2015 Poem-a-Day April 7 (love or anti-love prompt)

Lost in Me


I’ve forgotten how to want
Locked in a constant constrain
Everything is in my head
The rest missing attention

I know myself no longer
And wonder if I ever did
The pains taken haunting
Leave the unenvied unwanted

This song is just memory
Heard at a distance long before
A melody I don’t recognize
Next to a rhythm foreign

Heat has left my soul
Leaving only cold hollow
Alone in this shell
Where love is unknown

2015 Poem-a-Day April 6 (things-not-as-they-appear prompt)

The State of Sunday

(or Organized Jingoism)


Line up and stay still
Don't ever speak out of turn
Now you will sit
Now you will kneel
Now you will stand
And sing with voices high
Sing like you're obliged
To something unseen
To something unsure
To something unknowable
Now chant my name
While I preach for you
The instructions of your life
Grow closer together
And come nearer
So I may feed you
And for your investment
Promise a perceived return

     You begin with pride
     While I fatten to hubris
     You begin with trust
     While I twist to dependence
     You begin with skepticism
     While I undermine to suspicion
     You begin with faith
     While I shame to blindness
     You begin with inclusion
     While I push to fear
     You begin with love
     While I torture to hate

You begin with you
While I pray to me
And now you do too

2015 Poem-a-Day April 5 (vegetable prompt)

27 Words More Than You Deserve

Regardless of your intent
I look at you with contempt
You try to heal me
And I try to stomach you
Yet you remain
As always
Salad

2015 Poem-a-Day April 4 (departure prompt)

A Moment with the Nurse’s Button


I was born yesterday.
I blinked,
I took a drink,
And now it’s over.
There must have been
A moment or two
I should remember,
But the cancer
Is all that is left.
Where did I go?
Not even the mirror
Convinces me
I exist any more.

Gone.

2015 Poem-a-Day April 3 (machine prompt)

Resonant Insanity


The buzz is singular
Mixed by multitude.
Present. Persistent.
I can not tell them apart.
Surrounding me -
Radius of pain -
My ears empty
Except wave metallic.
I'd scratch them out
Or remove the machines.
Gladly. Immediately.
Make it stop. Turn it off.
Turn them all off. Please.

2015 Poem-a-Day April 2 (secret prompt)

Secrecy of the Intimate


We sit
We stare
Opposite ends of the table
Chinese food
Scattered like
Container store chaos

We breathe
Between bites
Sighs deep enough to ask

Do I know
Do you know
Do I know
You know
You know I know
You know I
No

We wait
We wait
A break must come
One of us must
Just say it already
We both
Know

We speak
We say
Nothing

2015 Poem-a-Day April 1 (resistence prompt)

To Sleep


Rest uneasy.
Words against the white.

Where does silence
            hard return
        another other
                   alone?

Shifting atlas -
unconscious maps -
swirl under listless eyes.
Cover them by shade
Until the day calls.