wyrdwind

Pushing Poppies

It’s a bit like when a cat

presents you a dead animal.

Functionally dependent or an addict,

that’s splitting hairs, and courtesy

of a botched spinal surgery,

there’s a certain significance.

Mmm, thanks for the oxy dad,

I will treasure this…prescription opium

right here under my statue of Isis,

though I won’t tell you that.

Had period cramps so bad I threw up

one time

and he was traumatized.

Oh my ex was the same way.

I’ve got terminal cancer meds

from an old folks home—

they don’t outlive these pill counts.

Fun fact:

many don’t “go bad”

they just take longer to kick in.

Why do I know this?

America.

No healthcare,

everyone works half or mostly dead

with no retirement

and your only constant is pain.

But no pain I’ve ever experienced—

and baby that’s a lot—

was so bad I didn’t think ahead.

What if? Just in case.

There might come a day

when only one recourse remains,

that I’ve held on for someone I love,

a painless death.

A Happy End.

Silence

Breath, rhythm, vibration, touch.

The fundamentals of pain management.

You must be present. Waves. Move with,

not against. Gravity is your friend.

Do you need cold or hot? Listen.

Water. Bread. Mint. Floor.

Naked in your struggle sweat?

Shit, text my ass.

No TMI between us.

Seen all this shit before.

No pun intended.

Just throw those out,

we’ll get you new britches.

You might feel stinky, sad, and gross

like a forgotten potato in a dark cupboard,

but I promise I only love you more.

Long past wrinkles, arthritis, and dust.

If the worst appears over, get up

and take a shower. Just stand there.

I’ll support you if I must.

Sometimes staying in range is all you’ve got.

I’ll lay you down.

It’s enough.

1001 Kisses

I’ll hold you close,

brush your hair, trace

the shell curve of your ear

and the shivered nape of your neck

and tell you how we met,

a place I’ve made inside.

The first cool sighs of autumn,

when night lingers long past

previous predawn.

When you open the door and pause.

Churning star pierced sky, low melodic chimes,

a dog startles in the distance,

restless willows, clattering signs, groaning eaves,

fan palm fronds sails at high sea,

in this darkness

you can be anything, put the road

beneath your feet.

They all lead to me.

The tension upon delivery,

awaiting a newborn’s first cry.

Nothing so lost I can’t find.

Who stole the whispers and wonder

in your eyes?

Come outside.

Try. Try. Leave it all behind.

Remember where you belong,

you were always mine

stolen child.

Open Pollinated

For three nights

I was visited, I dreamt

first a moment so real,

from my phone an ethereal instrumental

somehow, when I woke had to be sure,

but it was still storm sleep sounds.

Next I coursed the brick walls

of a pub-ish industrial room somewhere and there,

in the middle must have been a man,

if a man were a fluffy sound cloud,

ram took off and turned up wow-round.

Atmospheric disturbance. Overlapping signals.

Soft rain blue, some light show. He sang

but I couldn’t tell what, tender as winter birds at dawn,

interview simultaneous,

he was to be wed and no one more shocked

about that than himself. An unspeakable

joy he dared not name lest it slip from his grasp.

At last. At last. Ambrosia

on the tongue of mere mortal man, some kinda

intervention. Are you a thing that exists?

Am I allowed to have this? But one magic

the gods can’t possess,

for there is no love without death.

What kinda woman

takes a tempest to bed?

Puts a rope and a bell on it, he’s

in there somewhere, breaks ten pair shears.

Settles him all the way down. Finds the right shape.

Trouble though. His most beautiful song,

food for the gods, hung in the balance.

Wouldn’t exist

unless he made the right choice.

Waking dropped barometric in my chest

as if my jurisdiction, when ya boy

biffs it so hard his gods dial up my spec ops ass,

Steve Irwin of ho handlers, said

with utmost affection. Godspeed

whoever he is, don’t make ’em tell you twice.

Last, through a stilled memory I carry

from a park festival where a daughter

sat on the ground hiding

in her mother’s bright skirt at a food truck.

A woman’s voice

sang through the sunlight and towering trees

in an accent very clearly

ancient Irish. Celtic, rather. Old Gaelic.

The oldest.

When I woke then, I wept with release

and wrote Aisling Aengus. How it must go.

Look,

I know when I’m being told. I know what I know

when I’m meant. Haven’t been wrong yet.

There’s so much more

to being human

than you think.

Does a caterpillar

know what a cocoon even is,

what it becomes upon entering

a state of living decomposition,

or does it just have faith?

True Oak

What is true is always true

and may be observed

through presence of mind.

Who has need of locked rooms,

musty robes, and tomes

has need of lies.

We have need of trees.

Music

is the only valid currency,

the spiritual blood of humanity,

that which remains in motion,

the purpose of your mother’s pulse,

how blood is made inside bones,

and yours grew from hers and hers

and hers all the way back

to the First. Ancestors.

Conduction

is a mitochondrial function.

Before we rise in unison, first

I must convince you Tree is Good.

Back to back to basics,

real toddler shit. Uh oh, that hurt.

Tree is Good. Oops, fell down.

Tree is Good….Dog is Good.

Hey. Hey. Dog is—okay, Dirt is Good.

I can sit here much longer than you.

See that kitty cat?

It’s Good.

Life’s just about

taking care of your pile of things.

As many as you can reach.

The only way

to attain impressive height

is living to love longest.

Love the most, variety

is riches.

Where

have all my trees and creatures gone?

In the name of your “wealth,”

a false God.

Mabon

Once upon an autumn equinox

as a young girl I’d found a book

describing the Wheel of the Year,

it seemed quite practical, sensible,

oh I was no fan of any church.

But I’ve always appreciated rhythm.

Relationships. Webs of cause and effect.

So I said fuck it why not,

on a breezy morn much like this one,

and cooked a meal for a happy family

I didn’t have. A harvest

of foods no one would miss. Open

invitation I guess.

Well afterwards I took a bath

for the warmth, even though water

always made me homesick.

Suddenly exhausted,

I fell asleep. My first

hyperrealistic dream. Looked down

at my hands, and my silver vine ring

I always wore on my right hand

had been joined

by a gold vine on the left.

I suppose if my mind must concoct nonsense,

I’m grateful it showed me what it feels like.

I’d always be well aware

when something isn’t Right.

Striking Beauty

Your real totems

are the media you consume

when you’re Going Through Some Shit,

dicking around on YouTube down

some kinda hole,

blanket up over your head

and haven’t slept.

My thing is grainy nature documentaries.

This one guy devoted his life,

wished to be remembered as a lover

of the wild. An amateur

in the truest sense of the word. Spent months

alone in a tiny hidden tree tent, unmoving,

eating so plain he lost his human stink.

He waited.

Then, he woke in the night, half

gone out his mind, and saw a tigress,

mouth dripping gore.

He cried. Named

her Bloody Mary in reverence.

When she bore cubs, he had privilege

to witness. Named Snow White, Sky White,

and Moon White respectively.

Professionals declared his work

of highest caliber. Quality. Never before seen.

Another time, some grizzly bears,

I don’t remember where. When the narrator

declared the forest a vast cathedral, I felt it.

Did you know bears, in the midst of fighting,

fattening, and fucking will sit

just to behold the majesty?

They give birth during winter hibernation, asleep.

I imagined tearfully what a mother bear might see

in her great dreaming.

Then in Central America some men

sought the apex predators of the overstory,

the all embracing canopy. Harpy eagles.

Elusive. They mate for life. One or two young

every three to four years, devoted parents.

Cascading effect,

keep every other species in check, in balance.

Their preferred diet

is monkeys and sloths. Grizzly size claws

on a twenty pound bird.

Those men fucked around and found out.

Jungles are noisy, and they tracked a male

back to his tree. If cacophony critters

weren’t worried, why should they be?

One begun the climb. After all,

they were busy right? Besides,

he wore armor, so it was fine.

Right? Right.

A sudden quiet,

deafening.

If you can’t hear her, it’s too late.

He didn’t move and scarcely breathed.

When the female takes to sky.

Without that armor

she would have lacerated

his cervical spine in precision dive.

The impact

alone stunned him, no stretch

to play dead, could only pray

she lost interest.

I remembered ever after that,

no matter the size, dress, or supposed intellect

he’s just a foolish monkey climbing high

like it’s his business, groping at your nest.

Put Him in his place.