Just yet
upon the precipice
of long-a-sought
tangible peace
Of accepting
why
so impetuously
for a drink, a line, a cookie
a tightly-wound
frangibly unavailable lover
we reach
All satisfying
deeply
hopelessly-entangled-neurocircuitous-urgency
:Guards
against not living
The promise:
blissful chaos
and Flight
from terrorizing
an abyss of boredom
:Death
unsweetened by the pull of light
Lately,
I worry…
When I go to bed,
Will it be
a good sleep?
Or like a serpent,
will I writhe
in its stead?
Advanced composition
& conversation
wednesday afternoon’s
grammar drills
working with my practice partner
the professoressa’s
compelling exhortation:
“In italiano, studenti!!”
in my head
I, no longer capable
of ignoring
my insistently chattering
urinary urge
politely & quietly
excuse myself
slinking artfully
up the aisle
tight with books
and student feet
quietly & politely
open the sealed steel
of a creaky classroom door
slip into the hall
quick-paced en route
through the cold
institutional corridors
my goal:
to catapult myself
incident-free
past the metal glass barriers
to land blissfully
in the room for men’s relief,
but not before responding
as when in Rome:
Grazie signore!
to a pleasant, well-dressed
now-befuddled
middle-aged man
who’d
politely & quietly
held wide-open
the heavy metal-glass portal,
as if instinctively recognizing
the sole possible significance
of the universal
unmistakable, unconcealable
anguish on my face,
to ease
a fellow traveller’s trip
to relieve
his pressing bladder
Clarity
Assuredness
Knowing
Arrive like unpredicted
Cherished
Warm winter days
Our sun blindingly
Glistens
on New-fallen crests
of Snowy white
On wings of silence
Managing effortlessly
To land
Into a grateful lap
Most often
After mindful movement
Into the noisy stillness of my mind
“I wander lonely
as a cloud”
through dark and starless
a September’s night
the cool of aging summer’s
breeze
caressing my naked arms
I should have brought my sweater.
Marching on
toward the light
Kenmore Square
in my sight
arms’ counterpointing
rhythmic swing
to unintended
goose-like steps
a playful cadence
marks the beat
I knew! before opening that fucking email that I couldn’t do anything to resolve this problem before morning. Now I’m angry, distracted, it’s fucking late, and I probably won’t be able to sleep.
Foreboding chill
of an imminent
autumnal arrival
on its heels:
February slush
A sign reads: Whom will you make peace with today? Not winter I assured myself cantankerously.
A shadowy creature
lurches past
my delightfully wafting
leather-clad left foot
A fucking rat? No, not that!
But a brave and lonely
frightened urban hare
staring me down
panicked eyes meeting mine
wildly pulsating
wiry-haired chest
visibly fibrillating
frantically
plotting his options
for impossible escape
What a strange, incongruous site, to cross paths with this timid cotton-tailed creature plodding along dark and bustling a Boston street; ecological efforts working too well.
I hop along
in light-hearted solitude
much like my skittish
leparidae friend
my hind legs propelling
my poetic evening stroll
up and away
taking flight
soaring high and far
beyond
summer’s cruel retreat
Wakening in mid-journey
as time speeds up
to 55 years per hour
a life now glimpsed
through rear view mirrors
with less apprehension
my powerlessness
as crisp and cool to the eye
& touch
as september’s shades
of bright azure
and indigo skies
the surest harbingers of fall
content to embrace
its unmistakable clarity
cherishing moments
of time past
making friends
with untold numbers of
joyous disappointment
and glorious error
like a super-charged molecule
engulfed within its cocoon-like
magnetic field
stirred to action
by electrical impulse
coursing through veins unknown
I long
to explore with wonder
and to accept
with grace
what is yet
to come
Whenever I accept
my own humanity
with its countless limitations
& imperfections
I regale myself
with the strength
& kindness
of love’s compassion
This is the love of self
that fuels our capacity
to return to the world
brimming with loving-kindness
Uttering: never
seems a naive way
to self-soothe
from the anxieties of
life’s complex possibilities,
an arrogant posture
attempting control
of the uncontrollable
The only time
it may ever make sense
to consider verbal investiture
in the absoluteness
of this simple
retrospective stance
is upon realizing
that
never,
bears fruit
not ever
I prepare
for the day’s infinite possibilities
while a subtle
sense of dread
throbs throughout my body
By setting down
the familiar
true encumbrances:
fear-based misgivings
buzzing like wasps’ wings
building a nest in my mind
With each and every out-breath
I unload
my neck & shoulders
pierced with the pinching pain
of my saddle bag’s
sharp leather strap
weighted
with rarely-used
just-in-case
sundry items
purporting to ease
my existential angst
I am released to the day
new
with hopeful innocence:
placing them down
is daily a challenge
but a chore
to which to tend
with delight
Wanting is the problem
it so easily turns into
a no-holds-barred chase
to possess an itch
that cannot be scratched
Untethered passion
born of a sense of imperfection
a false belief that
to enslave
the objects of our desire
will set us free
To clench thus
with jaw & fist
is to annihilate
the spirit of love
that lives within
Glimpsing for an instant
in the eyes
a reflection
a sudden rush of the familiar
a sensation of home
self’s true nature
recognized in another
Thoughts of possession
a fleeting illusion
for love will not have this
Musing Forward...Thoughts, Words by JF Toomey 