poetry

Pieces (Peace)

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

like a hurricane where
it doesn’t belong, stress
has swooped in from a
once-peaceful tropical locale,
tearing down trees,
ripping off roofs,
destroying in its path
every last bit of calm
that the summer once
peacefully offered me.

i stare into the beast’s eye,
reminding me that the middle
is only a moment of waiting,
that the end will whip around
and leave remnants of the
past in pieces behind its
horrendously angry tail,
pieces I will pick up, put back
together, and swallow in peace.

D & F Tower

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As stated matter-of-factly
hundreds of times, this tower
(brick-not-steel, pointed
and dominant) was the tallest
building in Denver when

at age twenty-one, like the
pioneers two generations back
(two generations back from me)
my great-aunt Frances walked
through downtown (1937)

We enter it for the first time in
my life tonight, year twelve of
our young marriage. “Finally,”
you say, “something you haven’t
already done,” opening the door for me.

Did she see it? Painted crown molding
on the ceilings, intricately laid
white marble (smooth and cool
against the skin on a summer night),
architecture from a bygone era.

Would she care about the cabaret
burlesque show that emanates from
the basement stairwell? Or did she know,
with her domineering, independent shoes
that carried her here from Kansas,

that, just like the steel-concrete-glass
skyscrapers that have tried to trump this,
it still stands in a changing world,
here we stand in a changing world,
its strength (our strength) unwilling to give up
its place in the heart of the city (of love).

My Moon

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the music has ended
(crickets are singing now)
and there are no cicadas here

their tiny legs call out to us
in the deep of night and the
light shining on my belly?

it is like that night under the moon
white sand encircling our toes
where i walked to the water alone

you remember. how anger and
longing threw us apart, how i
imagined a trip there alone, with them.

in a perfect circle, the moon
led me along the beach, wind
whispering the truth to me

we didn’t have electricity
a bathroom or a camper,
nothing but haste and desire

i think of this now only because
of the songs you have chosen
now ended, given in to insects

i will carry them (the music of
our lives) to sleep along with my moon.
i would be lost without it.

Question

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unusually demure
her face reddens
tips down (shame?
fear? abandonment?)
avoids the question.

her eyes zip from
side to side quick
as a predatory cat
i can’t tell if she’s
nodded or shaken
the truth from her head.

i will know soon
but just as our own
questions burn between us
soon is not now
now is not tomorrow
and tomorrow (i) fear
is a little too late.

Encounter

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you sit like a tiny blue frog
hidden in the twilight on
a lily pad surrounded by black water

almost impossible to see
but i know you’re there
hiding out, zippy tongue ready

in a moment, you will snatch
away my summer, swallowing
my girls as if they were annoying flies.

i can’t disappear from this encounter,
but only work my way closer, ready
to pry you open, releasing them, in spring.

My Mountain

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For Olivia

walking together
hands apart
we could climb
slope after slope

it could be pretty
with shrubs
and wildflowers
and young scrub oaks

it might sprinkle,
sparkling your eyes
just a tad with
twisted rays of light

you could lead the way
and i could follow
(something new for me)
and give in to your desires.

but

it wouldn’t build
our hamstrings
with the ever-harder
mountain climbs

it wouldn’t bring
us (no matter how many slopes)
to the glorious
tops of fourteeners

it would never be the same
as tall pines giving way
to snow-covered peaks,
to insurmountable beauty

it would be you and i
new and rounded
(soft and wary)
not as hard-won as the years
(the poking-into-sky
sharp-at-our-cores
daring-to-be-ourselves
mountain peaks)
i have given to her,
my mountain,
my home,
my love.

Wash

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with water everything is pure
from sandy shores to lakes demure
it washes off and cools us down
and shatters each internal frown

with water we wash out the weak
replacing it with a stronger streak
of life that breeds within the deep
bringing forth the hope we need to keep

with water we have a clearer light
on days that inevitably end in night
it guides us there and guides us back
and washes out what once was black.

With This Pedal

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with this pedal I thee wed
a life that’s mine (inside my head)
to remember all that is momentous
and forget everything circuitous

with this pedal I will fly
into my life, by and by
taking with me all that’s past
leaving behind what I’ve surpassed

with this pedal I am me
more than elsewhere I could be
to speak my mind and ache my soul
to take the parts and make them whole

with this pedal I thee wed
a life that’s mine (inside my head)
to remember all that brought me here
to forget all that should disappear.

Idiom

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there’s no question that you and I
circle together in yin and yang;
just throw your worries into the sky
‘cause without your buck I’d have no bang.

it may seem like a common idiom
to say that opposites attract;
we swing on both sides of the pendulum—
when I go forward, you pull back.

but nothing’s common about our love
for thirteen years in the making;
without you I could not rise above
all that together we have forsaken.

so swallow these words and keep them deep
as black against white balance out;
until the moment of my last sleep
you have my heart without a doubt.

Layers

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with turbulence bouncing her brain,
she rests her eyes
and recounts
(rebreathes relives)
the memory.

haunt
pleasure
remorse
renewal
and words that
can’t define it.

she traps it there
(behind the eyelids)
for no one else to see.

like a kidnapped child,
it will not submit
no matter how many
locks she places on its cage.

she searches for the keys
but
they have been lost in layers
of days and months and years
that only allow her this one
to keep
to keep without release.