― The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Been writing a lot of temporal,
modern existence conversation poems
which tell tales of everyday idiosyncrasies.
They are between me and myself, eye and mind,
seen scenes, hulme et al.I have not succeeded in names,
but a wild impatience has taken me this far...
My friend Brian sends fun photos of clouds while drunk.
Strings of twilight strati from under birthday water.
I start a new job and sign into Slack,
while far away a comedian fights a war.
Basketball games excite me, reading relaxes me.
I do the dishes, Tweet about refusing to rinse them.
Somewhere someone does something.
It's insane we are expected to live while life happens:
love and war and work and wonder,
all swirling around in our hearts and brains,
making it unfair and impossible to do much of anything,
except eat when hungry, sleep when tired,
smile and frown, ride the waves up and down.
I wonder when hawks hover
do they hope like humans
or are they a just special simple mind,
happy to be high in the sky
and nothing else?
Envy is my sin,
and even my kindness cannot cure it.
Only the earnest earmarks
of existence inspire me these days,
like a Jackson Browne song,
or walking along a river
and watching someone fall in
with their phone in their pocket.
Between love and death,
just simple things for a simple (hu)man.