Reluctant Raven

Oh yes, I know
reluctant raven
you're so
flighty

Oh yes, I hear
shouting voices,
warn from
above

But don't you know
I ignore them
because I long to feel
your plush down

And don't you hear
so tenderly
my whispers meaning well
They're honest

Yes, I see you are young
not knowing how to fly
Surely I can do no better
but I'm willing to try
Just to try

Yes, I feel, feathered one
it's frightening to know,
whether we will plummet or soar
When right I'll let you go
Let you go

One Hundred Pounds

I recall the last time now
It came all at once to me,
as from an electric shock
My feet kicked upward
not reeling, but as pistons
intent to decapitate
I remember one heel
landing flush across the jaw
and the dead weight
He was separated then
- his body from his mind
One rendered useless,
and the other
on unfamiliar substrate
One where every strength,
every blatant advantage,
was my own
The one hundred pounds,
that profound disparity,
meant nothing now
And he knew

Obscene Embyro/Mossen Womb

He used his fingers only
to displace the earth
Pulling at sprawling roots, and
discarding their intentions
Their tendrils hung down
and touched his naked back
painting streaks across
his body as he moved
His forearms and elbows
aching and mud-caked,
a wreath of manzanita
entangled in his ashen hair,
and nostrils flaring before
the smell of soil and leaves
He dug a cavity there,
just enough to coil in,
and lined it with moss
Invertebrates roiled out
clambering for the light,
while groundwater dripped
freckling his skin with mud
He lay there unmoving,
an obscene embryo
in a mossen womb,
making no sound

Grandfather

His grandfather's face was not the same. It had been years, but they were buffered by a placid existence. It had weathered under the burden of internal oils seeping through in expressions unintended. One might recall that involuntary (embarrassing) quivering in the jaw as you seek a voice in the rightful place of sobs.

The iron oxidized.
The silver tarnished.

They sat on the tracks during the grandson's break from work and drank coffee as old friends might. These days the boy hadn't much time aside from those long shifts, and those he did were accounted for in days advance.

The dregs dribbled from a crease in a paper cup.

That rare silence only seen in times of death. It was all. He said it didn't matter much anymore, regarding that all would die alone. He said, "When the time comes, you'd better be your own."

A Real Why

She leaves them
all the same
Bleedin' heart;
an apology
I'd tell her now,
if I possessed the sway
a blink or bat of an eye
(that wincing smile),
she knows the one,
it's no response for
a thousand yard stare
And she can't even offer
a real why

The Mud

Sometimes it was just
the mud that called him
He knew it held meaning
but he didn't dare touch it
for it was something sacred
It was unspoken,
obviously explicable,
but without explanation
It didn't need one
It just was
So he wallowed