THE ONLY THING CERTAIN
What do we do with grief? It enters
unassuming like smoke, dust or rain,
inconvenient and annoying.
Mostly melancholy until it keeps raining
harder in sheets with growling thunder
downpour coming in wave after wave
flooding until everything is ruined.
How do you swim through the deluge
when the body can't hold air anymore,
when it has lost its lightness, its buoyancy?
Do you fight the drowning anger?
Caught up in the swirling current
looking to take you under.
Do you just let it take you, release the struggle
and give in, give up, and accept your fate?
Where is the shore? A boat? A lifesaver?
What do you need now? A priest? God? Answers?
Who can deliver you from this suffering?
Who can save you? Repair the hole still left gaping
a wound almost unsealable.
You shuffle through the old pictures
like a catalog of memories, then the clothes,
then the coins, their ceramic art and computer
Next the mortgage, bills and stocks, also the retirement
and you mustn't forget the dead still owe taxes.
Suddenly you are a demolition expert
deconstructing a life part by part one
canceled subscription or close account at a time.
How do you hold on
when their hand isn't there anymore,
when the old you isn't there anymore?
Are you still alive after death takes everything
and ravenously claws for more?
Can you call this part of the story living?
What will happen to their memory,
after you are gone worries you the most,
makes you angry all over again and the worst part.
It's as if no one understands why you are still angry
or thinks you should still be angry and now you are livid
because it's not fair. None of this is fair!
You want the old you back,
the one that woke with joy
the one with the infectious smile,
but that's dead too. Your body buried as well,
under the mountain of responsibility life requires.
All you can do is just hope that the vibrant lotus
that returns out of this dark and muddy existence
some future season is one you can still recognize.
LAUGH NOW, CRY TOMORROW
The stock market rides a roller coaster.
Price of food has risen and stayed there.
Friends can't afford rent increases,
many moves back home.
Neighbors won't leave their house
afraid ICE raids at their job
of being sent to a prison labor camp.
Days are longer, hotter, harsher, than I remember.
Everyday there is another fire to put out,
catastrophe to avoid,
as more people lose their minds and spines.
I hold it together with a thin web of love.
Remember the lullabies with which my mother
sang me to sleep.
I find the joy sprouting out of cracks in the sidewalk.
Call friends, tell them I miss them, to kiss the kids for me.
Send funny memes to other artists to laugh together.
I write angry poems, buy local, paint freedom,
with every brush stroke. Take walks.
Imagine each step is my heart's protest of harm.
Each deep breath of air,
renewing my commitment to live.
This government or that, will not end the bombings.
There is always a poorer, browner place,
they are happy to bring liberation to,
I mean people to clear away from precious resources.
I feel guilty for not doing more, for not having it as bad.
But I am only further down the chopping block.
Tomorrow I may catch their ire
so today I will sing my favorite songs on the radio.
I will dance with strangers ‘til I find myself in them,
I will read the stories of survivors of times like these.
I will write so others see how we made it out
of times like these.
The stock market rides a roller coaster.
Price of food has risen and stayed there.
Friends can't afford rent increases,
many moves back home.
Neighbors won't leave their house
afraid ICE raids at their job
of being sent to a prison labor camp.
Days are longer, hotter, harsher, than I remember.
Everyday there is another fire to put out,
catastrophe to avoid,
as more people lose their minds and spines.
I hold it together with a thin web of love.
Remember the lullabies with which my mother
sang me to sleep.
I find the joy sprouting out of cracks in the sidewalk.
Call friends, tell them I miss them, to kiss the kids for me.
Send funny memes to other artists to laugh together.
I write angry poems, buy local, paint freedom,
with every brush stroke. Take walks.
Imagine each step is my heart's protest of harm.
Each deep breath of air,
renewing my commitment to live.
This government or that, will not end the bombings.
There is always a poorer, browner place,
they are happy to bring liberation to,
I mean people to clear away from precious resources.
I feel guilty for not doing more, for not having it as bad.
But I am only further down the chopping block.
Tomorrow I may catch their ire
so today I will sing my favorite songs on the radio.
I will dance with strangers ‘til I find myself in them,
I will read the stories of survivors of times like these.
I will write so others see how we made it out
of times like these.