a divine light shines
from each wild, human lantern!
(polish accordingly)
Tag: Poetry
The Five-Second Delay
Today life is live
With a five-
second delay.
Second delay
of the day:
The coffee pot beeped at me and I just
Stared back at it
As though I expected it to say
more.
More
of a sludge than a haze,
though there have been days
when a cloud seems to
surround sound.
Surround sound,
vibrations from every direction.
But today sound takes time to arise from noise
And more time still to become words.
For words to gain meaning, more
time still.
Time still,
world keeps spinning, says report just published
today.
Today
life is live with a five-second delay.
When that happens in broadcasts,
it’s so editors can censor nipple slips or
profanity with pixels or a
Beep
Beep
at me again, coffee pot.
It will take me longer today
But beep!
Beep for your servant is listening!
Beep!
Beep you piece of
Beep!
Suspended
He slips his long arms into the black sleeves
of his machine-washed, machine-washable
Nike jacket.
Alerts household members of his immediate leave,
Keeping eyes down and out,
out and away.
A windbreaker…it’s windy, after all.
Turns the knob so the door shuts fully.
Once outside,
Walks in strides.
A cadence.
Long legs minimally exposed in the
Rhythmic twin gaps between his jeans
and ankle socks.
Earlier today he heard a song.
He looks at the moon,
Near-full.
It’s autumn.
The song.
Something pop, he remembers.
(“But what does “Panic! At the Disco” even mean?”)
He wonders.
(“Is it a warning
of some ongoing disco panic?
Or a command…
To conserve my panic
for an upcoming disco?
So that above the loud noise,
music and clamor,
And behind the bright lights
overhead and swinging, surrounding,
You can’t see or hear me.
Even, even though you’re near me
As I interlock my fingers up and around my neck
And slowly crouch down in the crowd,
My head tilted toward your leg
Chest heaving, dry eyes weeping,
With all the pain of waking life,
The still of fitful sleeping…”).
He stops at the overlook…
Looks over.
Coming down the tracks, a locomotive,
Its engine a clamorous roar.
And as it whistles off its steam,
He grounds his feet.
Prepares to scream.
Mingled Down
My grandfather (a forester)
Once bet my grandma (a birdwatcher)
That “mourning dove” wasn’t spelled MORNING like dawn,
But MOURNING like someone had died.
She ended up owing him a workday in the woods.
But when these two lovers gamble,
The house rarely collects.
This story makes me smile,
Every time I hear a dove moan.
And there is a comfort in it:
That I’m not the first to sunrise or to grief.
They are, as most things, older than myself.
So when death’s scent
Wafts up musty from youth’s fabric,
–and I’m wearing
a dead friend’s dead friend’s
coat
to the school dance–
I will hum the dove’s song,
Make it my own as I sway.
As grass bows to the wind,
I will submit to grief only to rise again.
The sun will warm me,
as sorrow and love
flow mingled down.
To Langston
To Langston:
I have darker brothers.
They eat in the kitchen,
But only because it’s also the dining room.
I eat there too,
White mom,
White dad,
Two white sisters,
And two beautiful black brothers.
If you were in our kitchen,
Langston,
You might passively peek
Out the window,
Past the birdfeeder,
And catch the edges of a Confederate flag
Hanging over the neighbor’s’ porch.
Flapping proud.
Recently we had to talk with my brothers
About how no one,
No one,
Is allowed to call them the
three-words-that-mean-one-word
THE-N-WORD
(not “neighbor”)
Langston,
I’ve written you to strike a deal:
If I take a class on your poetry,
If I learn all I can
And cram for this test called “diversity” that I thought I could
Pass without trouble but actually contains a lot of surprise sections
And an essay on the back….
Will you teach my brothers how to be black men?
I tell them they’re beautiful,
Langston,
But it’s easy for me to say,
So it’s hard for them to hear.
My words may warm them,
But they will not save them.
Replace blankets, maybe,
But not stop bullets.
Please speak to them.
For I would pale to Hughes.
A. Scott Meiser 