359/365

just write the damn thing
don’t over think it:
mention the food and drinks
and naps and records and puzzles
and movies and how you find joy in sadness
and how sadness brings you joy
and mention gratitude and the easy
contentment lurking just beneath the surface,
within reach: so close you can almost touch it
and feel its warmth as it tucks you into bed
with a good book and the promise of another
day of rest and a week after that and then a whole
new year to get better at being better and finding
that elusive meaning that might help you fit into your skin
and look in the mirror and make it all make sense.

335/365

too much too much too much too much too much too much
too much too much too much too much too much too much
too much too much too much too much too much too much
too much too much too strength much too much too much
too much too much too much too much too much too much
too much too much too much too much too much too much
too much too much too much too much too much too much

334/365

only fragile
things on the mind:
glass. egg shells. relationships.
needing to be tended
cuddled. swaddled. held tight.

only strong
things on the mind:
bones. beaks. spirits.
needing to take us to flight.

the end of a day
like the outline
of a birthday wish
made as the smoke
clears, leaving the
promise of tomorrow.  

333/365

three thirty three
can’t seem to get free
trapped in a tear drop
the size of the sea.
the waves keep coming
a universe on a pin tip.
how can it carry so
much weight and not burst
at its seams. it’s all so
fragile in here. holding
our collective breath for
fear of disappearing.

331/365

locks and keys
and manatees.
where will she
go to next?

boxes of leaves
tricks up sleeves
learning to juggle text.

broken dreams
with ripped up seams
tell yourself
you’re blessed.

peeling scabs
fingers covered
in blood. best to let
it coagulate.

330/365

big week.
big game.
big party.
big night.

329/365

a sea gull flying
while standing
on another sea gull.
the one on the bottom
has its wings spanned
out catching thermals
against an asphalt sky.
the passenger perfectly still
until it needs to stretch its wings
like a rudder to keep balance.
how little of the world
is ever actually seen?

328/365

we’re in the room:
ceiling lights are off
grey outside. a gentle rain.
lamps spit glow into the corners
soft music. a candle. a gaggle
of fourteen year olds writing
about their hands
with their hands.

we are bundles
of words throwing each other
around like dice: snake eyes. double sixes.

these moments are a shelter from the storms.
we sit. i chat with them individually.
teaching about how using
short. one syllable. words. can.
speed. up. the.pace. of. their. poem.
get weird with structure
punctuation. see what happens.

during sharing time, a girl
unloads her soul into our space,
mouths agape they listen, connect, understand:
we too can do this their silent reactions say.

we snap applause and approval.
that might be our first holy shit moment, i say
grinning, wielding the power of a curse word.

among teenagers. after twenty years, i know
what makes them tick:
music. darkness. candles. building a vibe.

let them know they can do it.
show them how to do it.
let them do it.

327/365

two nights in a row i have gotten into to bed ready to read and block out the world and relieve some pressure from a  bursting mind only to have forgotten this god damn daily poem and had to drag my ass out of bed crank up the laptop and sit at the open faucet like some dumb loyal dog begging to be pet and given attention expectant and eager but ruefully woeful just too full of full to even enjoy the process and definitely hating the product but maybe this is what they mean by ten thousands and honoring the craft sitting in bed angrily typing a diatribe so as to satisfy the vow to be able to turn it all off and disappear into the silence before doing it all again tomorrow and the day after that and you get the picture art is not born of some mystical inspiration there is no muse but the task master forcing you to look in the mirror and hope you are right because if not you have committed to a lifetime of mediocrity on a hope and prayer that it is worth something there is value there is some meaning in all of this even without punctuation or line breaks

326/365

it’s gentle night
i’ve prepared as best i can
now to be myself

325/365

washing the dishes distracted
feel myself hurrying up,
still greasy, just let it go,
who cares, it’s good enough,
a pit of emotion like a murder
of crows cawing in my mind’s tree:
grief. fear. doubt. anxiety. insecurity.
you’ve been here before- a soft whisper
anchor your breath. feel the water.
use the soap. wash your dish
with intention. with passion. with courage.  
nothing else matters, but this dish.
clean, dry, put away in its place, ready for use.

324/365

i hate the emptiness
and what it demands.
every night a bout with the
dim shadow begging to be
made corporeal. how many
words can there be to name
this infinite pedestrian panic?

a girl’s father is swept away in a flood
as she plays a styrofoam guitar.
nothing but rice to eat and a gentle
glimmer of sunset on the muddy monsoon
river. weaponising material poverty
like a mallet to instil gratitude.
without sacrifice, empathy is just guilt
dancing with shame.

i remember long afternoons
waiting out the rain, the smell of burning
plastic garbage damped. the sound of droplets
like machine gun fire on the zinc roof. how absurd
youthful optimism looks through the long lens
of aged realism.

i hate the emptiness
and what it demands.
but god damn it, if i don’t
extract something from it
every time.

323/365

there’s a shitty old fashion
on the table and worse chips and salsa.
we’re drunk and sweaty
reminiscing about the shows we  
saw in ninety ninety two.
we want to be sexy, young and relevant,
no one noticed us in our prime
and now it’s even worse.

i play taylor swift on the cab ride home,
making more sense at forty eight
then at eighteen. you bought me cool water
and that gap sweater, trying to change me into
who you wanted me to be. we explored our bodies
in the back of my car behind santa vencia
and china camp. i wanted to love you how you wanted, but
i broke you in ways i couldn’t recognise until
your sister told richard years later. boys are sharp knives
no one can wield properly. your green eyes piercing me still.

afternoons at the ice cream shop when we
melted into each other. flittering smiles more pure
than love we’d ever know. i cried your name for years
in lonely drunken dorm rooms. wanting to say i’m sorry-
remember that day at samual p taylor park. you a sacrifice.
me a hungry devouring force. i see your grandchildren
and hope you made it into the clear where you see me
the way i always wanted to be seen.

enamoured by you.
needing to be loved.

322/365

there is not enough music
on the hamster wheel.
sure there are the twenty minutes a day:
fumbling through chords,
climbing up and down incoherent scales,
and yes there are the three hours a week
bashing out hits with the band,

but where are the ear goggles?
the full album play on vinyl?

the parties where we just sat
in the darkness near a fire
getting lost together in that verse
this chorus, the bridge, a solo.

everything is off kilter
when music is relegated
to the background.

the songs swallow us whole
sonic osmosis keeping us sane.

321/365

he gave me two notebooks
before he left when i turned eighteen:
one blue. one yellow.
both three subject, mead, spiral bound
150 sheets/college ruled
9 1/2 x 6/24.1 x 15.2 cm
price tag from thrifty’s drugs $2.55.

they smell of mildew, dead letters
and faded recollections.
spirals warped and hinting
with the grit of rust.
teal lines in various stages of
pale decline. the words dark black
english. farsi. spiritual.
quotes from jesus to rumi in neat script.

intermittent drawings begging to be tattoos.
psychedelic lines wanting to carve skin and
embed themselves like topographical
transcendental lines on a map.

pages exposing this seeker on a hunt
for escape or meaning
something other, beyond:
the edge of the edge.

he read carlos castaneda books on the toilet
training in shamanism that he received
under the tutelage of a yaqui.
those trips imprinted in the drawings.

care of the soul is more than hunger for bread.
there is a pumpkin bread recipe in there
and a daily schedule that has him rising
at four am and in bed at nine:
mediating, painting, working, gardening.

fatherhood for him was leaving clues.
maybe somewhere beyond this world
we will finally meet and i can stitch them
back together for him and share a few of my own.

320/365

we’re staring at a puddle brimming with tadpoles
this student and me on an outdoor ed day trip
in the heat, on a path, somewhere, in a city, in asia:
they seem so tiny and ill-equipped to what is bound
to happen to them when this incubator reservoir
dries up, leaving a dark mud stain before evaporating
into a unremarkable memory.

untethered symbionts.  

one kid mentions a condition where bones grow faster
than muscles causing painful strains. one kid points
out two birds of prey and a little egret. one kid complains
he rarely leaves his gaming chair. one kid laughs at all my jokes.

in the end, we took a wrong turn from a straight line and got lost
missing the highlight of the walk, instead eating lunch under
the tar smoke of the industrial area crawling with muddy lorries:

it’s not an adventure if you don’t get lost, i say chewing a salty
almond as we stare past a barb wired fence at the approaching storm.
 
comforted
by the fact
that the tadpoles
will be okay
for another day.

319/365

a small
clump of
words- and
not much
else- is
all that
can be
carved out
tonight. not
even a
point or
anything that’s
worth remembering.

 

318/365

falling into the well of the
bookshelf again hoping
to find a bit of inspiration
before landing with a thud
at the bottom empty handed,
i thumb the spines, plucking
a random buddhist title
gathering dust and growing mold
on the engaged spiritual life.
apparently this type of growth
does not blossom by simply living.
passing decades and satchels of pain
alone are not remedies for understanding
the simplest truths. the pink highlighted
passages exclaimed with marks
taunting me with cruel reminders:
you gotta do the work in the well-
don’t ask what the world needs.
ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go do that, because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.

putting the book back on the shelf
its work done, i’m left thinking:
when will i finally learn to listen?

317/365

i had no choice but to be a poet
beneath the veil and angry scowls
they showed you about us on tv,
we persians have long worshipped
the rhyme of verse and the winelight
under which it is written and read.

in our home there was a threadbare
copy of the hafez revealed on late nights,
illuminated by candle glow, hand to heart,
read it slow-to the guest waiting
for their fortunes told.

my parents reveried this tome,
to me as a child it was magical,
i’d thumb its pages when they
weren’t home, admiring the calligraphy
wondering how it was that this script- that so
effortlessly fell from their lips had become
so foreign to me.  

years later my father and i would share a bed
in shiraz outside of hafez’s tomb. laying awake
in the darkness i wondered how it could be
i felt so foreign even there, which was meant
to feel like home.

316/365

punk rocker hippie,
rock and roller,
long haired head banger,
awkward authority figure
rebellious rabble rouser,
tattooed, hands in pocket
swaying lead singer
curriculum writer.
apathetic ambitious
change maker.

weakened weekend
head ache take it to the
next level. nothing else
matters, nothing
else ever will.