sunontiepost

Pain

2012-09-07T15:52:00.001-04:00

Pain

09/07/2012 by sunontiepost

You are
you are
The chain tying me to the pole
next to a hole
in the basement of a house not
lived in and cold

outside though
flags and parades
signs of life

Those righteous

They come to kick you
so they can continue
on in this way

though some will see you
and walk away
from the hoopla
and shred their gowns and costumes.

you are
you are a
dangerous one
to dream
of a life
not forever burning down
always galvanized
by arching lightning

You can not even venture into
the light. Hold tight to the
chain while they kick and close your eyes.

Tell yourself,
it won’t last forever.

*Sunontiepost
Copy Right 2012
( With a nod to Ursula K. Le Guin‘s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas“

Seven Things I Should Tell You

2012-06-15T07:30:00.000-04:00

1.
I need to sit among the forest of all uncontemptable colored leaves
And thoughtfully let my mind run clean, to breathe easy and green.

2.
Olympus crumbles and is giving way to the streets
They paved over Far Arden; Great Gods eat shit today.

3.
The breeze is heavy with the memory of love
Lost in the wilderness.

4.
If Jesus were alive today, whiskey would be in his wine glass,
No breaking bread, instead, smoking cigarettes. The world moves on.

5.
Nothing can be put plain over the phone. Nothing has been said
In the hours we’ve spent, the days we wait.

6.
The head becomes heavy in the hands. It is the way I remember you now.

7.
It’s time to let you go. Time to quit thinking one more try
Will hold me in your heart.
The leaves fall with no contempt for the breeze
That pushes them apart from what they knew so well.

Copyright 2012/*Sunontiepost
-word invention is poetic license-

Nerve Damage

2012-06-14T22:43:00.000-04:00

In the morning, I am badly broken
in the afternoon and evening, the
colors of the sky and even the sunshine
will paint me into a shadow

in the corner
this goes on and on

(by way of explaining "Nerve Damage", The Mayo Clinic)

Out Post Poem #2

2012-06-14T22:30:00.001-04:00

Let the traffic go slow
down York Street.

because the birds are singing
I yell for taxi drivers to lay off
their horns.

There are some things
only those of us who have forfeited
the right to love know
about song.

Today I pretend
that I can send my
heart out onto the
wind. See its black wings
glistening in the sunshine
calm and serene.

God get me rest, time to think, help
me get closer to the river.

*Sunontiepost

Poem for a Glacier

2012-06-14T22:27:00.000-04:00

Long blue glacier
shrugging your shoulders
in the morning
having an ancient understanding
with the sunlight and the sea
At the top of the world
even your whispers go smashing
into good cold water trying
to say your name

A long wild lung strung over
the globe , like the lightning
that never stops to catch its breath,
never turns an eye toward the place where
it was born.

Copyright 2012/*Sunontiepost

Broken

2012-03-05T12:35:00.000-05:00

He says it may be
Stones in his throat
When he clutches,
chokes

Says his heart flops
Like a fish in
The bottom of a boat

And the world tilts
Then gently begins to
Shutter, strobe

sounds serious when
He says he is nearly done
Being told he is too young

To have days filled with pain
Go by like a great
Light shinning straight
In his eyes

Not everything has a word for it
And he doesn’t always remember things

Then stops talking and looks
Away.

Somewhere else now.

~~~~~

I don’t say I can imagine this

That maybe the stones are holding
A fire within themselves

Waiting to break free
to begin the forging of words
Against the anvil of his heart

I wont think of that until later

Later, when I remember there was something
Else he said about , red ribbons,
Coming loose from his sleeves,

The meaning of everything crawling
away from me. Time and time Again.

©2012 Sunontiepost*

Unfinished Business

2012-02-21T22:23:00.000-05:00

Samuel Brady never heard the night
Broken by jet engines hurling
Over his Ohio Valley. Some thought
He was wild, part savage, living between
Two worlds while pulling one west
Like a blanket, over his shoulder.

His men were sure though,
Where ever they went, however
Crimson the wood and the water
Were made, that it would
Come clean again.

This is always the way such men
Believe.

The Shawnee, though brave, could have
Used his name around the camp fire
to show the young where the light of
their fathers could not reach.

Some, perhaps, heard it on the wind of
Storms when America was young.

If there was something in the
Dark tree line to be feared
It could be sounded out by
His name.

Now with all the fighting done
These many years with the
Land wrested from
Its own spirit

Tecumseh’s ghost looks up
To see what it has become
Ready again to stomp his
Foot, shake the land
Tomahawk raised..

»

Low drum
Holding breath
Good land
Promises blood
Like a river
In every heart beat
At every turn
The river has
No hands to hold onto.

©2012 Sunontiepost*

Work Boots

2012-01-29T16:33:00.001-05:00

For my Father

I have watched him work, my Father,
His long shadow in the driveway is as determined
As it is on the forest path leading to the headwaters
Of the Cumberland River.
His eyes fearsome with task, his back straight and
Strong, his jaw always set to smile
Always capable of drawing back.

As a child I believed it was him that instructed
The skies in their lessons of thunder, as he strode
Through the eastern Kentucky mountains and was
Recognized by the ghosts of fallen warriors as one of
The brave, as one of their own who must travel the many
Continents of the heart, and sometimes alone, be bound by
Fevers and by suffrage to strange crossroads.

I have seen him sleep, my Father, the untroubled sleep of
Men who’ve known only two times of day and maybe six
Hours of sleep at home. Seen him sleep also the sleep of
Troubled men who keep the frayed and thinning dreams
Of their sons harbored at home.

I dream of him, my Father, and the places from which we came,
Crawling in mines, in-under trains, now even air planes.

Every fold in the work-boot, every crease in the brow is
Testament to how the earth moves with us, how we struggle
Will all the love we have to get our arms around, and the
Names of our Mothers, and the names of our sisters are words
We can whisper for the strength of their sound.

I have listened to him, my Father, who does much telling
Without saying a word, who has given two Heaven’s worth of
Love without making a sound, save for the quiet rustlings of
The wings in his shoulders.

Ó2012 Sunontiepost*

Morning, Love

2012-01-26T21:58:00.000-05:00

As we reach into each other
We are captured

As images in the eyes of God,
The devil, and all ministries
On T.V.

We are
Poetry written on the walls
by sunlight and Venetian
Blinds at the window, from the
Sheets

Just outside,
the ocean crawls
To reach the beach

Over and over
just to touch
Its porcelain cheek.

Ó2012/Sunontiepost*
revision

Other Worlds Than These

2012-01-09T21:48:00.000-05:00

For Charles Simic

Out here the hawk winds slow circles

around the hotel where no one sleeps.

He doesn't know he is old and is

only sure of his sight.

In this world, at night, the only view

from my window is a brick wall

made black and white

by the vapor lights

and a window across the alley

always open, the shades always down,

never any light behind them or,

any sound.

II.

In another world, once I saw

a wild horse jump from

the blank face of a clock,

his head down, hooves furious.

None of the time pieces here have faces

instead they are gateways to other places,

other worlds than these.

(*inspired by covers of Charles Simic Poetry books)

Caroline's Lantern

2012-01-08T19:59:00.000-05:00

Caroline has her blessing ready
Before she lights the lantern
That will float away onto a west wind
Never to be seen again.

It’s always her daddy these days in the
    Blessed smoke
going north for reasons we can’t say..

She tells me, “I prayed for my daddy to get home safe..”
Her eyes are serious and I can only nod and smile.

I will not tell her home, soon, will be two places,
    fragmented, serrated.
    I will not tell her
The world is waiting to pounce with its
Lies bouncing from every direction that
    All beliefs, all seasons
When you are young, still hold something
Beneath the surface that looks like gold and then
Burns like a withering cross-fire in spaces
    Within ourselves,
that we can not name.

Just Too Young?

2012-01-03T05:56:00.001-05:00

How old you do you have to be?

I dislike having to take tests. I really dislike waiting for results of said tests whether in-patient or out-patient. It’s usually a situation I find myself in at least three or four times every three or four months anyway.

Ketoacidosis
A fall
New pain
Flu (yes I get a flu shot EVERY year, but still…EVERY year I get the flu.)
Or.. you freaking name it.

Whatever the case may be. No one is more SICK of it than I am and that is something I can promise you.
Inevitably during the course of going over charts and test one of my doctors will look at me strangely or focus on the charts seriously and exclaim this, or a version of it, and in assorted tones…
“ You’re so young to have all these complications..” What happens next ? Well, you see I happen to agree with the statement, and because I am prone to kindness and empathy I keep the card in my wallet that identifies me as a certified A-hole. I save that for special occasions.   Instead I will usually quip in assorted tones and wordage, “That’s what I’ve been telling everyone!” Haha and hehe right?

Except It’s not really funny to me, and though I usually detect empathy or try to imagine I hear it, when my health situation is juxtaposed against my chronological progress by a professional or other concerned individual…I always feel a low serrated note of anger rise up in my chest. Not always immediately. But it always plays.

I know that these are not cheap shots and aren’t meant to be cheap shots. The proof is all right there, but I feel like the phrase, “ you’re too young to have all these complications..” is another way of saying: Have you thought about what you want written on your tombstone? Or maybe…Shit man! You’re gonna die before you hit 55 or maybe even the parking lot!   I often try to use humor to offset the anger without trivializing my condition(s). I think if I am going to be honest, I must admit, that the anger stems from mostly fear.

Yes. On some scales I am young. Yes..too young to be so sick all the damn time.   I am also extremely fortunate, if you were to ask me, to be surrounded by people who care about me, to have some measure of health insurance, to have not been this way all my life, to still have good eyesight and clean kidney reports…I could go on and on. There is always something to be thankful for if you look. I believe that.

If I wasn’t trying I would have no good excuse to be angry about my condition. That said, I am still in the process of “discovery” with my new endocrinologist who doesn’t want to believe I’m brittle. I don’t want to believe it either, but all my annual trips to the ICU every year (although I skipped 2011!) run counter to what she is hoping for and congruent with what I already know. I support her in her and do what she asks me to because….

Still…there is that little bit of hope about the whole thing that I cling to. That she will find some alternating basal rates on my pump that work like magic…maybe I will learn to dispense with the stress, anxiety, depression and pain that are my constant companions and throw my blood sugars around like a bouncy ball and somehow be enlightened on 2012!

I will try to keep looking up.

Such Winter

2011-11-12T13:12:00.002-05:00

1.
Closing the eyes is important
To see ice falling
You must imagine the cold arms
Of the trees stretched out and
Without leaves against a
Sky more black than anything you’ve
Jumped or fallen from in dreams.

2.
In the cold
Even now
It is gathering.

Still.

3.
Its wing is rough,
Callous.
It has its sex written
Down
Over everything.

sunontiepost

Falling Down: Whereabouts Unknown

2011-11-09T10:44:00.001-05:00

Get your garden Zen
Fingers forming fists
Around rakes
Roaming in the sand

These birds insist on morning
Being certain colors
Mostly purple and blue

The world keeps rolling
against a place sometimes
Grey

the razor wire blends in
As it reaches up to the back
Of my head to hold me down

Show me how to shine to choke
Completely on my pride
…
I am eye to eye with the Earth again
What I thought was thunder was the
Black wings of my heart snapping open
And filling with wind, lightning in the legs

I take off again.
Not up but
down
…
I am slightly aware of the sound of
Wheels whining beyond the tree line
Far off and pulling against the pavement
It is desperate meaning to be fast..

I am almost finished falling

As I yaw toward the stars

Spilling the countless dreams I
Have covered up
Selling my life for money.

Poem for L.A.

2011-11-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

Poem for L.A.

Nothing shines like a star
Against something dark…

Your very own sky with
Mirrors and brass pole Milky Ways

A Galaxy without the sound
Of feathers trying for wind and

Still angelic
Somehow

Down here
Beside the river
Where savage
Is just heart
And poems are
Jukebox

sunontiepost

Letter to Mary ( The Poet Mary Oliver)

2011-11-04T14:28:00.000-04:00

Today I described a red bush as burning
It has a name, but that hardly matters to me
Mary, though I know you wouldn’t feel the same.

I have on other days described the world this way.

I keep looking for the grieving Dove that lives
In the Bradford Pear. She won’t leave this place, and
Watches me mistrustfully. She knows very well what’s
Waiting for us.

You know and I know we’ve borrowed our way
Through, up and over the top of this planet that
Screams in it’s countless ways at all our mistakes

And today the rain rocks between a casual pace and
Then one meant to wash away
My indifference to the names of certain beauty.

sunontiepost

Newport House

2011-11-03T22:05:00.001-04:00

I keep past due bills as bookmarks
for poetry and when I reach for
The Song of Napalm   I burn perfectly.

Every fiber of my American exsistence
is casual and insistent
about the cruelty dealt out to pigeons
in my part of this little city
gasping for breath beside the
Ohio.

I stare at amounts due then turn
my attention to what it was like
burning shit barrels at Akn Kne
keeping my thoughts to myself because
I live alone and this
might be
All I
ever
know

               Watching children play so close to the streets
                giving what scares them friendly names

Parade is when the fire trucks
police cars and meat wagons come
racing down the road
over and over

I too, can give it all one word, one smell,
one name.

sunontiepost

Out Post Poem #1

2011-11-03T21:41:00.003-04:00

I have tried I swear to tell
my dreams
lay still
down beside their broken
others
but then always
rattle the cage
I keep them in to
get them on their
smokey feet again
screaming
bloody hell and
other things
I've taught them until
they are turned loose and
determined I
give chase one more time
until I catch them

or they get behind me.

sunontiepost

Heaven and Earth

2011-11-03T13:41:00.000-04:00

The sun is coming up
up over the tree tops
we are surrounded by trees
we are someplace high above
touching a satin canopy of cloud.

Whispering each others names
we have cleared our minds of doubt

my gaze shifts between your eyes and the
shadows that I insist are somehow purple from
my passion for you

You laugh and pull the covers back
your long dark hair over my shoulders

Heaven and Earth change places again.

sunontiepost

Card Carrying AHOLE

2011-10-13T08:33:00.013-04:00

     I'm gonna break away from the poetry for a minute, even though it is my favorite form of expression and get personal. If you don't mind. There is a strong tendency toward the malfunction of asshole-ism in people with complicated diabetes. If you know any or ever meet one, maybe this will help you not take it personally if it's a bad experience. I'll start toward the beginning of my journey.

     I was told when I was sent years ago for my first E.M.G. that I had a "high pain threshold". This was also the test that diagnosed me with diabetic or peripheral neuropathy. The burning had started in my feet. I had no idea what was in store for me or how everything in my life would change and how I would be changed in the way I looked at my life that day. I was told it is a progressive disease, that it could be slowed, but not halted or reversed. I received this news matter-of-factly from the doctor.

     I went away that day holding onto the idea that I had been told by a neurosurgeon that I had a high pain threshold. It was the only positive thing I could focus on and I had much work to do. At that time in my life I was working 6 and 7 day weeks and no less that 70 hours between Monday and Saturday. I also loved the work I did, it was only my body that I could not "get on board" with my way of life. I took what they gave me for the pain,(gabepentin) which was non-narcotic and made me feel like I was a zombie and went about my business the best I could. That was all seven years ago.

     Now the progression reaches my legs, stomach, hands and arms as well as my feet. I have run the gauntlet of medications and tests and combinations of medications to such an extent that I feel like I could hold my own at a party full of pharmacists and doctors. In the course of all this it was discovered I had three bulging discs and arthritis in my back and to make it really happy just recently, sciatica was thrown in the mix and I'm waiting on test results as I write this to see what else is going wrong with my back and the nerves that continuously tell me "You are injured". My doctor, whom I have developed an excellent rapport with over the years and two surgeries, calls me fondly, a "hot mess" . Ha ha It is true. Maybe not in the way the song means, but a hot mess none the less!

Now add brittle-diabetes to this situation and you have me: At times, a card-carrying asshole to be sure. It's not a natural state for me but certainly a side effect. One that I have learned to handle a bit better over the last four years. But if you were to ask anyone who knows and loves me, the asshole thing would come up if they were being honest. It's kinda like a "fault-line". There are tremors sometimes, and then there are total rock and roll what the hell is this guys problem times. BUT..these episodes occur less and less. I figured out that random acts of kindness really do release endorphins that bring happiness and once in a while even lessen pain! They don't teach it that way in kindergarten but they should if you ask me! The challenge is just about any activity amplifies the pain, so I have to be careful not to random-act-my-kindness onto the Richter scale. Tricky sometimes.

I've also learned a lot about how to handle other people that have a tendency toward this same affliction for different reasons. To be sure my health has put me in a place I like to refer to as a "pride-swallowing-siege", but I try to stay on the lookout for how I can use it to make not just my life better and more tolerable but maybe other people's lives too. Still working on that. More on the "pride-swallowing-siege" some other time.

Thanks and take it easy!

sunontiepost

What We'll Say

2011-10-11T19:57:00.001-04:00

1.
Let's just say the moon is blue
with a silver halo
that there is an old man
asleep in the mountains who knows
the truth about everything we tell ourselves.

That at night the bluegrass rises up to meet you,
paint your face with its wetness; your eyes
made wild and wonderful.

That there is nothing quite like the senses
made to consider women, bourbon, horses and
the lottery

that sometimes we choose out own afflictions.
The veins of my city's true love ways.

2.
Most importantly, let's say when I walk down
York Street, I don't see the swan chained
to the front porch steps, the one with the very
pink flowers growing out of its back
the neck threatening to become a question mark.

That I won't need anything to get to sleep.
In the morning when I see the sun dried stones
in the garden, I'll know for sure that I'm alive,

that we are just a symptom of the universe,
always under the birdsong, only occasionally
allowed to transcend against the weeds.

sunontiepost

June Summary

2011-10-10T09:34:00.000-04:00

When there was thunder...
imagine the days as long as
we could stand them
with or without song or
anything to say.

Remember the smell of rain
being enough, the sound of it
falling through the trees lit at
midnight and after by fireflies.

sunontiepost

Return To Little Round Top

2011-10-09T21:24:00.002-04:00

The trees are black and towering

the breeze only enough

to tease the light

from emeralds pretending

to be my bones.

sunontiepost

The Butcher's White Paper

2011-10-09T19:39:00.000-04:00

Do not expose your soul directly to flame
by red heads with beautiful voices.
Don't think about the wind in the trees
any longer than you have to.
Forget the color of her eyes and
try not to mention her name.

___

I keep trying to change the way I think
about my first mistake.

If you are born, then
you are meant to stand for something.

___

I am beginning to think of love as a lie
or maybe love suffers long and is kind.

All of love I know for sure
revolves around the butchers white paper.

___

I won't tell you how I could not part with the things
she had touched or how my heart believed those things were
sacred, silver and gold.

I won't tell you how I tore my own heart out
and threw it into the snow, scrambled
like a madman
to dig a moat around it, filled with sharp words,
impenetrable cold.
How the rotten yolk of a black-snake's egg got
fastened to the end of an arrow on a
bastard Cupid's bow.

How lonely the lonely look
driving slow past liquor stores
in the cold.

Joanie's Poem..In the manner of remembering

2011-09-11T21:25:00.000-04:00

In the morning
purple comes first.

The sky has reasons older
than we can imagine for this

my friends are sleeping,
dreaming something tender
I can not keep up with...

So I think of, the new mother,

holding her child to her breast with a

severe and unending love,

All the promise she was born with
emptying into little eyes

and binding.

In Heaven angels sing.

This world with its blood rising

must not forget these two faces.

*Sunontiepost (1999)