POEM - Day Soliloquy

this soliloquy of a day
with blanched bluish sky
flaccid and limp,
reminds me of the hurt
to be an open palm -

that filling up requires emptiness -
that being alone requires conscious effort
that knowing how love and knowing how to hate
are really the same thing -

that giving blindly and stupidly
is all i can do.

MB 2004

POEM - My Fear

Worse than any fear of death,
am I a closet malcontent?
Draped with purple gratitude,
brim full of false platitudes?
I am almost chic-ly closed
when opened is what I know.
Wanting never makes it so -
my heart divines what it needs to grow
like the winter wheat resown.

I am cancer and consume the blame
an emissary of god's own shame.

MB 2004

POEM - When You Came For Me

When you came for me,
I was ready.

I packed up hurt
and folded it neatly into a valise;

I scooped up resolve and poured it
into a thermos to drink later;

I pressed regret between two slices of bread,
and tomato with some Dijon mustard,
slid it into a zip loc baggy
and pinched the plastic lips closed
with thumb and forefinger.

I stopped the mail and papers;
I boarded the cat;
I disconnected the phone
and cancelled my Internet service.

I sold my bicycle,
my very breath.

I kissed you on the cheek
and said not to worry so much,
and we made love and fun synonyms.

I remembered and forgot;
I put grief in my back pocket
and I forgave everything -
the timing, the youth
the indiscretions committed
in the haste of living so short a life.

When you came for me,
I was ready.
Yet I was surprised.

M.B 2004