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MURMURS OF EARTH

Above me voyager skates
   Saturn’s icy rings carrying 
      The ultimate spin of spins.
While on Chicago and Lake
   Sixteen cylinders of a different nature
      Ripped through Abu Kassim Jeilani
Already turned mad
   At the paradox of mercy;
       And the silence of his own god.

Last night I thought of Hiroshima
   And the conception of evil,
      Which of course is really
A concept within a conception,
   Working overtime
      To dream itself alive.
It wants to become a headline
   It wants to live in my heart
      It wants to steal my dance.

It is a crow of course,
   A scavenger of dreams deferred,
      A bastard offspring of fear,
It’s sharp eye uncanny
   In its detection of tumors
      Silent shadow thoughts.
And I burn fiercely
   Between murmurs of Earth
      And ideologies of Cancer.

WRONG SIDE OF 
THE TRACKS

My poem is ruining my life
I have threatened and pleaded,
now
I am
At wits end.

Other poems sing like nightingales,
Elegantly gliding literary realms,
Confidently taking their place in academic tomes.

My poem caws like a crow
Smokes in the boys room
Spends its time diving in dumpsters.
My poem has attitude
A fingersnapping, 
Foot stomping,
Bootie shaking,
style of its own.

My poem is an embarrassment.

Officer I swear
This is not
My poem.

Maybe there is a social skillz program,
A Saint Sabrina purgatory and  manners class
For delinquent poems.
I must do something.

My poem goes on with its bad self
Blissfully inappropriate
Rude sassy and LOUD
But most 
Of all
Mine.

Therapist three told me 
of his normal childhood, 
as he talked I could tell he felt better.  
I was glad that I could help.

PART ONE /
YURUSHI (forgiveness)

It is easier to say nothing,
Then to explain why
I have chosen to be an orphan.
I look at the toes of my shoes 
And mumble,
“don’t get along”
softly,  
so as not to disturb
a delicate balance between
bones in my heart 
and circling horses,
between
nightmares and wonder,
between 
sanity and survival.
I find my voice
Croaking like a dead frog but
their really are no adequate words 
For Incest, for trauma, for violence
For this heaviness of tongue.
To leave your family
Is like being raped
In a perpetual cycle of holidays.
It is to know Xmas
As dangerous passage.
Survival is always 
intense and private. 
It is wrong to live 
Downside up
To walk north on south street
It is perplexing to dance backwards
It is easier to say nothing
To think of myself as a third person. 
I can make up stories then
There was a terrible storm………
The house was burnt to the ground……..
The car went over the cliff
And I alone survived
Kinda
On most days.

There are no mementos of this war,
Only a garden where  I buried
Sunflowers and secrets
Bits of calcium
Shattered mirrors and rusty razors 
Forget me knots.
All buried in the darkest earth.
All buried in the harshest light. 
The flowers grew 
to be nine feet tall 
fantastic organic sculptures and
I knew from the beginning 
I would not write my way 
out of this dilemma.
Bodhisattva of mercy
Gave me one word.
Yurushi; forgiveness, a belief in sunflowers,
And I am finding my way
Kinda
On some days.
 

PART TWO/ 
MUJITSU(innocence)

As whisper of winter
Is heard in 
subtle chord

My inner soul
Springs forth
With all the gawkish grace

Of a newborn colt.
Skittish to be sure
But curious.

Twelve obsidian pebbles
When held to the light
Reveal teachings.

I am learning to trust
Mujitsu
More than fear

I am learning at last
To breath  
without hesitation.

It is humbling this acknowledgement
Of spirit,  A simple miracle
I have survived

The night I chose oblivian over light
Nick jumped off the bridge and 
Out of his skin forever.

I stopped dancing widdershins,
And came here
Bewildered 

My last thread of hope
So finely worn
It snapped

Of all my secrets
And hidden selves
At the root of  fears

Of things did and done
It was shame
And my own shadow I could not out run.

To turn one’s heart
To the light, to the sun
Is the Tao of Mujitsu

To be human is to hang
Precariously between
Receiving and giving

to be wise 
is to know I of myself
have done nothing.

© All Copyright, Michael G. Kelly.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.