Lingering On

How often we've perceived
Better promised parts,
Believing in our deceiving
Or hoping for some small spark
Of lingering meaning.

How should we wrestle with our pasts?
How should we cope with knowing
The sun stands still and we do all the moving?

So we shift our shoulders and avert our gazes.
We don't always get to recognize
What you and I will become.

Maybe we all just need our hearts to break,
Sometimes,
We need the ice cleared from the river.

Winter Ballads, vol. 1

Digital Hymns

Digital hymns,

Hummed along to, from our mouths and modems.

Digitized sleep,

Dreaming in front of electronic screens,

Digitally and cohesively recording entities and discourses,

Conflicting in size and purpose.

We speak in tabs, clicks, and faces;
Monuments of the momentous and banal
Built from the ones and zeros of binary.

We already count aloud the digital sheep
To keep ourselves awake
Through all of the hours
In hopes that the small light
That we all keep close at hand
Will lighten the burden
Of human hope and doubt.

Onset of Brightness

American flag clad,

National headlining boy

Dancing across the summer grass

Five months from now.

Arise,

Infinite summer, 

Limited grace upon age.

Life lights lingers lovely and lonely;

All together, all in the dark.

Be brave and take care,

For the odds are on your waking.

Don't take the sucker's bet

Of selling yourself short;

You're the only horse you've got in the race.

How brave can you prove to be?
How scared are you tonight?
The world is supposed to end every night,
Your feet meet the floor the next day anyways.

Crow Call (Near the River) - Keith Jacobshagen

Leaning

You have been lied to about time,
About how it ebbs and flows.
It will speed up when you're among friends,
Or falling in love as you know,
But it's at its fastest when you're where you don't want to be.
The longer you stay,
From fear or a slight bending of the path,
The more of you that gets away.

Are we honest with ourselves when we rise from our beds?
About how we wish we were better at keeping our friends together.
That we really tried with our first, second, third chances.
Maybe we should have burned a little brighter, danced a little harder;
If I could give you my good colors I would.

Should have,
Should have,
Should have,
Never means a thing.
I am who I've been
And I try for a better past;
Please kindly remember
How I'm still bending to this.

Where We Go

If we do not get out from under
This six feet of apathy,
Let the epitaph simply read:
Expired from lack of exploration.

We came to settle into this belief,
That there are no more blank spaces on the map,
All the frontiers have been assessed and categorized;
The western expansion now stops at our door steps.

When we lose our dreams we lose our stories.
Now we think there are no more dragons left to slay,
No more princes and princess to save;
Fantasy has become forgotten, no longer an inspiration.

We've replaced the uncomfortable awe of the unknown
For the pleasant numbing of the familiar.
A pause and a rest, in measured time,
Is fine to be sure but we have left much to see.

Row upstream,

Sleep somewhere new,

Maintain eye contact with strangers,

Try art, try music, try books;

At least try to find some place new.

When I Drive at Night

When I drive at night
The future bleeds into me,
Outlined by white parallels,
Sudden turns, and predictable unknowns.
The past can keep its pace,
Catching me asleep at the wheel,

When I drive at night I can't see for miles;
I know how to get there, unsure of what to find.
All I know is that there's a home on ahead,
Further in the dark.

Safe Keeping

I wish I could be broken up,
Holy divided,
And shared among my friends;
Then I could be everywhere for everyone.
Keep me in your drawers among colored cloth,
Keep me in your pockets of favorite summers,
Keep me in a safe warm place;
Your favorite memory
Rubbed into the shard of me.
I can be a day,
A reminder,
A face,
A setting;
Just keep me near at hand.
Walk me along the fields at night,
Run with me the risk of being forgotten,
Toss me towards the stars but don't expect me to burn bright
Across this long night sky.
So lay down with me in the memories
Or just bury me beneath your favorite tree
And I will grow a monument for you as all we've ever been.
Elegant or crude, stumbling or smooth;
I'd be proud just to be the purpose of your planting hands.

Kindly Forget

The mistake that I made
              Would
Be reopening that box.

And letting myself remember
         That
Time makes us all strangers.

Everyone likes to say that they would
                                   Make
The same choices again; I don't think I could.

Letters and tickets, all in triplicate,
            It
Is a lot to come back upon.

Don't let restless regret get the
                                    Better
Of your better choices, better friends.

I will amass the memories with reverence,
             For
I will care for their meaning and their sleep.

I don't mind being the archivist alone; as for
                                         You?
Your work is over, your work continues.

Thank you.

tennis courts, july 2014

Falling With Room to Spare

I can stand the feeling of falling,
When gravity wins me back;
All dressed up and down I go.

Oh hello old familiar foundations,
Breaking the fall; can't see anything
With my feet off the ground and head in the clouds.

Comfortable with being uncomfortable;
Learning to lean with the curves.
I'm a mess,
I'm a wreck;
We're doing well,
We're doing fine.

Jumping off the balconies,
Conducting your own backyard symphonies,
Sprinkler sprinting along the main street scene;
Failing, falling, all the progress to be done.

We are royal glory and royally undone;
Listen to us creak and moan with the possibilities,
Watch us bow and bloom beneath the summer sun,
Feel us fight for air and forgotten friendships.

Let us linger among the late night laughter,
Flaunt the fascinating failures of risks we took,
Swapping words about the stars we wish we could follow,
And admit just how just how afraid we all are each day.

Falling, falling, falling;
Time to let go.

An Ending (Ascent)

Here's how I think the story will end.

The cities will fall quiet,
Will shudder and stop.
Left behind are concrete canyons and bridges cross river spans,
As our echoes linger on.
The trees will take back the 'burbs,
The seas will sweep into the cites,
With all of us left watching from the hills.

Want to know what the last sounds will be?
A symphony of cell phones switching off for the last time.
Car engines sputtering down to a stand still, then gone,
Everything standing still as the world spins on.

I think this wouldn't be such a sad thing.

Everything could go green again.
And we would be free to talk once more.
Brother birds take the back the skies,
Sister wolves the mountains,
Father whales the sea,
Mother sky blue once again.
Our home whole again.
And our own
Mothers,
Sisters,
Brothers,
Fathers,
Will remember their families before an end.