A POEM A DAY

I'm just happy to be here.

Category: Uncategorized

April 11, 2022

3/30 – Stargazing at the McDonald’s Observatory on my Birthday

Fort Davis, Texas
I never said a prayer for Darkness.
Usually I salute the sun like a flare
and swim in the lightyears,
A gold fish that forgot its shadow
even existed.
I’m standing now before
a crescent moon and under
enough stars to swallow time
I learn the word Earthshine
so we don’t forget
the dark sky is alive
the dark sky is alive with stories
the dark sky is alive with stories
the dark sky is alive with years of light
Looking up, my eyes are perform
a timeless practice, ancient and honest
I hold the only person on this Earth
who makes me shine in Darkness.

To be alive and in love with life at the same time
under the cover of night
How a light year needs the Darkness
to prove its still there

I am here in Fort Davis, Texas
with a prayer for Darkness on my lips,
spellbound by what my eyes can see
as soon as the dark overwhelms me.

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April 7, 2022

2/30 – The Morning of My Life

Marfa, Texas.

Early sun
Light overcomes the first night of April
all around me
Every color of blue echoes around you
The sunshine is a silent alarm
The silence moves me to write
I’m quiet in my creation
My wife asleep next to me
dreaming deeply
The glow of morning falls on her cheek
Her half smile, a desert flower
in full bloom
The wind from yesterday still in her hair
You are where my love rises
A satellite speeding
through the stars still can’t catch us
When the light overcomes the dark,
the morning begins and it is time
to celebrate our lives,
and how we are here, in love,
and alive.

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April 7, 2022

1/30 – In the Mix

To be in the mix

you have to be

part ingredient

part utensil

the recipe isn’t even necessary

think about timing and intention

timing and intention

To be in the mix

all you need is all you got

what you and what you are not

the smooth sails and the knots

Look around the sea of where you want to be

Find the spot where you

Run down hill

and fill your cup

with what fills you up

showing up for yourself

is the only game you can never lose

if you so choose

so why stay still?

Why stay a closed window

when the wind

bends the trees

and brings the breeze

to its knees?

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May 1, 2020

30/30: AFTER 16 YEARS OF WRITING POETRY, I’VE LEARNED

The poem can wait.
Living is the first draft to master.
Sitting down to write comes later.
A poem happens out of order,
When the door is ajar and the
Muse is asking what is for dinner.
Whether the stove is on depends
how much fire you can walk through.
Memories are sleeping, hungry giants.
You decide what stays, what goes.
The point is—
you have a purpose,
long after the poem is finished,
long before the poem began.

 

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April 30, 2020

29/30: AGENTS OF CHAOS

The hum of the razor
next to my ear sounds
like an army of wasps
taking formation
at the front-lines
of my overdue edge up.
Each follicle of hair
turned Agents of Chaos.
But at least I am growing
in some small way,
silver linings
in the darkness.
My brother Brent
used to cut my hair
for every important
event of my teenage life.
We had the routine.
He’d cut.
I’d clean the hair
and help hold the mirror.
2 all around, then a 1 on the side,
sometimes a taper fade,
but always a fresh fade
to end the day. It was
a way of life. The lessons
I learned in standing still,
watching his hands move
with precision. How the light
had to be just right.

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April 30, 2020

28/30: I’M GOING BACK IN TIME AND IT’S A SWEET DREAM

This is a love poem for my fiancé, Adela.

When I missed you, when we weren’t together,
I would write down song lyrics that made me
think of you. Each a different melody of longing,
a little soundtrack for my loneliness. That was
years ago. And just the other day,
I stare at you
from across the room
of our home
I watch you exhale on the front porch
Dusk before us, the faint
echo of the wind chime
bouncing off the trees
and into the sky. Another song
just for you and me, Adela—
never forget, you are the one
who keeps my heart beat dancing,
the reason I sing. My favorite song
is called Just Being With You.
The Things You Say, my favorite playlist
Your voice, my favorite instrument.

 

 

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April 30, 2020

27/30: THE ROUND ROCK ROLLER RINK

In the hallway of the Men’s bathroom
at the Round Rock Roller Rink, I left
my hand print on the right side of the wall. I dipped my
right hand in green paint. It was a birthday tradition for
anyone who had a party at the Roller Rink.
Underneath your hand print, they write
your name and your birthday.
It was
too much power for the 9-year-old in me.
You can put
your hand on any wall inside the building, a
it’s your call where. Isn’t that amazing?
A place that celebrates you
by giving you a choice
in what to leave behind
for others to find.
The Round Rock Roller Rink no longer stands.
It belongs to the history books.
Like that one time in the sixth grade,
on a Friday night, I danced during
couple skate to Don Henley’s
Boys of Summer blasting
from the speakers next to the scoreboard
used for hockey games, and
my elastic smile
going in circles, balanced
on roller skates, holding the hand
of a girl who held mine back
for the very first time. Those days
are gone forever, just like Don sang.

 

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April 28, 2020

26/30: A STREETLIGHT MEETS AN OAK TREE

Every night, I see the Oak tree across the street
Towering over the houses and the power lines,
pumping light into my heart. After all,
I am a machine. Meanwhile, the Oak
was born where it stands. I know how
different I am from that which
is rooted into this earth. We are both
shadow makers, though,
the Oak was here first.
Elder Oak. All light is
a lesson, though,
we are different students.
I illuminate the dark street,
the sunlight scatters through the Oak.
I am not a home for the wandering Hawk,
the roaming blue jay or tired cardinal, though,
I do want to
We are of two different worlds
living on the different side of
the same street. When the leaves fall,
I feel a longing I cannot name.
I am not a tree,
growing and alive.
I am a machine, designed
to illuminate. I know my fate—
it ends and begins each day, arrive
when the sunsets, leave when the sunrises.
In the in between,
the Elder Oak must sing
a thousand different
songs.

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April 28, 2020

25/30: THIRTY-FIVE INCHES TALL

Jessi picks up a crayon with purpose.
Every color is her favorite color.
She talks a sing-song of thoughts
under her breath,
washing
the white paper sky
ignoring the lines,
she orbits around
with color after color,
determined to create.
I ask her, what she created
and she answers,
This is what I created!
I laugh and tell her to keep going.
It is Saturday afternoon and
Jessi is the color of joy.
We paint the day together.
She asks if I’m going to color
with her,
and I pick up a crayon
like an old friend.
She laughs like a color wheel.
It sounds like my favorite color.
Reminds me of my brother,
her father, and when we were boys,
we would do everything together.
Now his daughter is in my house,
three years old, thirty-five inches tall.

 

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April 28, 2020

24/30: SUNDAY – GIDDINGS, TEXAS

At 55 miles per hour, a head on collision
between two vehicles has enough force
applied that both drivers could die on
impact. A quick death, I suppose
is a small mercy. I did not die, though
everything
in life ingrained the expectation that
no one is that lucky.
It was a Sunday in Giddings, TX,
the day I should’ve died,
but didn’t. Think impossible.
Think inescapable fate.
And I escaped.
But the other driver did not.
What kind of miracle is this?
He crossed the dividing line
of oncoming traffic. Happened
so fast my body couldn’t
even see its fate. I never
broke like glass. Even though
my car
bounced like tumbleweed
over concrete and grass.
I question God and physics
all the time. What I feel
is a different kind of pain.
I never talk about that day
in November. It was raining.
I’m not particularly
proud of how the story ends, but
I am not here unless it ends that way
I didn’t do anything
but lock up, my blood
pumping frozen adrenaline.
The airbags did all the work—
cradle my spine and skull
into the grassy knoll. I
rolled over the concrete parking lot
Landed in the soft mud
the tender earth
oh, the gentle soil
that gave me
a safe place to crash. Maybe
that
was God
coming to my rescue—
and on the Day of Rest,
no less.

 

 

 

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