The Learning Process

Force fields besiege both ears, unreadied
for your words-
words of salvation; words silenced
in plastic casings, in fears
of cracking its shell, self-made.

Averting to pains of well-tracked hypotheses,
only to bore contempt
in forced experiment, in attempts to predict
and control
the variables.
And the pursuit is foiled,
a calculation that only thwarts your
chrysalis-
cradling the embryo of
your words' painted wings.

While, ironically,
in soundless increment,
the plastic shifts to fluid, to vapored
particle.
The orb transforms its own atmosphere-
now permeable,
and less opaque.
Yet such a velocity- both constant,
and slight,
is mistaken as lacking motion.
An axis denied of existing;
an inertia unrecognized
by a turbulent mind.

Until, the moment of perforation:
as unexpected,
ordinary,
indiscernible, even,
but always when alone, stalled in shadows,
Agony sounds instead like
a laugh-
so clear and startling,
so intimate,
so perfect in its endeavor.

And we can acknowledge the beauty found in death,
in inaudible words long heard:
their diligence;
transcendence;
the unfathomable dissolve of a well-guarded bliss.

We will welcome the news, beyond ritual.
Welcome the art in all our failing to simulate
the secrets only told
inside cocoon.

Ode to Sunrise, in memory of Grady Tissington

When the sun set and light slept, no one

was surprised.

When the crickets cried in anxious sighs, we knew

it's as it must.

But when the colors streaked the sky in only 

hues of gray,

We bowed our heads and buried.

We found the dawn too late.

On Relationships

The answer to why I spend so much self,

elsewhere-

spills down the fronts of sweaters,

mars nearly every sleeve, every cuff,

a sweetness that fails to color tongue or thought;

Nothing to digest.

And now, you-

crumpling my garments in smiling fists,

a quick toss into the swirl. Churn.

And I, hypnotized by the cycle,

your chore.

A strategic erasure

of all I crave to mourn.

A Welcomed Distraction

Thank goodness for ADD

for how else would I allow
such aversion
such permission to dive inside
others' scripting
to tackle task-towers all
hours of the night
or skate my way through walls by
osmosis-

just for some time to
forget

this staggering through the crumb trails
my wallow in your wake