I Don’t Twitter.

By the time I got here
I forgot why I thought
I would never be here.

Why I thought I’d never want this.

There was once a present moment
a present me
that thought that this me was not real.

Yet, without providence or design
I am here. In this moment
holding a human being who just peed on me.

Why I thought I’d never want this.

This is the third. The youngest.
Like me. Unformed rock
and probably already thinking

of reasons why they’d never want this.

In my arms they are the center of the universe.
There cannot be two centers.
This is the choice of our lives.

Outside the window, the cold barren
hills of Nowhere, Ohio are gloomy.
It’s incredible school system teaches kids

how to come to want this.

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Evaporation

She has become
the benefactor
of bad advertisement.
Willfully hidden
though not reclusive.
The sweet nectar that
entices and drowns.

Fecund and frail green
filled and surrounded
by dead flies. You know
not to touch her, so you
admire instead.
The momentum of nature
comes from this tension.

A school boy
runs his hand up her leg –
the leg of a girl. 9th grade
is hard for everyone.
Such courage he has never felt
thriving and pumping
in his head and heart.
To fly, or a fly.

Dioanea, the teacher
of Socrates
the Virgin Mary
of Ancient Greece.
The mother,
who sits and waits
as devious as she is
pristine. Her ancestry
bringing a ruler down
on the boys desk.
To save, or to savor.

The sheepish hand withdraws.

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Fate or Freedom

I gave.
Every reception
taken.
Everything away.
And what I got
was good.
It was good, and not free.
The product of relenting
of giving of allowing.
How then do I go back
how then do I tell the others.
Tell my child.
How do I drag them kicking
and screaming
into the sun and the shackles
when all they want is to choose.
Today’s lesson will be on
Dostoevsky and reality television.

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It’s a Pain

It’s a pain.
Decidedly,
decisively
a pain.
Forced upon me
by my eyes,
No. What they see.
Yes. No still.
Pain isn’t in sight;
it isn’t hiding
in the light that folds
into darkness.
It is in the stomach,
that irritable sack.
Acidic
as it is hungry.
Except now it is pained.
Queasy.
The in is trying to come out
and that is the pain.
No, yet again.
Confusing causes
will not solve this pain.
Solve? It is not that kind of pain.
A kind pain.
A desired pain. Yes.
Indubitable. Like a tickle
that you shirk from
but then want in its
absence.
How you shirk when
I call it a pain,
yet no denial
follows, just insult.
Muscles grow in pain.
Head’s ache from
too much learning.
Yet the soul must grow.
The soul must learn.
Such is pain.
No. Yes?

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Do Unto Others

That is why books have covers
like old projectors on walls
with translucent sheets to hold
the shadows captive.
Like modern smoke detectors
to alert the students
with its siren call to meet
in ordered lines
of evacuation.

A mouth like a gavel
to call to order,
to end a trial,
to put a nail in place,
to smash a scarab,
or to rest on the Bible.
Do you tell a judge not to judge?
A carpenter not to build?
A teacher not to teach?

When I was young,
before your time,
as ancient as Egypt,
I would lie
about what I saw,
or touched,
or did,
and felt a terrible disarray –
a fun disarray.
Yet, contrary to my pounding heart,
that ever present justifier,
my parents would say
“You must do your part in this world,
you must work before you play.”

In the end, I have learned it to be true,
and love them for trying to tell me,
but more important still,
like breathing my child,
is what the journey has taught me to do.
My dear innocent,
my white winged angel,
my baptized babe,
you must do unto others,
no matter what they say,
as you would have them
do unto you.

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