“Do you like butter?”
Remember that?
Dandelions revealed
the love of fat.
Held beneath
anyone’s chin
they summoned up
the butyrin.
If you didn’t like butter
you wouldn’t glow
scientific proof
the ultimate show.
Thus is it clear
what these bugs are about:
empirical evidence
resolving doubt.
Fifty years
is a long, long time
unless you’re Centaurus
or a diamond mine.
So half a century
of lives intertwined
should be noted
exploded
confetti’d
and dined.
A toast to the couple
my friends Bill and Donna
resounding happy wishes
from their
wizened Maid of Honor.
Enough.
One crackling
searing word
scorched the page.
Enough.
When the yellow rose
reddens
from
blood-soaked earth
when we all walk
in blood-soaked sneakers
then
enough?
When anguish
clots
in us
until
our souls
death-fed
starved of life
wither
then
enough?
Or will we
inured
even notice?
Is sword mightier than pen?
Why isn’t it plain
they are one
the same.
The pen
is
the sword.
Words
scalpel, cleaver,
laser, scythe,
slash to meaning
sculpting anguish
carving grief
into flesh
forms
we’d rather not see
but the writer says
look.
What is voice?
I have wondered.
How do words become
voice?
Then I read the words
of Emily Doe
soundless to my ears
but in my head
jackhammer
chewing concrete
Rachel
weeping
green-black thunder
of torrid summer storm
voice
He raped a writer.
Words are all she has
voice
anguished
solo
over the chorus
of the bloody writhing
the siren-screaming
together
now
coming at us.
Words are all we have.
Will they be
voice?
What does it mean
move on?
What does it mean
resilience?
What does it mean
good out of evil?
Does it mean
don’t feel
?
Does it mean
we fear our own complicities?
we grope toward atonement?
toward private satisfaction
that
we
are not
them
?
Or is there anguish
that seeks a word
any
useless
flailing
word
because
it’s all we have
?
After yesterday
how to blog about a flower?
After Emily Doe
how to blog about a bee?
After anguish
how to blog about a butterfly?
But then
how not?
Words
are all we have.
Oddments 