-Dwell in moments
-Give yourself over to brokenness
-Maintain spaces
-Fall in love with strangers
-Gaze up through windows
-Re-write stories
-Undress emotions
-Channel other peoples' pain
-Amplify your rage
-Remember what you'd rather forget
-Give up on giving up
-Don't blink
-Re-birth yourself daily
(27) Ode to the Last Day of November
They said you would be colder.
They said I would be forced
to defend myself against you,
that your skies would be all gray,
and we would keep inside against
your almost-empty threats of rain.
So maybe it is just the schizophrenia
of California weather, exasperated
by the complex changes brought
by ozone giving up on us, but
you are bright.
The skies behind the yellow leaves
shine friendly blue,
and the chill that comes in
through the window
only says hello.
Someone coming in from outside
mutters "lovely day";
it is confusing.
But I am too tired of fighting the cold
to be cynical.
So I just mumble awkward thanks
for this beautiful Spring day.
(28) Civil War
The armies come
all dressed up in opposing colors.
tension growing,
they set their faces
hard like stone
against each other.
They bear the dingy armor
of people who have been fighting
too long to remember why
and too long to forget their ways,
their pain.
They are turned invisible
faces obscured by iron grates
that keep them from seeing clearly, too--
far-sighted;
the other army grows more warped
as he comes closer.
The air that is trying to pry them apart
is collapsing.
They are meeting,
they are clashing,
they are writing
their own endings
here,
like this,
destroyed
together.
(29) Hard News
It's not as if you didn't know
that poetry would make you breakable.
(30)Haiku for The Way Light Splashes Across Your Face and Makes Me Believe in Newness Again
Just one last poem
two minutes til December
time is part of nature
Reflection: I learned a lot about incompleteness and imperfection this month. I wrote a lot of terrible poetry. I've learned to rest in the tension of my own imperfection. I've learned that you can't manufacture inspiration. I've learned to suffer through the writing process in its absence. Not sure yet whether that's called discipline or bad art. We'll see when I look back later. Maybe future-me will find current-me inspiring.
