Tag: poetry

aSoSS 36 | Miracle

a-spider-on-state-street Leave a comment

How have online sales been going?

Too busy. I have had absolutely no time to do anything besides this and deal with the construction people…I still have unanswered contact emails from two weeks ago!

Scrap Creative Reuse, 1:30PM, 11/4/2024

december is the culmination of a series of unfortunate events, one month crashing into another, a pileup on a highway slick with ice. the snow masks your face, reflects the sun into my eyes. you believe punishment precedes trial, as did i, once upon a time. that time is no longer upon us–its passage should not be mistaken for an apology. i look into the bottom of my cup, at the tea leaves and the tarot cards, as if the swirling dredges could pull a lifeless body from the shore.

I got the job back, and I’ve been in meetings all day, all the guys at the house are really nice. So yeah, I’ve been sober for about five weeks now—yeah, thank you!

AADL Downtown, 4:30PM, 10/29/2024

it’s interesting that most of our limits are self-enforced, biological or not. in a society composed of chance, where do we draw the line? you and i do not hold the same significance. you see a miracle when you look out the window and i see a miracle when i look at you. both are true, in a sense. Darwish would profess an act of love, Marías a curiosity (“the window of a lover is more interesting than our own will ever be”). the window is a physical limitation, the infatuation a mental one. history always repeats itself; man must do as man did once.

You can each pick out one ornament for the tree. See they have Barbie, Minnie and Mickie, all the princesses… Grinch, Hocus Pocus, Harry Potter…

Walmart, 11:30AM, 11/30/2024

salem, 1690.

a body surfaces, frozen eyes and blueberry lips. a prayer, coughed up from the lungs. she’s alive! a miracle! the women weep and grow restless: they know what is coming. the preacher accuses, first with his eyes, then with his fist. a promise, jerked upright, throat wringed like a wet dishcloth. the floor opens and swallows the body. who’s next? the yew adds another ornament to its branches. inside the house, a silence borne from fear. not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.

Crooked Fool: Living by Lamplight

Cydney Marie Leave a comment

As the light grows ever more dim, tendrils of gray among warm yellowish rays snake across the floor. The warm light of the lamp bulb grows brighter, drawing attention, declaring its presence, becoming the focus of the room. The titles of the books on the shelf become hazy in the half darkness, the gray, the not quite night, the semi-pitch black. My black cat becomes harder to spot in the shadows. The light is almost uncomfortable in the darkness, lighting the old quilt on the wall from below, highlighting the folds, wrinkles, seams, and age-worn fabric as though it’s telling ghost stories by firelight.

It is in this light that I feel most at home. Present, just a little activated, warm, full of possibility. When I can’t see in the darkness, I lean into the trust I have in my body. I let go of the need to see everything clearly. A familiar room becomes a bit unknown, memory filling in what it can, imagination tearing at the seams of reality for the rest. But I don’t mind it. As my eyes slowly grow tired and less focused in the dim light, my mind stays alive, my skin taking over, constantly, chronically sizzling with little vibrations of energy.  Breath becomes a little freer and also more vibrant, more vital.

This time, between obligation and sleep, is the seeking. This is when the unknown knocks and we make friends with the dark, accepting it into ourselves. Shadow comes out to play, welcomed by light that allows it to show itself freely. The slow creep of the shadows, the tiny burning of light in the bulb, and the slight somatic disequilibrium of the dark and empty but full invite play in a much heavier way than the broad daylight, quietly brimming with vital force.

Sometimes, when I’m leaning into the creative movement of my body, or the give and take of an improvised scene, I crave this. The playful, primal life magick of light, dark, and gray. Sometimes I close my eyes or let my vision go out of focus, leaning into the flying sensation of the unknown in my body, trusting my limbs to catch me, rolling out of every misstep, if not gracefully, at least still alive. And when I cannot see them in the shadows, the darker ones light little fires in my limbs, screaming stories into my the nerves all throughout my body, insisting on shining light where it has been snatched away.

This is where I crave to live and spend my vital energy – in the cracked shadows of warm, stubborn, attention grabbing light that exist in my bones, breath, soul, and story. The unknown soul also shines brightly, and light is seen best in the dark.

Play, dance, and sing with beings of light and dark without caring whether they came from the pitch black of night. Let the unknown give them a chance.

Find life in the half light, the flickering candle, the dim incandescent, breathing into the dark beauty in these spaces even if it feels like flying, like half dying, like losing yourself or letting your soul fly to pieces. Walk in darkness always.

Capturing Campus: Christmas for the Dead

EKArts Leave a comment

Christmas for the Dead

In the graveyard

with holly and mistletoe

on old oak trees

bare limbs and tinsel

a celebration past sundown

paper snowflakes on headstones

and candy cane bouquets

that can’t be eaten by those with  

missing fingerbones and teeth in odd places

and no nose to redden 

from the biting chill of eve

but they gather and lounge

on hills that are their final home 

to proclaim the festivities are for all

and to all a goodnight 

aSoSS 35 | Drudgery

a-spider-on-state-street Leave a comment

I wish that would help… like, abracadabra! That’s how you do the [-] problem! Gee, thanks.

Central Campus Transit Center, 9:00AM, 10/18/2024

i am seven and the dust bunnies morph into a creature under the mattress, tickling my ankles and stealing my socks. i am fifteen and i learn the taste of love from from a dog abandoned on the roadside. i am thirty and you speak to me in whispers, your voice like tendrils, bending cartilage, bypassing cochlea. i am sixty and the conscience is subdued, the voice tragic. the magic, left to rot with the monster under the bed.

I’m sick of looking at screens! I mean, that’s what you’ve been doing all day… my eyes feel like I just wanna take them out, wash them in the sink, and push them back in.

Chem Building, 4:30PM, 11/14/2024

at some point the force of habit kicks in and your mind checks out. this is the death of a life, this drudgery. routine makes the mind numb, the soul weak. a counterclaim against optimism: if the rest of the journey is forgotten, you have converted your adventure into a chore. one foot in front of the other, nothing more than a machine. my fingers beg for rest, one letter scribed, one letter typed. this hope hovers above all of us, a claw half-grasped, holding us in place. step out of bounds, slip up, and you will be crushed–the claw does not care, it suffers from the force of habit as well…

They’re in the nice heat of their car, we’re in the cold. They can wait!

Central Campus Transit Center, 9:00PM, 11/14/2024

a beam of sunlight washes down the flank of the mountain, a bear in hibernation. some days the snow recedes and exposes the conspiracy of survival: the weeds that bloom false flowers, the dandelions that slither between sidewalk slabs. concrete yields to tree roots, roads forked like lightning and runways cracked like eggshells. an apocalypse, a tragedy, a return of equilibrium. the gardens have long degraded, but the soil is still slick with sorrow: a name mother nature remembers, but a face she forgets.