More Recent Poetry Rejections

Coffee

Oh nectar

my Hector

protector of the city of my mind:

coffee, my coffee, only through you can I

be free. Consuming thee, likens me to a star

burning bright, shining free, replete with the potential

destinies of the lives brought forth in the duration of my glow

but slowly, I begin to darken. The cold takes hold

and the crash comes crippling the lives

I once held inside my glow,

until one day,

an injection of new plasma flows

straight into the throes of my erupting corona

and I’m telling you, it makes me feel like I can shine brightly

again, and the virtuous cycle continues, and I am who

I am because coffee is who it is.

The Contents of my Cupboards in Covid Lockdown

Ramen, soy flavored. That other name doesn’t work anymore.

Larabars. Do these have an expiration date? Tastes like yes.

Saltines. Never taste any different.

Graham crackers. Taste like the dust in my cupboards after 2 days.

Green Beans. From back in college. Thanks mom. Moved with them ever since.

Lots of pasta. No sauce. Sad, really.

Peanut Butter. Try a spoon with coffee. Still not eating much, but so much better!

Wilted salad kit. Gonna keep you in the fridge so if someone sees, they know I eat it.

Dishes. Not ready to eat those yet.

Cups. Good containers for coffee. Haven’t run out of that yet.

Marshmallows. I know, I know, but I don’t care. They’re too good.

That’s it. That’s everything.

Looks like Pad Thai again tonight.

Recent Poetry Rejections

Friend with no Benefit

Hello old friend.

Why come you so quickly back?

Attacked, I retract

the boldness with which

I mistook you for gone.

I’ve only buried you.

But you kept digging,

gnawing, struggling,

and now you’re back.

Aback I am taken,

for having been mistaken

that my lack of security

might interact with

the fact of my absurdity.

You’ve churned in me

ever since I thought you were gone.

But your power has only grown.

Now, though I know you

I’ve forgotten: foggy dreams

seem to obscure my memories

of how I buried you before.

I closed the door

but didn’t lock it.

And now, you’re standing here before

me. You drip the wet of your mess on my floor.

I’m sure I can resist but I’m tired.

I’ve tried to realize the mess you make.

You take and take and take.

But now that I see you, I mistake you for a friend.

And down our path we wend again.

And in the end, I’ll remember

what I got rid of you for.

But it won’t be before

I’m on my knees,

wiping up the mess you made on my floor

once more.

The Lie(f)

If honesty is freedom

we’re all in lockdown.

Brought low by our boldness

to speak we seek to be

understood but in our waking

to humanity’s sin all around,

we’ve found our neighbors

too guilty not to live in fear.

Seared into our minds

the confessions of wayward souls

who seek our forgiveness

but reveal their scars

compel us to hide ours.

What would my hurting neighbor think

to know that I too was on the brink?

How much pain do I dare inflict

on friends until they begin to distrust

the rusty joints that make up

my tree of life?

In strife can we still enter in

to fellowship one with another

when I’m aware my neighbor

is sleeping with an other?

And if they begin to understand

the evil that lies within

will they still call me friend?

Will they clutch their pearls tightly

as I walk by, unsightly me?

No, my fear is too great,

the cost of this freedom too high.

I will live rightly and abide in my lies

deprived of this freedom

prescribed by one who does not know

the cries inside the souls of my eyes.

Do not Trudge

Oh my friend

what gifts I could give

if you would but live

in the shelter of my wisdom.

I too was a kid.

I get it. I know.

All the things you are feeling:

they’ve blown through my heart also.

If I could somehow let you know all that I know

without subjecting you to the sorrow that made me grow

you know I would.

If I could, I would have stood in the way

and taken that pain again.

I know how. But you my soft and naïve friend,

how could you possibly know

the depths into which you will descend?

Why invite it?

Why not let me help?

The sweltering, searing, pain

pressing out on your skull:

the ants in your veins,

I know you just need to break away

but I don’t want to let you go.

We don’t all make it, you know.

This journey consumes some, maybe most

and as I roast my emotional brain

on the spit of your ego

I don’t know how I’ll handle your pain.

May you quickly be reined in

with compassion and enter in

to the recovery that comes

in humble reflection

and finally shed the need

for your complexion so hollow.

And follow instead the path

where wrath and anger and hurt

cannot tread. Where negative emotion is dead

and where, instead,

you rejoin those who love you:

those who will be your drug instead.