Fatherless
and thus denatured
she created a blue mask
and sang for pennies
of a life of romance
she never knew herself,
but the tunes were worth
the tears she forced
from her listeners, and they paid
more than that for them,
so she lived well
a life of creation
and character play.

Meanwhile,
a bird she’d been
for a short time, a bird
who’d fallen with her broken shell
to earth, died slowly,
unremarked in any lyric,
did not learn to fly,
and it’s hard to say
that’s a tragedy,
but I will, even though I might
be incorrect;

she would disagree, I think,
having most comforts in her hand
and no need to seek in the bush
for the fledgling past, yet
I know a song or two she tried
back then, and I swear
no money could buy them,
they were that lovely
and warm and true.

Nested within you,
multiple bowls
holding the liquid
of you.

When one overflows
another will always catch the spill.
Little, if any, is ever allowed
to dampen the ground
where you’re standing.

How they are filled,
how they are shaken,
no one can say,

and you aren’t telling,
of course.  But inside,
you are swelled and warped
from the moist damage,
and the slippery fact is,
you won’t contain yourself
much longer, and you know it.

The bowls teeter, totter,
the contents slopping about
inside.  You’re seasick with the motion.
You’re going to founder, and fear —
the tiny bobber that won’t go under
as it is rocked in your head —
will soon be the only thing
you have left.

Mourners mouth old words
and their prayers rise like desert birds
into dry air from dry footing,
vanish into empty sky
and head for places unknown.

All are informed by a scripture
that is enshrined in a thimble
of chipped bone
filled and refilled constantly
with ash —
its voice
is centered
on solving the mystery
laid away
in graves, is
reflected on with great deliberation,
practiced daily,
softened by time and then reformed
to appear
exactly as it has always appeared
upon the passing
of every believer.

All that being said,
faith remains
a legendary grain we hope to find
is tangible, is located
somewhere in the thimble,
a fragment we seek to hold
between our fingers,
rolling it back and forth.

leveled
by the minute teasing
of greater life
he fell from the top
of the rock wall into
the deep water
but did not die

shook it out of his hide
and came to shore
quieter

ever after he slept
perfectly

and once awake
cared less than he did before
about becoming
another

and so became
another

Repost for connection to the recent poem, “Persona II.”

“““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Part of me steps aside
and another part of me
steps forward
to make a name for itself.

It says:
I am the ocean,
I cover everything that is deep
and swallow everything
that dares me…no, wait:
I’m the harbor, the destination,
the notch in the edge of the ocean.
No, sorry:
I’m the slave ship arriving,
carrying stolen anguish.  No,
that’s wrong: I’m the trader
waiting to sell the pain of others.
Again, sorry: I’m the new owner
of what shouldn’t be owned at all.
Ugh, wrong, wrong again: I’m
the cargo, the village of origin,
the buyer’s tag, the auction block,
the chain, the whip,
the eyes leaning on the crutch
of the North Star…

A part of me tosses in bed for hours
listening to this until
another part of me steps up
to elbow that first liar aside
and say:

I’m the feather on the plains,
the oil full of ghost trees,
blood on sand I’ve never seen,
the dirty songster in an alley
glimpsed once from a cab window
and then reimagined
to find room for my moral
at the end of his song.

No, says another part of me,
then tosses pennies at the others
to drive them back long enough
for a chance to say:

I am sponge enough
to have sopped up
everything all my lovers
ever told me.

I’m the mask
that gives me the freedom
to let them call themselves “cunt”
as I misquote them.
I am above reproach
when I put myself
in their mouths.

Closer,
says the sleeping part of me,
admitting that he’s indeed been listening
to all of this.

That part of me
becomes awake enough then
to say:

I’m stupid
and exhausted
from division.
I’m groggy
at this hour
but trying to figure out
who deputized me
to speak on behalf
of what has been screaming unheard
for eons. Why wasn’t it ever enough
that they could speak for themselves?
It’s like everyone and everything
is asleep and I’m an alarm clock
banging out “I, I, I, I, I, I, I…”
on behalf of full-on daylight
that ought to be enough but isn’t,
chattering
until I’m shut off
with a backhand slap
to the panic button.

Yes, that’s it,
that’s the answer,
I tell myself.

The part of me that has been
so fitfully drowsing
for so long
rolls back over,
while another part of me
smooths my hair, tucks me back in,
lullabies me into distant dreams.

When the breathing slows
and becomes regular,
that part of me looks up and says,

I am
the dummy on an insistent knee
with a hand up my back
and a substitute voice.

Look as close as you want,
you’ll never see those other lips move.

That part of me
will accept your applause
while the rest of me is put back in my box
to sleep.

In the way a house where a murder happened
is sometimes hated and left empty for months
after, though the wood and walls

were not guilty of anything
and merely contained it, though the house
is not a murderer or a murder,

I let a person
step into me after careful consideration
and listening to them for a long while,

let them use my body and voice to speak
since I had an audience
and they did not, but might

once they stepped back out,
when people saw what I had done
they called me a liar and shunned me,

for ritual demands a sacrifice
and confusion
leads to black magic,

but that is what a shaman does
or a poet sometimes does, this comes
with the title, this dislike

is honorable, who told you
you were supposed to be beloved
all the time, it was never something

I was promised, nothing I expected,
and while there’s pain, in the end
a voice was well-heard though it was not mine,

and is the hearing not enough
to make the sacrifice worthwhile?
The Spirit wants only hearing, after all.

You replace the phone
on its cradle.

In one suddenly torn second —
an instant
pulled open violently —
the filling has fallen out
and accustomed comfort
has gone flat, crumpled
like a bag on the floor.

Shut down.
It’s all right to sob
and wish for things
to be different.
Pull together
a pile of soft blankets
and sleep.
It’s all you can do
until morning —

that, and shut off the phone.
No need for another ripping blow
tonight.