Tag Archives: poem

In an iPhone Darkly

It is the darkness of night and the soft glow
Of a screen that force me to realize this is it.

When my brain stem ceases to send messages,
Then I am gone.
I will no longer recognize color,
Light, sound.
So bring on the colors,
The lights,
The sounds.

From the leaf-strewn gutters,
The windows of second floor apartments,
The loud fire escapes,
The black iron balconies.
God, just push them on me.

A wave of fight or flight moments
Of intensities so hovering in their greatness,
So buzzing in their touch,
So bursting in their nobility.

I can feel it.
None of that is organized.

The organized moments give way to these desolate hours
When we finally understood this is it
And balk at our limitations.
My knee.
My wrist.
My shoulder.
Without them I cannot walk.
With them I cannot fly.

What Are You Thinking?

@MSP 3What are you thinking, my darling daughter?

Are there fears?
Like magicians. Swirling, whirling, making confusion and dust. Tornadoes of glittering wonderment—
No appeasement of thought while you gaze, adrift.

Is there innocence of what will be?
How will my bag fit? Where will I sit?
Will my feet touch the floor? Will the plane make a roar?
When I arrive,
Will Mickey like my smile? Will Cinderella talk a while?

I wonder what she thinks—her first time in the air.
I surely don’t remember mine,
And she may not remember this first time.
But if not, then I’ll remind her
Of that time I took a picture
While standing not far behind her—
As she gazed longingly at the great blue and orange plane, enormous in stature, standing quietly, gently still on the tarmac, as a sleeping dragon, a 485-ton flying carpet, to be filled with people of all shapes and sizes. A marvel of man. That magician.

“What?”

“What?”

That word will forever keep you at a distance.
A disdain for a lie, echoed by innocence, forged through proximity.

I cannot look and admire without its deliberate reverberation.
Alter a subject without its halting response.
Speak of another without its arrogant retort.
Refer to a passing conversation without its kindly rejoinder.

It keeps me from Love.

From a solemn appreciation of
Your silence and of
Your beauty and of
Your individuality.

17.11.2012