From pestilence, disease and famine?
.
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