Ethan: How are you feeling today boys? You want to do stuff today or just be lazy?
Francis: I’m feeling kind of snackish…maybe the porch.
Ethan: The other day I asked you and you didn’t want to do ANYTHING.
Francis: Well you always want to go cave diving or bike jumping or book stores! Climb mountainy mountains!
Ethan: I asked if you wanted to go to the park…
Francis: Oh…wheely? Wows…I don’t ‘member that…
CRUCIBLE
——-
To have a heart
That beats
That makes us heavy
That makes us human
I saw a nurse
Her eyes were glazed
Her face numb
“Is it really this bad?”
I asked
“It’s worse…”
She stared ahead as if she was a soldier there again, in battle…
“It was one thing when we were traveling and dealing with it in New York or somewhere else…but now it’s here…everyday. That worst fear…it’s happening.”
Her shoulders and body ached and stiff
From daily, over a year, constantly trying to go against this storm that now covered our maps like red during election time…
It’s easy
To get caught up in a movement and lose your head.
I don’t have to tell you how bad it is
We all have lost
Someone
By now
We all have lost
And are losing
Parts of ourselves
jaded
tired
burned out
numb
Living through science as it is worked out
So much like man works out salvation
Two steps forward
One step back
In the trenches
And we are losing time
Time that we will not get back…
Working through this
You see a shift
In how people want to work
Are willing to work
While my friends
My friends with PHDs and medical degrees
Are tired
And numb ….
“It’s too late…”
Almost ripped out of a Montgomery Alabama sermon on a Sunday
“It’s too late…”
We work out this struggle with time
With history with ourselves
While living in it
And my heart aches
For mother’s and fathers
For husbands and workers
For small businesses
For our communities
For our children
For the nurse
Who is the only thing between us and god…
For the artist who doesn’t know if it’s even worth it anymore …
If you can keep your head
And stand still
And use the truth that is in you
While all that is around you falls
Create
Create
Build
This is when we build
In the trenches
In the rain
In the storm
While all around us falls
And you are tired
And disillusioned
When your faith is at its crucible
This is when you stand
You observe
You face life
Its pain and its loss
Its joy and its mornings
And you build
To create a space
For all that we’ve loved and lost
To hold in memory
To not get caught in a quick moment
Some new movement
Politics
And agendas
To understand
And know
There is no quick fix in life for anything
There is only consistency
And for this
We stand every morning
Against that storm
And we begin again
Though we are torn
And worn
And stretched
Our eyes look forward
Our heart
That beats
That makes us heavy
That makes us human ….
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
A poem for a Virgo Sun, Gemini Moon.
———-
You do not have to hold up the whole world entire,
Go make your bed,
Clean your flat,
Do your laundry,
Start here…
——
What does Love need to survive the day?
What does hearts like ours need to survive the day?
You do not need to hold up the world entire…
Start here…
Start here…
Start here…
To survive the day…
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
A poem for the lonely
———
I changed my profile picture today
A world filled with avatars and the illusion of conversations,
Likes and debates,
But no understanding
No empathy
Void of emotions
never face to face…
I am still lonely….
Somewhere a marriage is a ghost ship,
Somewhere life got away from a student and now they are a graduate…
I hear the stomping feet of children on the stairs but never see them…
Somewhere …
There is a heaven somewhere …
According to a 700 year old poem ….
that dreaded letter I learned to avoid in English class…P….poem…
Out there we are on our knees before our lovers and gods
asking how to be kinder
How to love softer
How to not be so afraid ….
How can I be kinder
How can I love you softer
I can I help you not be afraid…
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
The world is hurricane
And brass
This burning library
This emergency room
This funeral parlor
With death angels
And poets and priest
This moment ….waiting for the next moment to take the torch and finish the race…
It has been the poets
Who meet you –
With the morning
With your coffee and tea…
While the news barrages you
Social media harasses you
Your cousins don’t understand you…
Wall Street
And the business falls around the accident in the street,
You tuck words in your pockets
You read them and you feel that you have a new friend
reminded,
With the ambulance lights around the accident, Where life became too heavy and too real…
These poets…
Always present,
in the corner of every emergency room
Every grocery store,
Handing out prescriptions and recipes for whatever season of life you’re in…
——
It has been the poets
Who meet you in the morning…
Words in an abstract line…
Mined from this thing called life…
But always with you…
With empathy and understanding…
“This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.”
T.S. Eliot
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
For what it’s worth,
You matter,
Your days are still yours, no one else’s
If you don’t feel like creating
It’s ok,
That’s why we have dark winters
And midnight
But even the memes you share
The menus you read
The watch and the band
So many simple things
Were created
And styled
Let yourself
Be yourself
——-
I tried to numb myself into submission
I tried to not carry it anymore
I tried to stare into the fire
And hope it would cover me
But then all things leveled
To eye level
My level
I drank with the devil
My vices too
And
I saw
That there are only days
And each soul is handed the same worn used cards
They are only played differently
And I
Saw no more heavy dreams
And rains
Only work and pain
But happiness too
I saw particularly
Participation
Rather than blind optimism
Risk and chance
And accomplishment in the end ….
——
You will keep on
You will hold love for a moment
You will win and you will lose
You will hurt
And you will be tired
But you will begin again
——-
Your days are still yours, no one else’s
You matter,
For what it’s worth…
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
We’ve lost a lot
like
A funeral procession
we’re stuck in time
And grief doesn’t look
The way we thought it would
Our lives aren’t lived out the way we
Thought they should
And on the days I really feel it
I just cook
With a drink in my hand
And a notebook and a pen
It’s somewhere in there
I remember that I’m not who I once was…
Maybe none of us are,
We’ve seen too much
Lost too much …
We’ve got more in common than we would know …
We’re more than dividing bitcoins
Like Jesus and the loaves of bread …
More than a hashtag
More than a filter
More than just a memory…
And who knows what lies ahead
But
for me
Everything else
Everything else
Is always in the next paragraph …
So let your hair down
Rest in my arms
Like the rain against the window
The coffee in the filter
The yuengling in the bottle
Everything else is in the next paragraph…
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
She’s an Alabama sunrise
Over the pines
Tired from
The half hearts and broken arms
Unable to hold a heart
Intentions and meanings
just lead to more drinking
Alone …
Forgive me …if I’m writing your name in a song ….
Out here on my own …
Thinking of you again
And this Alabama sunset …
Can I write you again…
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
But I don’t want a love story
Another adventure
I don’t want you to not be able to live without me …
Maybe I used to
Maybe I even sold that
When I was younger …
I’ve sat in funeral homes
And hospitals
I know what’s coming
I’m hyper aware
That love doesn’t win
That life is just really really hard
I want a love life, not a story
I want to build
I want both of us to be able to stand
And when life gets bad
To stand
And when it falls apart
To rebuild
What’s been broken
——
I wasn’t always this way
There isn’t love letters
There isn’t flowers
For that
Poetry doesn’t sell it
Lifetime didn’t film it
It’s unpopular
We want to obsess
And worship
And we want partners to be ok with us no matter what
While we say we don’t need anybody and maybe we don’t …maybe we truly don’t deserve anyone…
But we need goals
We need partnership
We need to build
We need responsibility
We need accountability
Ownership
We need intimacy
We need power
——
It’s the kind of understanding
That makes you an adult
Knowing that your parents are just like you…trying their best …
Knowing that your worst day hasn’t even happened yet
But it’s coming
Your parents will die
Your children will die
Your partner will die
You will lose ….
How will we stand
Against all odds
It’s not arrogance
It’s knowing
And preparing
——
I want that
-E
Regardingsamuel.com
Regarding Samuel 