mjw-poetry

[mjw-poetry]

Grief is a pit in your stomach. But not like a peach pit, or a cherry pit. A pit like a hole, a cavern, a void. A large opening in your soul that sucks things in like a vacuum, things that you used to love and cherish, happy, good things, and turns them into heaviness and dirt and black, black, black. The color that used to remind me of the sky blue hue of your eyes now reminds me that your eyes no longer exist, and, like the sky when the rain is done, how vast and empty they became, the storm of sickness over, only numbness left behind, when you were almost gone. The sound of your snorting, captured in videos, used to make me laugh. You sounded like a pig, communicating, or trying to, with your nose. Now it makes me well up with tears, thinking of how you hardly made a sound during those final days. How you just lied there, in pain, without any of us realizing it; well, one of us did, but it’s not like he could tell us. Sometimes I’m haunted by the thought that his meowing was a warning - like he was trying to alert us. “My brother is dying, my brother is dying! Please! Someone help!” But even if he could have told us, there was nothing we could do. The hollow blow of that statement. I never want to hear it again. “There’s nothing we can do.” And there was nothing they could do, and nothing I could do, and nothing anybody could do. All we could do was lose you; I kissed you goodbye, carried myself to the car, and wept and wept and wept. And screamed. And shouted. And shook. And clawed at the seats. And now my mind won’t let me forget, and my heart won’t piece itself back together, too much grief in the way of the glue and tape. My mind always takes me back, as I try to rest, as I think of our boy, as I try to make sense of it all. The illness, the smell of the vet clinic, the chill of the December air, the doctor who couldn’t remember his name like he wasn’t the most important cat on the planet, the phone call that sounded the bells of doom, the kiss goodbye, the shaking and the shivering and the screaming; the forming of the pit. And so it sits. Taking. Devouring. Heavy on my chest, up against my heart, pressing into my gut. That is what grief is. It’s not a woody casing full of seeds. It’s a giant, looming, terrible chasm. And I don’t know how to seal it up.

[mjw-poetry]

ashes of zeal

taste us thinking, wounded

the movement a steady tug

faith, a guilty frenzy

black on the tattered rug

the vision is never simpler

when dread fogs up the glass

you leapt before you lingered

you wept before you crashed

their modern grandeur struts slow

into the pavilion light

nobody is all too certain

if this attitude is right

but all is well in laughter

and all is well in doubt

so let us see this darkness

before the fire goes out

hear us drowning, tainted

the promises, dust on the floor

dreams, a twitching memory

collapsed just as before

the night is always simpler

when sleep doesn’t take its time

you thought before you breathed

you left because you lied

but all is well in laughter

and all is well in doubt

so let us see this darkness

before the fire goes out

yes, all is well in laughter

and all is well in doubt

but how will we stand the madness

when the fire does go out?

[mjw-poetry]

doctors orders

prescription slip

for

A Weary Gay Cowboy

for the treatment of

too many church services,

vibrating brain,

general bodily difficulty, and

a lifelong struggle with

giving too many fucks

i hereby prescribe,,,

•five art museum visits, alone

•one art museum visit, with a muse

•daily time with cats

•daily time with nature

•daily time with a vibrator

•one bath bomb to be used weekly

•three paintings to be done monthly

•an old favorite novel to crack open off the shelf

•a beeswax candle to light while you do it

•a good scrubbing of the heart with poetry and cocoa and patience

•an hour a day of listening (just listening)

•the earth’s support

•the sky’s loyalty

•the water’s energy

•the flower’s joy

and

•50 mg of zoloft, taken daily with love

return in one week for your follow up appointment

and please bring your courage