I.
We either drown or burn
sinking into brackish depths overwhelmed with watery sorrow gasping, immobilized
choking on the sea’s vastness hovering on the surface -- a bloated corpse
lungs murky with algae dragged down like a stone or we blaze leaving only scorched earth in our path dead, yellowed grasses smoldering soil fields of flame and are left with the charred remnants of love a scalded tenderness skin, once supple with compassion
now torched grey with indignation the heart, once tumid with mercy, singed and scarred peels away in charcoaled layers both, leading us far from our center to the extremities— torpor or mania black holes addictive poisons drawing us to realms of ghosts and demons far from the sacred tree from the fatherly mountain
in my youth, I drowned in my bed each night wallowing in the abyss now, my mind ignites trembles fitfully with a green rage my thoughts, restless dry leaves
tinder to an unquenchable fire
II.
There was a hole
where the compliment might have been
The unoccupied space
heavy, sinking,
unyielding as concrete
The eye of judgement
shreds
with its gaze
Pettiness sweats
and squirms
a pollywog in a puddle
No longer children
who must be sheltered, encouraged,
protected from life’s harshness
In mid-life
we are exposed to the elements
abandoned in the desert
we are the ones
who take out the trash, gloveless
in January
on the brittle black morning
before dawn
My mind tethered and pacing prevents my pillow from bestowing comfort I am less than half of a person Nothing can sit alone contented living its life in sunlight: not a poem, not a song without the shroud of disdain Like stale perfume the stench of mediocrity permeates my silence
Whatever you do
someone does it better