Travel Woes

Over the past week, I flew down to Salt Lake City to visit my kids, and make an appearance at my home office.  I love traveling, though I love flying a lot less.  I stress for days before hand.  This time around, I was clenching and grinding my teeth in my sleep more than usual, and on Friday, I split a bicuspid in half.  There will be many meals served from blenders and several visits to the oral surgeon in my immediate future. Still, Tylenol with Codeine helps, and I had several interesting stoned conversations with family.

The trip home was exhausting, thanks to a fellow traveler.

Traveling Coach

Blond hair, curt cut

errant strand trembling

fingers jumping between

beverage and glasses

tablet and 2 phones,

intermittently adjusting filter,

aligning screen,

accessories sprawled over

two seats.

No audible breath,

but with each tap,

each text, each twitch of hers

I felt a muscle of my own atrophy

a breath stifle

until every impulse,

every movement

crawled inside me

to sleep.

The 'Absurdly Personal'

Sometimes writing about Big Things, even thinking about them is too much.  I remember in ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ his poetry being called ‘absurdly personal’ by the Bolsheviks.  Yet it is the personal that is universal.  We can hold different political and moral beliefs, adhere to different social norms, but we all have those moments when another human being makes us catch our breath and struggle for composure.  Perhaps our circumstances allow us to follow our hearts, perhaps they do not. Perhaps we even endanger our lives if we reveal such feelings.  Yet they exist all the same.

Voyeur

I know the sight of you

to raise a glow

upon my face

and a smile on my lips.

I know the sound of you

to shiver

past my eardrums

and resonate in my belly

yet…

I prefer the edges of you

to be intangible,

just beyond reach

like flames that warm my hands.

I prefer the shape of you
in two dimensions,
in imagining 
that belongs to dreams.

Burn it Down

I have to admit, the past week has been particularly difficult for writing. Extremes of emotion can generate sound bites and inciting phrases, but the kind of depression that feels like steel bands across your chest, really hampers the development and crafting process.  I have a page full of ideas, partial phrases, concepts, but each feels like a Pandora's box will burst open if I explore it.  It reminds me of a few lines in a Margaret Atwood poem 'It is dangerous to read newspapers';  'Each time I hit a key/on my electric typewriter/speaking of peaceful trees/another village explodes.'

During these in-betweens, I exercise my mind with crosswords, and read and listen to the poetry of others.  When the congestion becomes too much, it is time for the 'microprompts,' to release the pressure little by little.

One of my favorite Twitter sources is @hangtenstories, one word prompts for creating 10 word stories.   Today I responded to their last 4 prompts, (cascade, spark, familiar,words)  and discovered the resulting 4 stories fell neatly into a larger story, with a nod to W. B. Yeats in the second stanza.

Burn it Down

Bearing silent shame

hurts less

than listening to doubting words.

The familiar

will not suffice;

the center will not hold.

Righteous anger

silent or spoken

will cascade through every district.

A spark of outrage

can erupt

into a deadly backdraft.