Author: poetryfest

On Sunday I text you
“Old friend, how are you?
Care to come over
Or perhaps I can come around?
It’s only a two-hour flight.
We can drink beer, watch movies,
Walk, or just enjoy each
Other’s company. Small delights.”

On Monday it is all grey
And it rains out of spite.
On Tuesday the lakes
Quickly start to bubble up.
It is on Wednesday that
The volcanoes burn the towns.
Thursday the moon
Leaves the earth in fear and runs.
On Friday I look up in love
And see the stars die one by one.
On Saturday I walk the desolate world
Utterly lonely, on my own.
On Sunday you text back
And simply say “I’m fine.”

1922-1994
First lieutenant US Air Corps

Vernon Broadus Bodie Bodenhimer.
Your eyes sparkled,
Your cologne clung to me,
I felt so safe in your arms.
Your red spenders,
Button up,
Clean and crisp,
That pen from the pulp mill,
Nestled in your pocket
Black and gold.
Your favorite slacks.

You were gentle.
Maybe somewhat unsettled,
The searing scars of Shell Shock.

You were never the same-
the war-
B-52 navigator-
Bombing filthy fucking natzis into oblivion-
Saving civilians-
Disobeying orders-
earned you your Purple Heart.

A pacifist.
A Quaker.
A conscientious objector.
Decided not to dodge that damn draft.

So the pacifist made his way to war,
And back to us.

But before I could fully grow,
Or even truly know-
You were gone.

I wish just once more
You would wrap me in your arms.

Death becomes us all.
It lays siege to our souls
And seeps between our fibres.
It draws the blinds in our heart
And carries a chill into our arms.
It lifts the weight of burden
And kisses us in sweet farewell.

Alas, do not weep
For it is a fleeting thing that barely glimpses our way.
It is not a shadow that eclipses our being
Nor is it a darkness cold and unrelenting.
Why do we condemn it as a vile malevolence?
When it has so gently brought to me
A bliss ever bright and forgiving.

In memory of Laurie

I found you in the obits.
We held hands during the 80s.
My old man drove us to the concert.
We were destined to marry.

We held hands during the 80s.
Sorry I was late for the party.
We were destined to marry.
I hated you for wanting that singer.

Sorry I was late for the party.
Notes from our song play in my head.
I hated you for wanting that singer.
You wore tight white cords.

Notes from our song play in my head.
My old man drove us to the concert.
You wore tight white cords.
I found you in the obits.

In Loving Memory of Patrick Ewing (died August 8th, 2012, age 34)

I don’t want to romanticize any of this,
make it about poetry,
as if he only dreamed in verse
like the way language learners mouth their first syllables
deep in REM.

I still remember that writing workshop where my poem snapped
him in half, like a schoolhouse pencil:

July 17, 2008

My mother died today
July 17, 1997….

It was stupid for my sister and me to leave
her side an hour ago
when she struggled to breathe
even a cupful of air.

The blue in his eyes dimmed
red sadness filled in its place.
I continued to read the poem
the blue fading even further like dusk.
Before the last word could break me
I left the room to cry for my mother.

I didn’t see him leave that day.
He said he dropped to the ground outside
the workshop and did push-ups
blood coursing through his muscles
heart beats out of whack
desperate to feel anything but this.
He never told me why
he had to make the pain stop that day.

For my own sadness, I need to romanticize this part:

I want to believe that he dreamed in verse
when he pulled the sweaty trigger
words filled the soft wound, overflowing,
falling,
to the ground like roses.
words large as caterpillars
metamorphosed into butterflies
words small as ants
carrying away
the ghosts of his past.

My old friend Jeremy died today;
Or Wednesday, I forgot.

It is hard to count the years of yesterday tricklings
through ancient fingers like sand. I employ
overused metaphor, because I am afraid that
I never knew Jeremy, he was a hard man, bitter
edges of diamond-titanium wonder, threatening to
sparkle with rainbow glory in Amish moonlight. He
hailed from Rocklin, or so I believe, and he liked to vape
and suck cock, and stare blankly into over-mature spaces–

he liked to forget, mainly.

We were close and then we were not—
He fell out with everyone he loved, like a trustfall,
to love someone is to trust them, and it always
falls through.

I employ these stale idioms because I am afraid
that I do not know Jeremy, and I do not know
where he has gone. I am a Christian, and Jeremy
was not, but I am more than Christianity. God is
the color of many tints, he represents in
myriads of forms, Krishna blinks, and then it is
Mohammed. I believe this is so. Jeremy
did not like religion, or meat-eaters, or himself—

Truthfully, when Jeremy died, it was no surprise–

One could say he was one of those people who were not tailored
for life, it didn’t fit him, the monotonous ideals, the circuitous
arcs. He was not responsible and he was not happy;
Maybe, he could have become those things. I do not
know.

I do not know how he died;
I had not thought about him for so long, and then his cousin said
he is dead, he is dead

And it was like hope deflating–
A balloon drifting away from static circus
To find new horizons, to explode in a humid atmosphere.
They said that he was doing better, that he was finding treatment
for his addictions. I trusted them, because I did not know
him.

And Jeremy might have died for me a long time ago–
I ceased to know him until two years ago. He
did not talk to me. He was afraid of me, or
he was afraid of that sort of intimacy, a platonic
hope.

And for me, I think that maybe, Jeremy died today–
Or maybe he’ll die some other day, when the ache of existential knife
seizes itself from my breast, when I stop hearing his voice
amongst the honeysuckle shade, when I do not drive around Sacramento
to those extraneous plazas, and I do not see him beside me vaping
or Googling, or hesitating to laugh.

The people
we share moments with, even if it is a month, or a minute,
they shape us, or at least they shape me. I see them like I see
inimitable clay, and I welcome imprintations, new structures, various
memories. Jeremy changed me, and I thought lazily that he
was getting better.

for Uncle “Captain” Jim

An expression for patience
I try to understand:

Delicate tension in his arms,
his back and legs, his entire body,
became ill all at once.

Don’t feel too bad,
the symptoms are
almost always invisible.

Eyes mirrors on water’s surface
same color, same peace,
stay still as stone.

He would hold me up to the
Indiana Jones pinball machine,
a gunshot launch into
dust-colored adventure.

My aunt had to sell all those things.
She tells us she misses
‘coffee with a kiss’
mornings most.

He held a thumbs up
to the phone when he
couldn’t speak anymore.

Remember before the years betrayed us?
Marked and scraped us?
I take a look at my hands
In the mirror, in my eyes
There is a tiredness that cannot be named.

Do you remember?
Do you want to go back?
Would you take a chance knowing that
This is the outcome?
That we became who we are.

An asymptote is a series of lines that grow
Closer together in mathematics
But they never intersect
I was always just close enough to you
But never to touch.

Are we destined for this to be our lifetime?
You – warm and full but never
Quite in reach and I
Angled and disjointed, can it be fixed?
Can it be fixed? Can I be fixed?

A note on Asymptote: This poem was written as a way to honor the “death” of the longest relationship I had ever been in. We had been together for 4 years, with the last year marked with a long list of hardships. By the end, we knew that there was nothing more left between us. While I knew I needed to let go, I always wondered if it was something I would ever want to live through again. Thus, this poem was written to reflect on that death and consider the human condition through a complicated and unhealthy romantic relationship

The constant rainfall willingly confines us to each other
I’ve never liked monsoon season before

The world I once knew is muffled
smells, sights, sounds
I can hear them, without the same sharpness
I can see them, without the same clarity

Father time will return when the weather dries
with sharp fear, excitement
the loud shimmer,
the bubble pop

My bag is empty to eyes not my own
but I can feel its weight
full of these moments
where I’m wrapped up
in him
in us
in the neat little bubble we’ve made