POEMS AND OTHER WORDS. I sometimes write to tame my mind.
1.) Dear Friend,
I am sending you a picture. Among the many I took in Iceland, this is possibly the worst. I spent a few
good minutes walking around this water, trying to get a good shot, which only meant a shot that
would show you what I'd seen. I gave up.
I spent many other minutes staring at it, into it, trying to understand what it was that drew me to it.
On the days before, I have seen running rivers, hot pools, burning geysers and the raging sea.
This was a small annexe to only the largest natural lake in the whole of Iceland - maybe the least
interesting and least meaningful waters of all.
So what was it then?
The perfect transparency?
(What people have known to make of it was to pave its bottom with all the world's coins.)
But it is not only clear.
It is also deep,
and cold,
and clean,
and still.
The deepest water I've ever seen that is as clear, as cold, as clean and as still.
It was hard to stop staring and move on, leaving it behind. I did not want to be in it - that, of course,
would have meant death, considering its freezing temperature, its depth, and my poor swimming
skills. No. I wanted it to be me. To be a place inside of me.
I spent many other minutes staring at it, into it, trying to find that place in my being that would hold
the waters of my thoughts as perfectly as this. Where all the other waters,
the running rivers,
the hot pools,
the burning geysers,
and the raging sea
would find their coolness, their stillness, their clarity,
their peace.
2.) My Body These Days
My body is 60 percent water.
My body is
Opiates
Hepatoprotectors
Antibiotics
Probiotics.
My body --
My nostrils
My nails
My nipples
Feel nauseous.
My body is 60 percent
Of what feels like poisoned water
These days.
3.) Untitled I
All
All I have
All I have to give you
Is everything I lack
All I have to give you
Is everything I lost
All I have to give you
Is everything I’ve never had.
4.) Love Letter to the Future
The old days
The old ways
Pull at my heart
Pull like gravity
Pull like a magnet
But backwards is not
Where I will go.
Let this heart transform
Let it be gentle and wild
Like running water
Which fully embraces while steadily
Chipping away at everything that stands
In her way – her way
Always forward,
Towards new things,
Towards that
Which is alive.
5.) Untitled II
Today
I can’t see any more lucid hope
For tomorrow
Anywhere else
Than I do
In the space
We intentionally
Pre-emptively
Compassionately
Hold empty,
Moment
by moment,
For the novel
unfoldings
Of ourselves,
Of life,
Of each other,
Of the distances
That simultaneously
Keep us separate
And hold us together.