CNR #13

The Universe Observing Itself

I'd like to say I'm a secular being,

that my ends are my own, not scripted.

And when I found out my father

became a religious man

not through the church but through the atoms of the land.

Through the best reason he could muster

with the end looming ever so

I'd imagine he looks up from time to time

and wants to thank the stars and sky that kept him safe his whole life.

With the fortune we received, a bounty not from God, or god, but greed?

While it's kept in the family with a reluctant clean conscious,

we look up and thank someone, and pretend it was an accident.

I look up and thank someone, pretending I don't.

I can conjure a friend, like a lonely child would,

and rest all my concerns on his back.

I say, "I love you, thank you, you have given me everything."

I look down and close my eyes and I put my hands together.

I'm motionless, and thoughtless, and convinced.

Everything is okay, and I'll live free another day.

Amen.

CNR #12

The Ugliest Face

Emotions, like pilot lights, create flames

these piled lights collect and waste energy

but no fire spreads worse than fear.

The smog from this pile yields more year after year.

We are blind, but that's not new.

We think there is more than we can do.

But we are just what we make, who we love, and what we take.

But the fakes, so-called greats, they spew hate laced fate.

These days fame is validation but a spectacle is no need for celebration.

Its more invasive than expansive, shrinking thoughts, not expanding them.

And even I, with my thoughts, think I'm in charge of what I've got.

But all my perceptions are fallacies like a forest of sprouting and falling trees.

I can't see this game from a bird's eye, just as the birds are never grounded.

and even though I smell the dirt, I'm not sure where I'm found.

I'm not sure of my place, or how much is my space.

And so far all I can make

is a face.

CNR #11

Early Morning

I've been hungry since I woke so early this morning.

But I've put breakfast off and thought of you instead.

And why not? Though you can't fill my stomach.

And my heart may swell when I hear your voice,

but your voice doesn't keep it beating.

We hug and contort our legs so that the space between is negligible.

If we didn't I could just stay warm with a blanket and pillow.

You give me ideas I wouldn't of thought of, possibly, but had you not

said those things I would probably have other inspiring thoughts.

Had you never walked into class and sat like a princess who had

lost her riches. And if you never saw in me what few others have.

Had you never given me the clues, or worn those nursing shoes, or talked

so boldly about your sexual escapades and sworn off those who cared to argue.

Had you never done those things I would probably be downstairs. I would be

eating a bowl of cereal and drinking a tall glass of orange juice.

And even now I just think about how much you hate orange juice.

I would have the tallest glass, maybe even refill it.

I really like orange juice.

And cereal is good too.

But these days I can't help but prefer a nice breakfast for two. So, though I woke up with the sun this morning, I think I'll wait just a bit for you.

You look too peaceful to wake and I know you stayed up late, as did I.

I never liked sleeping with my chest to your back, because it's a bit uncomfortable and your hair is like a furnace in the summer.

This morning, though, I feel like this position is in order, at least, until you wake.

Then we can eat.