A Poem for the New World Order: Choppy, Like the Waters We Just Dove Into

Who shall admire the brilliant red trunks of the Madrones,
smooth as the soft new flesh of life,
wrapped in sun-warmed air?
The convergence of the senses–
perception–
lost in a moment,
with one flick of the wrist,
the swift crack of a bullet to the temple of a lifetime.

Who will spread the bird's humble song
cross continents, languages,
space and time;
extolling and sharing the beauty?

I will not bow to cynics
who find solace in the knowledge that it is all for naught.
If you scream love you must believe it.
Not for a while or for a few,
but forever and for all.
I cherish this body that enables life and encompasses soul!
And so, as the only truth I know,
I must cherish you, too.

My heart sits in your chest.
I listen to the beat and recognize my own.
Who gave us this blood?
Who gives us this drum?

I believe it was our mother.

She gave me life, born and bred from the depths of her oceans,
nursed on rain from her skies.
But here,
I present her no lanyard of gratitude.

Wrenching rock-flesh from her belly, I dive into her core,
searching for sustenance to fuel not my life, but my habits.
Mother does not scream.
She weeps acid.

Billy Collins captured her words:
"Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered."
And here (I replied), I lay my follies at your feet:
I covered myself in oil and set myself aflame.
My heartbeats weaken, my legs collapse.
My bones whittle to dust and my teeth crack.
My eyes remain wide as the smoke rescinds,
revealing the world I misread.
But with no water to drink,
and no mother to heal,
my last good day ends
and the world goes blind.

I can't convince you to see.
I can't convince you to care.
So I will love while the ship is sinking,
grieve while I still hold life in my palm.
Watching it seep through trembling fingers is the final gift given.
And so, I will stand strong.



Written from the depths of a remembered and ongoing grief:

Mom's Memorial reading: The Lanyard by Billy Collins from Kelly Zenn on Vimeo.

Yesterday Carries Tomorrow

I've never felt true shame about who I was until I found this place. Every facet of my being feels wrong... hollow... obsolete?

Interesting how I felt those little negative thoughts begin to nest in my heart and yet still could do nothing to stop them.

Here, I feel crazy, weak. For here, if you have all you need why would you complain?

My skin is paper thin. Please teach it how to grow.

I want to cease this nonsense.

Excerpt from Tulips by: Sylvia Plath

"I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.

How free it is, you have no idea how free -

The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,

And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.

It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them

Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.

Before they came the air was calm enough,

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.

Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe

Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.

Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.

They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down

Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,

A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me

Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,

And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow

Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,

And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself

The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.

Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.

Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river

Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.

They concentrate my attention, that was happy

Playing and resting without committing itself.

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;

They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,

And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes

Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.

The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,

And comes from a country far away as health."