the disquiet of the unknown

when i stand at the threshold
of silence and voice
the instinctive response
is to always speak
and to speak loudly

the push from all sides
to be the loudest voice
for whatever the cause
to make the best argument
to make the strongest points

to not think
but to let loose the tongue
so that the sounds that drip
from my lips
are not the words i mean
but the words that are acceptable

so i linger in silence
for a bit longer
than perhaps i should

making people uncomfortable
with my unknown position
until i can sort through

the things that make me uncomfortable
and speak from a place of discomfort
the things that arent always beautiful

the things that arent always fair
but the things that are spoken
with my own tongue

tilling the ash after the fire

when the world is on fire
fear is the word
that lingers on the lips
of every person

the fear of what is happening
the fear of what has been
the fear of what will happen

when the world is on fire
every gust of wind will
magnify the heat and spread the flames

but the ashes of old growth
make fertile ground
for new green shoots
to poke through the tangled underbrush
and finally feel the sun

when the world is on fire
fear will spread the flames
but when the fire dies

old fears die with it
turned into gray ash
to be tilled into rich black soil

the milkweed cycle

milkweed grows thick
inside the two block high walls
of the flowerbed
cornering the house
where caterpillar mouths
cut away the leaves
bleeding sticky white

soon butterflies
will land on the blocks
while on the green stalks
of milkweed
a mantis will sit waiting
eyes focused and sharp
legs bent and wings folded

“Dispatch from a Pandemic: Mount Carmel, Tennessee” by Seth Carr

A big thanks to ACM for publishing my thoughts and the thoughts of others around the country, keeping us all connected during this trying time.

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Another Chicago Magazine

I work in isolation.

In my job as the groundskeeper of a church in East Tennessee most of my day is spent with myself and the various tools and objects with which I interact.  When the COVID-19 crisis first began boiling to the surface, then as the shelter-in-place orders began rolling out, I wasn’t concerned.  My life and my personality are such that I naturally self-isolate.  Finding ways to entertain myself and occupy my time have always been easy.  No big deal, I thought.  Then I saw the effect the forced isolation was having on my wife.

If I am the archetypal introvert, my wife is the exact opposite.  She is a third-grade teacher and is used to spending her days surrounded by hundreds of children, coworkers, parents, and friends.  When she is not working, there was nothing she enjoyed more than a get-together with her closest friends and family. …

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the breath maze

mazes appearing
in the frozen fog of breath
crystalline labyrinths
from unsure lungs
expelled into consensus reality
no more real than they were
but now set upon
the hard surface of the glass
given definitive shape and form
drawing others into
their fragile winding curves

the reworking of skin

beneath the languid curtains
of pale skin and muscle
folding over and over
into a tightly bound package

the pulse of blood and rising bile
urges the creature to curl
folding and folding in on itself

remaking and reworking
the grafted skin it was given
to make a known reflection
from the skin of another beast

the brain etching

I’ll take myself out of time
and put back the remnants of the aeons past

hoping to break through the wall into the fourth dimension

talking out of time and into
the empty face of the black void
who puts on his skin makeup to hide the spiral

swirling at the base of his skull

a mouth full of no teeth
but the endless sparkle of stars
pulls at the center of my guts
with a long nebulous tongue

grafting skin to skin and etching its words
into the center of my forehead:

wake up
wake up

the restitching

they all say they remember
as if their memories are etched
in diamond and granite

and not in the soft plush
of the carpet beneath
the thick soles of their socks

what memory they have
has been tred upon
shifted and reshifted

the insides churned and reformed
refitted to the structure
of something like a story

a memory of things not as they were
or as a reflection of how they are
but as an echo in a story told

a fragment stored for the future
in the weave of a tattered carpet
reformed and unwoven by years

unspooled and restitched
knot after clumsy knot
into a flowing tapestry

we could not hear the whispers

before the calamity
when fear found its foothold
and took everyone into
the folds of its black wings

there were whispers
there were warnings

and the voices whispering
from the dark unseen
now laugh in a rasping cough
still unheard and ignored

catching the light

dark wings spread against
the bright light of the noon sky

head tilted upward
looking to heaven

the sun shining between
every hook and eye of the feathers

letting the light shine through
burning away the darkness