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A Lullaby

Thought I’d write my inner child a lullaby. This is my 20th villanelle.

A Lullaby

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This poem fell out pretty quickly. I came into work about a week and a half ago to discover my schedule had been shifted dramatically. There is a part of me, a fairly large part, that always feels that I’ve just done something wrong and I’m about to be punished miserably for it. I’m pretty sure this is connected to the same part of me that, throughout my childhood, lived in sheer terror of dozens of unlikely events. Events like tidal waves (though living well inland), floods (though not living near a river or flood plain), super storms (though living in a mild climate), and really out there stuff like black holes sucking earth into oblivion. Oh, and death.

These were debilitating fears. When thoughts of this or that potential disaster passed through my mind, my body would go cold with terror. Not just an anxiety that causes fretting and unease, but the sort of fear that whitewashes the mind like hi-beams on a dirty windshield and sends waves of frozen fear throughout the body like liquid nitrogen.

For some reason, the most trivial things can trigger this liquid nitrogen whitewash effect. The night I started this poem, I was told by my supervisor as I walked into the on-duty administration office to clock in that he needed to talk to me. As it turns out, he needed to talk to everyone—about the restructuring of everyone’s schedules. But, in that moment, I was frozen in the headlights, and it took me a couple of days to recover from it. This is one of the long-term effects of thoroughly messing up a child’s mind.

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Eye Fatigue

I have spent the first five or so weeks where I work sitting at a desk throughout the night in a dark group home unit. The only real light is a two foot long florescent bulb, fixed to the wall about two feet above the desk. So, just above eye level. Directly under the light is a fish tank with six gold fish swimming about, occasionally splashing a few drops out onto my laptop.

If you’ve ever seen a fish tank in a dark room with one strong light situated directly over it, then you might have an idea what of what it’s like to sit at this desk, hour after hour, with this fish tank wrinkling surreal light into your face while the full effect of the florescent bulb slowly but surely sucks the moisture from your eyes and brains.

Of course with the psychic imprints from children past and present—ghosts—walking the hall, peeking from rooms, and brushing the psyche, it can get a little heavy on the mind in other ways, too. This sort of thing can only lead to a postmodern bit of poetry.

Eye Fatigue

Objects seem at rest
    like tide pools
  rippling in the sun’s hard light
      thoughts drip restless ease

Lull back heavy lids
    to waking dreams
  feel the touch of ghosts and
      shadow conversation

Bright light darkens
    blurring mental eyes
  blind mind draws
      long cloudy veils

A familiar name
    catches in the ear
  twitch slide cross jerk
      white flash sudden cold

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Acceleration

I recently stumbled across Newton’s Law of Acceleration in my readings. It was explained such that I was able to grasp and appreciate the concept. Then I thought of how bound we must feel as a people who have come to more or less understand such things. Here we sit on a speck of dust flung out near the rim of a predator galaxy. There’s a lot going on out there, and all we can do is watch through telescopes the faded light cast from events beyond history.

Acceleration

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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Cathedral

There is a redwood State Reserve about 30 miles west of Ukiah called Montgomery Woods. The woods are a series of groves which have been purchased and set aside for preservation by various parties, most of which have been involved in the logging industry one way or another, oddly enough. A friend and I used to visit this park on a regular basis, and we came to think of it as being much like a cathedral. In fact, we referred to the entry into the first large grove as “The Cathedral”. Thus my 8th trisect poem.

Cathedral

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

As I wrote this poem, I read up on the history and architecture of European Cathedrals, dating back to the Roman Empire, and looked for visual relationships between them and various points of interest within the Montgomery Woods. As I did so this poem began to take form with the first segment, “nave”, which is to say, the main hall of a cathedral. This segment focuses on the redwoods themselves.

Then I tried to think of a more complex object of focus for the second segment and thought of the Catholic Liturgies, so “vespers”. But as I finished “vespers” it dawned on me that this was describing a process more so than an object, and as I struggled to find a process to focus on for the third segment, I eventually decided to make “vespers”—the prayerful sounds of nature—that process.

I decided to focus on the “understory” of the woods for the second segment, which can describe anything found beneath the crown of the redwood forest. Slowly but surely, when I closed my eyes and visualized my walks through Montgomery Woods, I began to see relations between the understory and cathedral designs, and so segment two took form.

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Hard Fact

I like to hang out in Denny’s on my nights off. It’s one of two places in town that’s open all night, so if I’m not going to just sit in my tiny cottage and rot, it’s a place to go. When the bars close around 2am, the drunken masses crash the gates and burst in like a flood. They bring with them many antics and loud conversations.

One such conversation occurred right near me recently, and got me to thinking. Two middle aged women were going on about all sorts of things, including ex and current boyfriends, child support from ex husbands, and you name it. I quote the segment that got me going for this write in the poem.

Hard Fact

“How was it last night?”
“It was great. I felt things I never felt before.”

How many times have I heard this
    said this

It should have dawned on me then that
    yes of course
        each experience is different
            each partner a new adventure.

Yet it’s nothing new
    this new thing never felt before.

It’s been felt over and over
    since the dawn of man
        since infant hands first reached
            for mother’s receding breast

This is hardwired
    the new thing never felt before

Coded into every membrane
    twin twined strands whose chief
        design is to drive the wet
            machine to reproduce

Consciousness manifests a complex
    ghost in the chassis

It has never been felt before
    so it must be real
        sincere and meant to be
            the path to joy everlasting

But it decays and the hardware presses on
    relentless for the next new thing

The cell wins over rationale
    till no excuse can justify
        the barren need which strives to burst
            forth well placed seed

Yes, we are but hapless victims of our biology, and periodically we even think we’re having a great time. But really we’re just being taken for a ride, dragged through rocky, sulfurous mud by the wild horses of brutal instinct.

So, there’s some Buddhism for you.