Our Last Summer On The River

Crows

by Mary Oliver

It is January, and there are crows like black flowers on the snow. While I watch, they rise and float toward the frozen pond, they have seen some streak of death on the dark ice. They gather around it and consume everything, the strings and the red music of that nameless body. Then they shout, one hungry, blunt voice echoing another. It begins to rain. Later, it becomes February, and even later, spring returns, a chorus of thousands. They bow, and begin their important music. I recognize the oriole. I recognize the thrush, and the mockingbird. I recognize the business of summer, which is to forge ahead, delicately. So I dip my fingers among the green stems, delicately. I lounge at the edge of the leafing pond, delicately. I scarcely remember the crust of the snow. I scarcely remember the icy dawns and the sun like a lamp without a fuse. I don’t remember the fury of loneliness. I never felt the wind’s drift. I never heard of the struggle between anything and nothing. I never saw the flapping, blood-gulping crows.

Door open in my room

Now I lie in my bed

my window is open wide

I don’t have to be outside to feel the cool breeze

I can hear so much

The wind

The birds

My dog’s breath

My pen on paper

Leaves rustling

Cars rushing by

My brother’s laughter

And the tapping of my own fingers

The sky is turning purple

With the purple comes comes a cloud of calm

And a gust of joy

I want it to stay this way

(Perfect temperature, perfect sounds, perfect peace)

Forever.

Scraps from today

what if a PROPHET LESBIAN was giving you the SHROOM WILDERNESS equivalent of MKULTRA and you get so HIGH you become a GIRL and another girl but DEAD hijacks your BRAIN and thinks about LESBIAN ACTIVITIES with the LOCAL TERRORIST literally ALL THE TIME

maybe i should just stop talking. i want all of my secrets back.

here and now

Here and now I stand still.

Wind bends around my cheeks.

The earth is still yet somehow I move at a million miles an hour.

(yet my feet never leave the place they are rooted )

Life is frozen in time, yet everyone I know is fifteen years into the future.

My life is groundhog’s day, except that i can't get out. 

Trust me, I've tried.

Air doesn't fill my lungs the same way anymore.

Have I overstayed my welcome?

Where do I belong?

Who do I have?

I have nobody.

I trust nobody, yet I love so many.

I think that there are people who say they love me out of pity.

I miss having someone I could call and spill my tainted blood to.

All the lies I've told.

All of the thoughts that have fought their way from the pits of my stomach to my lips.

Poisoned by my own voice

Betrayed by my own truth.

A cycle of apology and transgression.

Here and now, I come to a close.

it's not like nikola tesla knew all of those people were going to die by Hanif Abdurraqib

“my hair journey” what journey did you go on. “journey.” that’s no journey. you had shoulder length hair and you grew it out. the word you want is progression. do not bring frodo and odysseus into this discussion.

I saw her sitting on the shoreline by the sea collecting small shards of light that sparkled in infinity, tiny twinkles that flickered in my eyes, and set the sweet night sky a light.

Her gown looked like a thin veil of fog with little fireflies floating about shrinking and growing while glowing then blinking out. Her hair was adorned with a fresh multi-colored crown of flowers intertwined with thin shifting vines that seem to be alive.

A cousin to the creatures a buzzing, childlike being with transparent wing fluttering, while thin limbs orchestrated the music mother nature layered, sounds of clicking critters, and rhythmic raindrops, with winds whooshing through the leaves and I could just barely see the silhouette of other fair folk and their family moving in unity, obscured by the beauty of mother nature’s natural graces.

Twas a night of strange delights, and I was drunk with awe from what I saw, until with a panicked thrill I witnessed the night succumbing to the burning sun’s unrelenting hunger as it devoured the eve’s softness and replaced it with heated harshness.

All that was mythic and mystical left and in its stead the mundane came to claim my befuddled mortal brain.

-2023