Anger

Being your Enemy

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Being your Enemy

I hope you hear music when you see me.
If I’m to be your woe,
I want there to be a chorus of voices
Fearfully announcing my passage.
There should be *Sephiroth* levels of drama!
I walk in slow motion when you see me at a distance.
You feel your throat open subconsciously when I look at you,
Brain preparing to suck in the needed air for flight.
If you’re choosing me as a nemesis,
Put flames on my fingertips.
Put me in a powerful outfit – whatever threatens you most;
A 90s era coat and a scar, or Lululemon pants and a latte.
I want my eyes to be a color that make me better than everyone else.
If I am to be your unforgivable.
You better make me goddamn unforgettable.
Because I do not play parts lightly
And as the saying goes:
You’re only as good as your villain.

***

I don’t think I have any good enemies like this suggests. It occurred to me, however, that if I was to be cast as someone’s evil, I would want to be a good, strong evil, you know? Why be a weak villain? No one wants to to be the second tier goon…

Saints Alive

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We find no saints on Earth.
Just plain old men and women
Chipped, crimped and crackled.
Examine a fine bit of skin and you will find the mole of witchcraft…
But only if you want to.
Living bodies stink of life – the taxations of time, follies of youth, crippling doubt, condemnations of better souls…
What flawed creature could possibly be offered up to God as a paragon of what we can offer?
Present a good enough example
And we work it over with the finest toothed combs
Determined to catch the fleas that dig into every gleaming coat,
Loud in disappointment when we find it!
Toss out the charlatan! Another child of Eden!
Perhaps it takes the soft focus of death
To turn us into kinder judges of our kin.
There are no saints on Earth.
They exist only in words and our invisible hopes
The likes of which can dance on the heads of pins
And pass through the eyes of the Bayeux’s needles
Unweighted and unbound
Spiraling out of our grasp
To Heaven.

****

This is what happens when you read the news before breakfast, people.
EAT YOUR BREAKFAST FIRST.

Burnout

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Burnout
I can see the silent prayer in your shy dog eyes –
“Please do not see me.”
I try to meet your gaze, but you side-eye anything else, face blank.
Anything but visually confirm my looking at your blank paper.
I can see the subtle jitter of your fingers texting under the desk.
The promise of attention, or at least the facade of practiced indifference,
now lies broken at both our feet.
As I plaster on a smile and grab a piece of chalk
I turn to the board
Chipper as an axe
And announce for the twelfth week in a row
“What kinds of music do you like?”
Three weeks from now, you will roll your gaze to one side
and ask, monotonous
“What do you like music?”
Then I will snap your pencil in my mind, smile, set it down
like a trophy for my patience, and hope for brighter things.

Compassion

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We make the correct decision.
Our hearts are not in it.
To show mercy, compassion, and faith
Seems to yield little but bleeding.
We sense that rage and retribution
Are attractive alternatives.
That grinding a heel would feel
So. goddamn. satisfying.
But we open our arms all the same,
Sensing relief,
Anticipating pain.
We know the correct decision
Will always be tarnished by a second-tier truth:
That cruelty exists in us all.
Still we open our arms
In the faint and persistent hope of being better
than our baser selves.
Of achieving enlightenment from charity.
Our hearts are not in it.
Slapped a time too many to truly shine anymore,
All we can do is stretch out our arms
And try, once more, to heal.

Abrupt Stop

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Abrupt Stop

Dear Applicant,
The hogs at processing scream a little more loudly
Thank you for submitting…
The hummingbirds no longer seem playful
We are lucky to have so many talented applicants…
A blue heron flaps awkwardly out of my lane
We will not be moving forward with your application…
A car hugs the center line menacingly
Best of luck in your future endeavors…
The cat drops a dead mouse at my feet
Sincerely…
Silence in the space between my lips
Someone else’s life.
The breeze stirs green trees in vain.

****

The day took a turn for the rough. No more jingles for the near future, unless they’re my angry jingles.

A Healthy Balance of Blame

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A Healthy Balance of Blame

I admit that I am at fault.
Not as at fault as you, but at fault.
Perhaps a sixty-forty fault line,
Or more accurately and eighty-twenty ratio
Of you being more wrong than I.
Does that seem fair?
I think it sounds very fair.
I am willing to look into my soul
And admit that I am not perfect.
This is a tricky and noble endeavor.
I deserve credit for the caliber of my soul.
You should do the same, but more,
Because you are more to blame than I.
It’s never easy, having to assign fault
In such situations as these.
Rocks in hand, staring through our glass houses
Wondering who deserves the right
To throw first, when we know we’ll both get cut.
The answer is me, by the way.
I get to go first,
Because you are more to blame than I.
Your face suggests you disagree?
Well, you should have thought about that
Before you decided to be more wrong.
I am trying to be fair.
I am admitting that I am wrong.
Not as wrong as you, and my admittance alleviates some of my guilt,
But still, I am making an honest effort.
You could at least do the same.
But more so.
Because, as I think I’ve made clear,
You are more to blame than I.
Ready?
Aim.
Blame.

2.25 – A Freeform Verse with Anger and Birds

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2.25

A Freeform Verse with Anger and Birds

You dive bomb like a blue jay
You’re as faithless as a crow
I watch you peck and rend and bend
The old things that I know

You screech just like a magpie
You’re catbird cruel in show
I watch you peck and flick and prick
The old ways that I know

You frighten like the night owl
You’re a wasteful, spiteful sparrow
I watch you peck and shake and break
The old joys that I know

—

So where did I misplace my dove
Where is my cardinal true
Who took away my joyful thrush
And left me here with you?

Perhaps I am the grackle
The junco deep in snow
Perhaps it’s I who let you fly
Away with what I know.

****

I think I’ll work on this one. I love birds, and I don’t know why I went to such an angry place with the bird imagery.