It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I need an extra day :) Thank you patient readers. End of the school year kid crunch! My youngest turned twelve yesterday!
The Radical Act of Choosing Joy
Nothing is as subversive
as anarchist, fascist, as a smile
nothing as socialist, communist,
leftist, conservative, libertarian
as a hug.
Sohei warriors have nothing on you,
one could spend eight hours learning
to levitate all the while cursing their master.
Architects, benefactors,
recipients on monuments and plaques,
often stand upon the poop deck,
look out the window of their penthouse
and see only masses of hunger and despair.
Only a true hero attunes to tenacity and hope.
Flowers and dogs must be employed,
winged and scurrying creatures are
absolutely required.
Cross training of stretch and walk, of bend
and percussion on kidneys and sternum,
sleep and laughter applied often, water,
both imbibed and submerged into.
Once you are supple you must
not coat yourself in teflon,
but in bubble wrap,
you invite others to pop.
To see humans as you do an Icelandic poppy
or a Newfoundland,
extraordinary in their curve and gesture,
sometimes you must call everyone
dear or hon or love or sweetie
as does a shop worker at the drug store
on her feet all day,
who takes time in the morning first with pin curls.
The man cutting you off in traffic
becomes not a prick but someone on
an imperative mission, one day
on the heels of insults,
you hurl a blessings,
God speed!
The surly child or boss
becomes your greatest teacher,
pulling your shadows out of Hefty trash bags,
like last season’s moldering clothes.
Hang it all on the line,
thank them on the heels of your curses.
You will fail, you will hourly
be petty and dismissive
a whole afternoon judging those around you
as selfish and addicts,
we must pivot, reset, reboot, reconsider,
we must snap the rubber band of patience
until our wrist blood boils,
bite our tongues when we want to
find fault until we could insert a piercing
and then most importantly, treat ourselves
to the foot massage parlor.
A gray hair in your eyebrow
and you are not old but Gandalf,
my period starting and my girls used all the pads,
tampon shoved, for the first time in a decade,
little blotter of release I reframe it.
We are all devils and false prophets,
we are all angels and elephants.
Prayer is is is is
(every poem I write is some version of this searching for)
rocket fuel, jetpacks of solace,
prayer is little Tic Tac orange mist moments
under our tongue infusions of perhaps...
Lavender grows in the sandiest soil,
bananas on the counter are gifts
from the most benevolent universe.
We must belay one another, for this
hardest, damnednest
craziest vicious and viscous act,
open our throats to whimper and moan,
to grunt and shriek,
until we are open to it, it is the hardest vein to find,
(we are junkies for anger and shame and sorrow),
let it be a trickle, then a creek, stream, ocean
what colors are your,
how will others speak of your,
will you use glitter or sequins to bedazzle your
Joy, Joy, Joy.