Poems by Mary J

TO CLIMB

To climb out of bed in the morning or maybe afternoon feet on cold tile, icy and empty. Yawning through eyes still clouded by sleep and memories from the night before like stickers on the inside of your eyelids.

Floating through a day in a haze of maybes and I don’t know the answer to your inquiries about the height of my confidence or the origins of fear stained shoes too afraid to leap forward could you hold my hand so I don’t

Fall.

To fall perhaps onto concrete possibly grass but probably not knowing that patterns of your tracks and the moment you want to stay down on the ground making pillows out of asphalt, trash bag blankets, the comfort of a bed, knowing to stay is not an option only

To climb first on hands and knees crawling like a toddler before he knows there’s so much happening above his head so you climb onto wobbly knees unsure if you remember how to walk but at least,

To stand on two feet feeling black ink swirl into night around you drenching the day with a cloak of disguise and so,

To climb. Into a cigarette alone at 3 a.m. on the porch when reality has blurred and all you can see is smoke snakes distorting and collapsing truth into bubbles of muck so you disappear into what if’s and visions of,

To be climbing above and around blossoming into curves, roundabouts, upward glances into frost covered trees.

Hills growing into bumps of molten earth bitten by crystal water running, running, running, twirling cascading pathways crying down, down, down.

But still, to climb and heave upwards onwards towards vastness, the humps transform like dinosaurs waking a million years later to stretch, gulp the breath of salvation returning from the dead.

To be alive.

And they become mountains that stretch like the craning of a neck toward uncertainty, to the awkwardness of disbelief, careening upwards to peaks of ice covered perfection snow like gloss paper ready for collapse, manipulation. Distinction.

To climb past gravity into, into, into whatever is there, to whatever it is.

To outer space. Stars like ancient dwellings in the sky inhabit this black hole. They glisten predicting imminent turmoil attracting wishes while drifting through breathless timespace generating no form of understanding merely existing as inconspicuous super hero’s dying for implosion.

LEARNING TO DROWN

Its like an exhale after being held under water against your will

By your father at the swimming pool

On a sticky afternoon in August

When the clouds are looming dangerously in the distance,

Threatening to release their load

Into the vat of water

Where you’re gasping already for some

Dry air

And the kids on the diving board

Are swimming up instead of down,

Up, up, up into the clouds

And you’re worried they’re going to get sucked

Into those heavy clouds

And then they do,

Disappeared inside waiting to be rained back into the pool.

Its like that moment you know

That your eyes are betraying you

And perhaps your ears too.

Knowing or not knowing you’ve been released

Into some extraordinary momentary lapse of reality.

Feeling that even though you’re gasping

Its ok to let go and fall into the chaos of being held underwater.

You are full and impenetrable,

Oozing the satisfaction of swimming

In your own private release.

OF NATURE

Resounding forces sometimes pull

Like gravity driven raindrops,

Propelled from the heavens gasping mouth

Into the possibility of being alive.

I strive for the trees

Where the breath of the universe gives way

To an explosion of energy and

Light and green magic bursting into beingness.

Burst out of your bark cannon

Into something anything anyone

So I might consume the insides of the world.

Stuff myself till I burst into ninety nine rain drops,

A resounding force not to be reckoned with

For fear that my pure energy might consume you

And pull you deeply into the comfort of exhale.

DOESNT HAVE A TITLE

two rivers meet
at the end of the world

hes a little wild ray of light
dancing perilessly close to the abyss
endless

he sings and the world sings
embroidered with black moss
drenched in stars
which are melting away

he is a dualistic creature
lost in the ether
wrought with compromise
and blind eyes
a foreigner without color
grounded in idealism
rooted in experience

he is compelled by the wind
driven to explore, exploit
the vastness of cosmic instability
the paradox of belief

a playful trickster
who cannot be tammed
who should never be smothered
a perpetual circle
leading me into the blissful field
where he waits
patiently
for his redemption

THE NURTURER

i was born of the earth

driven from the depths

of the smoldering core

of the cooling crust

of the muds dripping with life that

course through my veins

as lightning does

through stormy patterns in the sky

i am the breath of the universe

injecting myself with the stars of

the infinite shadows

blowing radiance in through your ears

penetrating your eyes

to your deepest vessel of blood

that gives you the nourishment of life

consuming you

until we are one

i am saturated

charged

with the electricity

of the heavens

that longs

to pour down

through the depths of my body

where it waits

yearning

for the moment of its

release

into your being

that craves

my nurturing touch

as the sun desires

the moons soft liberation