Falling Petals; Beating Hearts

The top floor—the fourth floor—of the Center for Advanced Medicine, Building B, houses the Renown Institute for Heart and Vascular Health, or to put it simply—cardiology. In fact, the entire top floor is dedicated to cardiology and not a square inch of this space goes unused.

Well, first the poem and then a little context.

Falling Petals; Beating Hearts

Center for Advanced Medicine,
Building B – Early Spring 2022

Cherry blossoms—pink and white—
sway like clouds against the sky,
minding not the plates of rough
gray wrinkled bark from which they spring

They offer no assurances, yet
comfort nonetheless—and thrive
for merest moments, fading back
like apparitions in the sun.

Beneath them hearts that have endured
too much to bear beat slowly by
as here and there a petal drops
and flutters lightly to the ground.

They enter at a door that leads
four floors above this transient ring
of urgent color, beckoning
for but the slightest hint of cheer.

So, this is a sakura poem. If I write nothing else in a year, I’ll always strive hard to pull of at least a sakura poem in the spring. It’s always a challenge to dream up new contexts, circumstances, and metaphors to connect to these remarkable trees.

As I post this, it’s the middle of Summer. I’ve been busy with my new job, which has me stationed at the location in question, and tired—always so damned tired. I won’t go into the nature of the job in this post, but I’m enjoying it and I really like the people I work with and around.

So the inspiration for this poem came as I showed up and left from work amid a parking lot full of cherry blossoms in all stages of bloom—a fairly even distribution of both wild cherry (Prunus avium) and Japanese cherry (Prunus serrulata)—that completely encircle the long wide building. Having researched Japanese cultural connections to the cherry blossom (sakura) in the past, I found their juxtaposition to a building full of medical offices that deal with life-threatening conditions striking, fitting, and moving all at once. And so the first lines came to mind, which I later expanded upon.

My wife’s cardiologist is on this floor—the irony of my ending up employed here is not lost on me. I see him in the halls with some regularity. The first time we went to see him, following up from her multiple admissions for supraventricular tachycardia as she gradually succumbed to her as-yet undiagnosed refeeding syndrome, it was early spring and the blossoms were in bloom.

I wanted to write a poem about them then—her heart rate reached in excess of 240bpm, like the flutter of a cherry blossom in the wind—but our struggle with her cancer loomed large in mind and there wasn’t much mental space for that sort of thing. Maybe I’ll still find myself exploring this metaphor as that nightmare moves further into the distance. Thus far, four and a half years later, she has returned to near-normal health—and that damned cancer is still gone.

The Fritillary’s Flight

It is often the plight of a poet to find themselves reflecting on a story heard or overheard until the inspiration mounts to explore and extrapolate upon it through poetry. The story behind this poem is not mine to tell, so I won’t.

The Fritillary’s Flight

You wove up through divergent ancestries
        into being, knowing full well—
                                        I have to believe—
    your time could be brief, not much
more than a fritillary’s scattered flight
                through high desert meadows.

A parent finds something like religion
    in gazing upon their firstborn child—
There is wonder, hope, and yes… worry.
    You come, eyes bright
                                    as a newborn star,
        radiating life in all directions,
            the dimmest horizon now bright
                            with possibility.

You blessed us with infinite trust…
                    frailness and uncertainty.
    The scaffolding of your perfect being
contained but one irregularity, leaving
        your new home exposed to invisible
            dangers. Yet still you smiled,
    laughed and pointed… and as all things
                living must, sometimes cried.

    We learn quickly
        something is wrong—your body
                        will not fight disease,
                the prognosis unclear and
                                fraught with dread.

Still we raise weary eyes to your coos
    and meet your needs
        as we smile back fathomless fears.
Still we scour journals, consult experts,
    and visit doctors who assuage—
        as best they can—with that fabled
                    rhetoric of the powerless.
Still we call out with all that we are
    for a benevolent spirit to hear,
        heed, and come forth to our aid.

And somehow, through miracle, science—
        or both—there has been a glimmer
            of better days to come,
    of the feel of grass, fresh high desert air,
the touch and unfettered laugh of playmates.

    We will be here through all that comes—
and never waver—in the hope that one day
it will be you who approaches two long plots
    of earth with flowers, memories, and
                                    gratitude.
        Where we, having lived out the fullness
                of our days, wait in the rustling
            leaves of a cottonwood to hear you
    speak of love, loss, joy, pain—the entire
                            fullness of living.

And maybe you will hear our joy and pride
                whispered in the slight brush
    of a fritillary’s powdered wings just near
            your outstretched ears.

In Sickness

I made a note for the idea behind this poem when my wife was dying from refeeding syndrome in 2018. At the time, I was way too close to the matter to even think about writing a poem like this. But, now some time has passed, and my wife survived to regain her health again.

In Sickness

If I knew then what now I know,
  would I still take the vows?
Would I still pledge my life to you
    beneath the cherry boughs?

      Your arms are like a skeleton;
        your face is gaunt and frail.
      A bag is taped against your side
          collecting what you spill.

Would I still bear the looming loss
  if somehow then I knew
what “sickness” meant so long ago
    within that heavy vow?

      You vomit everything you eat;
        your heart rate will not slow.
      Each day it seems you’re nearer yet
          the place we all must go.

The truth is, I have no idea—
  The man I was back then
might well have taken every step
    to circumvent this end.

      The doctors at the hospital—
        They have no reason why
      you will not stabilize and heal—
          I fight back bitter sighs.

But he is not the man that’s here.
  For all my fear and grief,
I will not turn away from you
    so long as you draw breath.

Turns out there is a fairly high percentage of cancer patients who die from refeeding syndrome—a metabolic cascade failure that ends in death—especially with large stage 3 tumors. This is because the tumor takes all the body’s nutrients, essentially starving the patient. When the tumor is gone, the effect can be just like the prisoner of war returning to a normal diet for the first time after rescue, which can trigger the syndrome.

Unfortunately, it seems most doctors don’t know to look for this. It was pure chance that someone on my wife’s medical team realized what was happening and started the protocol for saving her life—parenteral nutrition. This means being fed intravenously until the body remembers how to correctly metabolize food through the digestive system on its own.

The Seekers

I am not currently working on any project poems, and I don’t plan to start one any time soon. Hopefully this means my mental space will be freed up for more spontaneous writes such as this:

The Seekers

For as long as I can remember
I’ve watched them grope,
fumbling through dark places
over jagged, uneven surfaces.

I’ve watched them wander long
grey corridors, faces gaunt,
shoulders slouching faded sighs,
feet reechoing short, tired scuffs.

I’ve seen their distorted figures
through stain glass windows, heads
bowed, arms raised, faces creased
with longing for the slightest sign.

I’ve even seen them half concealed
by timbers on their way to peaks
and rivers to seek out some hidden
solace, some priceless psychic gem.

But, somehow I think it’s up there,
slipping between the stars, bits
and pieces sometimes flaring bright
streaks of insight within the night.

This was sparked more by a feeling than a thought. The feeling was invoked by a poem I read in a Facebook group, though I can no longer recall the poem or what it was about. Four of the five stanzas actually formed very quickly, but it didn’t feel finished, so I put it aside for a while. This was a few months back.

Recently I looked at it again and just kind of knew where and what the missing stanza should be and then it was done. Funny how that works.

Boxcars

During my early 20s I was friends with a man who was also one of the staff who worked at the last residential home I lived in as a teen—not long before I ran away. I was still pretty feral in those days, so I eventually ended up damaging the relationship beyond repair and never saw or heard from him again.

But before this happened he passed on a piece of wisdom to me during a time when I really needed to hear it that involved a new way of looking at and dealing with my thoughts—seriously dark thoughts and intentions that absorbed a great deal of mental space in those days:

Boxcars

A steel-bell clamor echoes through the air
in time with frenzied flashes warning red;
the long arm of the crossing gate is down;
behind it boxcars rumble down the rails.

Some are old, the corrugated frames
bleed rustic patterns through the faded paint.
Some are new, unblemished angles gleam
the colors of a harvest fresh from field.

The doors gape wide, revealing vivid worlds
that move within the spaces as they pass,
each one reflecting back a hope, a fear,
a grim regret, a powerful desire.

The spacious confines beckon one by one—
the broken promises, the lasting doubts,
the things that could have been, the grand designs—
the vengeful plans that ache within the heart.

The cars move slowly—such that if you ran,
you could with little trouble hop aboard
and there within the confines of a thought
be carried off away to who-knows-where.

Nearby a tunnel opens to a plane
of deep uncertainty; it is from here
the many cars emerge to clangor by
and disappear around a far off bend.

I’ve been here many times throughout the years,
the way ahead obscured by vagaries
that mesmerize the mind with strange allure
and goad the impetus to jump aboard.

Sometimes a car would pass reflecting back
distorted visions holding such appeal
the urge to run and climb aboard would quell
all sensibility and self control.

Then suddenly I’d find myself within
a lucid fancy on that train of thought,
so thoroughly immersed in reverie
I soon lost sight of where I was or went.

And drifting through the shadows of a dream
of what could be or what there might have been—
or some depraved indulgence deep within—
I found myself displaced from all that is.

And only after hours, days, or weeks
would I regain my senses and return
to where I was before I leapt aboard
whatever fancy lured me from my path.

But through the years I’ve learned to let them pass,
allowing each to come and each to go
until once more the way ahead is clear,
the red caboose diminishing from view.

What he told me was simple: Instead of denying or rebuking the thoughts that troubled me, allow them to come, and then allow them to go—like the boxcars on a freight train at a train crossing. Let them come; let them go. Don’t hop on and get taken for a ride.

It took a while—many years in fact—but I worked at it and gradually got better at this practice. It helped a lot when I one day realized that the process of rebuking and trying to deny the thoughts and feelings that troubled me was also a form of hopping aboard.

Broken

Today is the anniversary of my father’s suicide. He used his trousers to strangle himself to death early in the morning 40 years ago today while being held overnight in the Monterey City jail’s drunk tank in California.

For most of my life, probably starting the very next year after his death, I forgot what day he died on. But, every June I’d begin to destabilize emotionally in various ways and this would come to a head by the end of the second week of July with some kind of epic breakdown—all without my remembering his death date.

Last year, on July 13th, a Monday—he died on a Monday—I suddenly remembered as my shift ended at work that he used to suffocate me in my sleep. This psychopath would cup his big hand over my little face in my sleep, closing off my airway entirely, so that I woke up in a panic, clawing and freaked out, until I passed back out again. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt his hand, I felt the absolute terror and helplessness of waking to suffocation, and I gasped and gasped for air with this vivid memory until I hyperventilated my way into the ER.

Why did he do this? I don’t fucking know. No-one in my family will even verify this memory, including my sister who has told me many times over the years that he would hold my jaw closed in my sleep when I would grind my teeth—which she now denies ever telling me. But this isn’t the resurfaced memory anyway. The intent was clearly to suffocate me unconscious, and the trauma surrounding this abuse is extreme and ongoing.

So, in memory of my father’s 40th deathaversary:

Broken

You were a broken man…
            I know this.

And though you have long since
                  turned to ash
      your broken hand still rests
            upon my shoulders.

In those days I had no way
                  to understand you
      except as something
            to fear,

                        and terribly so.

When you were gone—
                  the moment I knew—
            I felt relief.
      Yet your touch remained.

When you were gone—
            the moment I understood—
                  I felt gripping loss,
      your grip finally loosened.

When you were gone—
      the moment I grasped its meaning—
                  I felt searing guilt.
            Your rage had been extinguished,

                        and could burn no more.

And when you were gone,
            I never once wondered why
      you never came to say goodbye
                  somewhere in my dreams.

                                    Yet
                        I still could feel
            the broken weight of your hand
      pressing, squeezing, clawing
                              somewhere in my spirit.

You were a broken man…
            And you broke your small boy
                  with the terrible, violent weight
      of your broken hand,

            a touch that reaches still—
                        like the sting of cigarette smoke—
                  from the dreaming.

So, yes, another cathartic poem. I swore some years back that I’d use poetry more for artistic, highfalutin endeavors. Because, you know, I’d like to be a more serious, highfalutin poet. But, whatever. I’m a person and I’ve been through a lot.

In the end I should consider that poetry saved my life as a teen. So maybe catharsis is also a part of giving back to the spirit of this muse.

One more breath

Sometimes I start writing a poem based on a feeling that I don’t really know how to express. And, here even with the poem written, I’m still not certain what the feeling was that inspired it. Though the poem focuses on the decision to not commit suicide throughout my life, this doesn’t really represent the feeling from which it began.

One more breath

My life was over…
     Rivers of poison flowed through
          my veins and every fiber of being

My spirit was dark with dread,
     insurmountable dread, dread instilled
          by willful neglect, countless curses,
               endless threats and blows.

A thing like strychnine or a cobra’s venom
     coursed throughout my thoughts,
          through the depths of my psyche,
               my subtle form and corrupted even
                    the shattered crystal mist of my
                                                       soul.

There was no life support for a sickness
     such as this, where the light within
          grew so dim and obscured it could
               no longer be seen, or even felt.

I wanted only to live a moment more,
     so I took in a breath and cried to the stars,
          “Then all I ask is you take from me
               this fear of dying.”
                         And the moment passed.

I wanted only to live for one more day,
     so I screamed out by the tireless river,
          almost in rage, “Then all I ask is
               you take from me this one terror.”
                         And the night passed.

Again and again I found myself with no
     divider yearning to swerve into bright
          headlights. Again and again I found
               myself on top of cliffs yearning
                    to fling myself from sorrow.
                              And the moments passed.

          There was no reason to believe
               in a life beyond tomorrow,
                    today,
                         or even the moment…

          But here I am
               looking back on yesterdays,
                    yesteryears,
                         decades

          that never should have been.
               And for the moment,
                    that yearning has passed
                         yet again.

So, what was feeling? I’m sure it’s woven into the subtext somewhere. If I had to guess, maybe it’s a sort of wonderment that I’m still alive despite feeling so undeserving of life overall. Or, maybe it’s this ever-present sense of dismay and unease at the fact that this urge or desire to be done with life along with the associated thought processes—the poison—still remains.

Maybe it’s both.

The Two Gods

The idea for this poem goes back to my early 20s—more than half a lifetime ago. I guess it took me a while to find the brain-space to flush it out.

The Two Gods

The Concrete God and the Abstract God sat down one day for tea
to talk about affairs of fate and solemn mysteries.

“They named this city after me,” The Concrete God began.
“There rising at its center looms my monument by man.

“Night and day they praise my name within the vaulted hall,
beseeching after every kind of blessing great and small.”

The Abstract God was unimpressed by what was said, yet smiled,
“This tea is quite delicious, and the evening air is mild.”

“And what of you,” the Concrete God went on, “Who praises you?
Where are your names reechoed up by altar, mat or pew?”

The Abstract God drank down another sip of tea and gazed
across the sprawling cityscape where spires loomed in haze,

the ones to which the Concrete God referred wherein his name
reverberates from ancient walls of stone with high acclaim.

The Concrete God raised prying eyes, still waiting for reply;
the Abstract God took in a breath and started with a sigh,

“Those who know me also know there is no name for me.
I am the breeze that bends the grass and moves the canopy;

I am the light that shimmers through between the shifting leaves,
the rumpling sound that rises up where wandering waters weave.”

The Concrete God now took a sip and pondered what was said;
And then, “No name! It seems to me the nameless are the dead.”

“Perhaps,” the Abstract God replied, “if you are bound to name,
its absence may induce a state that’s very much the same.

“But I have been since long before the conscious thought occurred
to name each thing the mind perceives or manifests with words.”

“But surely there’s a name for you,” the Concrete God appealed,
“for humankind is wont to name whatever is revealed.”

“They name the things they see and feel,” the Abstract God returned,
“but I exist beyond the reach of what can be discerned.

“They name the grass; they name the leaf; they name the brook and breeze;
they name the very thoughts they think; but I am none of these.”

The Concrete God looked down his nose, “And yet I heard you say
that there are those who know you here among the living clay.”

“Indeed,” the Abstract God again, “but as I said before,
they also know I have no name to worship and adore.”

“And so the ones who come to know me simply let it rest,
an understanding freed from nouns embedded in the breast.”

The Concrete God threw up his hands, “This makes no sense at all—
to be an entity that’s known but none can ever call.”

“Indeed,” the Abstract God agreed, “for reason cannot name
a thing beyond the reach of thought to give it form and frame.”

“Alright,” the Concrete God again, “but surely there are those
who bind their understanding to a name they can depose.”

“There are, my Friend,” the Abstract God said gently. “But, you see,
this is precisely just the way it is you came to be.”

Specter

I’ve been seeing a therapist off and on over the past couple of years. My goal was to try to make sense of an unnamed trauma that has had a powerful influence on my state of mind and emotion for as far back as I can remember.

The work we did was forensic in nature, looking at what I do know and can remember of my life through the lens of various schools of psychology. It was attachment theory that led somewhere, as this revealed that I likely suffered extreme neglect during my first 3 years of life. I’m unable to verify this, however, because family who still live exist in a state of perpetual attempts to gaslight and deny.

Specter

She made me …
  from filaments of stardust
    mixed with the loess
      of broken dreams

She bore me …
  stark into the light of rage
    and left me naked, crying
      deep in an empty well

She gave me …
  poison fruit from a withered tree
    and i ate, having lost all hope
      of anything more

She made me …
  the imago of her darkest dread
    an ever present specter looming
      deep within her afterthought

The Outline

Since the mid 2000s, I’ve more or less tried to avoid using poetry to process traumas and strong emotions. This decision was inspired by a friend and mentor who expressed open disdain for such poetry. I suppose, since I was still working through issues of neglect and abandonment from my childhood, I hoped this would his win his approval. But that’s another story.

I think that—slowly, dimly—I’m beginning to realize that for me using poetry to process personal traumas, experiences, and strong emotions is not only essential to my process of working through the deep stuff and eventually moving forward, but to my overall inspiration to produce new material. Now, where I’ve actively tried to resist urges to use poetry to process my traumas, I’m working to move in the other direction.

The Outline

All around
                                   a storm.

                    Clouds
                              swirling.

               Winds
                          howling.

     Leaves
                    blowing.

          Walls
               creaking.
 

Through the window
          deep in the turbid havoc
     distorted by patterns of rain
               and side-blown rivulets

a thing moves massive
          amid black coiling clouds
     outlined only in part
               by flashes of light

                         and thunder.
 

          And there it is
               the Monster
     outlined in grainy gritty
                    shades of gray.

          The doctor points
               talks of radiation
     chemo and surgeries…
                    I blink back fears

          and struggle with all
               my might to see
     beyond reverberating peals
                    of terror and loss.

Of course, the storm is a metaphor for the emotional chaos stirred up by the diagnosis of cancer in a loved one. The outline in the storm adumbrated by flashes of light is metaphor for the image of the mass itself produced by scans—which basically use various kinds of flashes of light to produce the image, from X-rays to electromagnetism.

It’s been about two and a half years now since sitting in doctor’s offices with my wife going over scans and asking questions between long, strained attempts to breathe. And although my wife has been in remission for a couple of years at this point, I think it’s safe to say that I’m still traumatized by the experience of it all, hence this little bit of psychotherapeutic personal poetic trauma processing.

Event Horizon

I am hoping to get back into the swing of things when it comes to producing poems. For now I’m setting myself the goal of writing and posting one poem each month. If I can manage this, then I’ll look at stepping it up from there.

As I try to return to the habit of writing, I find that most of what occupies my creative thoughts is the experience of dealing with my wife’s cancer. As of now, she’s been in remission for two years—a miracle in itself to be sure. But no matter how long we both may live, I’ll never forget the experience of being caught within the gravity well of that singular tumor and forcing ourselves to go about each day within its event horizon.

Event Horizon

Despite the aching crawl of time,
         I wake each day
               from fitful sleep,
      stumble to the car,
                  and drive to work.

      Despite the crushing pressure
            of uncertainty,
   we take our son to preschool,
         to the park to play,
               and ready him for bed.

Despite the all-consuming darkness
   that haunts every thought,
         we buy groceries,
               prepare our meals,
      and pay the bills.

The diagnosis was unexpected—
            I suppose it always is.
      In but a moment, all
   forward momentum was lost
         and we found ourselves
            locked in the fathomless
                     grip of a tumor.

         And yet despite
               the overwhelming gravity,
      we continue on and
                  go about our lives
            just inside the event horizon
                        of oblivion.