Prayer for Dead-Letter Office Unemployment

Wiping the “Return to Sender” off my forehead

because you’ll know yourself, you’ll know me
an inverted introvert, and only try to satisfy–
cause you’d have to create me to satiate me,
please, my pretty paradox don’t pass me by,
for my life would only lead up to that moment,
when these words cease to be sent back to me.

you’ll know how to tackle and rustle leaves,
chuckle at half my crap, and soothe the other,
when to discuss metaphors, death, and eternity,
and keep my mind and matter grinding away, yet loved–
carrying me back to hearth to nuzzle with my heart
until intensifying my passions reap responsibility.

One of these days

we’ll watch movies, play monopoly,
I’ll be the terrier, you the cavalry,
we’ll sing and dance under clouds of rain,
not so similar songs, but the tune’ll be the same,
there’ll be reading of writing of long ago,
maybe quoting of passages we’ll always know:
we’ll bear the hearts we hide from public eye
to another that understands the why
there’s been cowering in corners too long–afraid,
afraid of what our Creator has blessed and made,
you’ll arrive on a north wind, I on a south,
will meet together and forget life without,
for I sense a change in the air,
but no vane heralds quite where.
or who or where it will take us to

This thawing day

How long till You all come back again?

the defrosting trees toss glass upon the concrete cracks,
as the campus grounds liberate themselves, from their snowy mounds
from which I was once hiding away, before this thawing day,
from the frozen frost below, hostage by the augmented snow
in my fully-furnaced room above, but today is not the spring I love,
and the sun and his nemesis, snow, still waltz window to window
as I glide past the glaring glass, I pause, to reflect, to ask,
“Mother!1, Father!2 When will your children wake up?”
1Mother Earth
2Father God

No idea where I’m going

Hunched on my couch with flannel and ‘boggin:
comatose.
I’ve drawn in my antennae (and) vision,
afraid to breathe my words for their heat,
trying to shut out the cold outside and in.
if strength is perfected in weakness,
call me Atlas–once leading men
now sulking alone
with my circular burden.

Exploding the dreams we don’t share

Holy Sonnet I1

you have marched over all my plans,
chipping the concrete sidewalks into sand,
the paths mice and me have laid,
but are now decayed,
here below–

all mine–or so
until you took them away–
not you, never you, but your tortuous ways,

my dreams of domination
now flailing, fried bytes on a silicon floor,
you were not downloaded, but were in the light
that struck / and cooked / the comp’ /
as I clicked / to view / to join /
to think / I never thanked you
when it left me lonely;
another dazy-eyed other.

my dreams of dancing
now trampled confetti on a post-prom floor,
you were not seated, but were in the chair
that tripped / and tore / the tendon /
as I stood / to walk / to ask /
to think / I never thanked you
when she left me lonely;
another shady-eyed other.

my dreams of debauchery
now boot-imprinted beer on an Accord floor,
you were not at the wheel, but were in the car
that died / and burned / the belt /
as I steered / to go / to drive /
to think / I never thanked you
when he left me lonely;
another hazy-eyed other.

all mine–or so
until you took them away–
not you, never you, but your tortuous ways,

exploding the dreams we don’t share,
slamming a sledge against the foundation
of my present–wishes, sand, and water whipped:
minerals mixed in the vat called the human mind.
So manly-made they are, and me!
meddling in the presence of your prenatal plans.
1The pronoun, “I,” not the Roman numeral

Sometimes I lie

sometimes I lie,
I bite myself–forking:
You’re saving souls from fire
and day to day desolation,

and for a moment, the fangs are enough
to not slit my scaly skin,
ignoring others’ bleeding,
like me! in self-pity,

tragedy keeps me humble–thirsty
to stare, into cringes and dying corpses
decaying on the desert, I swivel on
with no eyelids I cannot cry.

but the sun still shines
behind clouds and over sandy mounds–
burning yet basking! and the cross
is enough tragedy to get me through.

Scarved leaves parachute

scarved leaves parachute to block my way,
oblivious to my important conversations inside,
“We’re dying” they say in solemn faces drifting–
ignoring me ignoring them?
and being a Goodfella, I grind their uncovered graves into the newly laid concrete,
bloody gray– “Bloody right,
we’re dying.” I say
and walk on.

Am I Jesus?

says she is no good friend,
another will not cease saying that I am:
interlinked in stomach knots taxed
by the sieve of time straining, I collapse after each one
shares–pain divides: a miraculous healing.

When I stacked Bugles on fingertips

When I stacked Bugles on fingertips,
bounding on beds throwing fits,
birthdays were for me with presents not weapons
against demons, how fulfilling was fun? back then
when I played to play–for I must–
’till time was told by dusk,
when chimney smoke and riding bikes were fall,
no note of the girls dressed half as tall,
before I knew what all my parts where suppose to do
and realized I could easily live in a rue,
before wrist watches rubbed my thigh
and never took the first reply to my “Why?”

I rearrange bits on a magnetic plane

I rearrange bits on a magnetic plane,
There’s more to life than this
image, not the taste–
the ephemeral and epidermis–
functioning in formless figure
rigid as rigatoni,
“try to design me,”
“what if I’m all design?”
“Can’t be.” I muse across my chic living room;
packages consumable by Teletubby toddlers
distanced from truth by remote’s teach–
afraid, craving reality
that couldn’t be shown on TV
or pages at the grocery.