Today I want so badly to die

but October’s coming, sometime
soon, not tomorrow, not
the following day, but sometime
after August starts to bleed off summer
and the days begin to pale through September,
October will come. 

I hope I make it to October, to that month
when I’m glad to be cool, glad to be
needing a jacket, wondering how
I made it though the heat, happy to be watching
the trees turn and strip themselves
to nothing but bark and bone.

Ah, October, month of memory balanced upon
expectation, with its glimmers
of future want and last gasp days
of comfortable light and clarity — why does October
have to be so far away?  There’s too much fog
in the mornings now, and too much sweat

from late morning all the way to night.
What I wouldn’t give for October tomorrow.
I know it will come, not soon, not tomorrow,
not the following day;  but sitting here and burning up,
I can’t wait for October
when the earth will be naked,

when I may be alive.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

If you send me one more request
to become your fan,
knock on my door one more time
with God in your fist,
exhort me one more time
to accept Jesus as my personal savior,
whip a finger at me again
to tell me I owe you my attention and my fate;

if you touch me again
as if you’d earned that intimacy,
ask me over and over
for a number, a key, a sign;
beg me one more time
to take you back,
coat me with unrepentant irritations
so I need a shower ten times a day;

if you look me in the eye again
and steal my glance,
raise my hope again
and steal my thunder,
pat my back again
and steal my spine,
stick your hand out again
and slice my grip —

watch me turn, then,
into water;
watch me sluice
down this channel between us
and wash you back;
hear me whisper like silk on steel
to try and melt the block in your head;
see me take your hands in mine
still covered with my own blood
and gently, as if everything depended on such a thing
being gentle, turn you back onto yourself
and make you feel how ashamed you are
of your fanatic insecurity
that makes you seek me out
to join you in your lonely cell.