honeysuckle, trash
a mortal, green and all-over growing and cracked march heartland mysteries digest
“like, it’s not normal. we know that.”
- kim kardashian
drag names:
i’m ok
ugh indeed
of these, hope
ohio curse
float downstream
paxlovid ozempic
fatty liver
business expense
effigy biden
supermarket sweep
IT HR
triple b complex
very human
misophonia report
thickens gravies
religious extremist
learn the hard way
belligerent naturopath
cash flow issues
solidarity vote
genuinely happy
all charges dropped
tarragon everything
mate for life
honey suckle
trash
honey suckle
trash
honey suckle
trash
honey suckle
trash
honeysuckle allover early-leaf dance
a sparkling haze, gauche and haunting the landscape
most trees still bare and so so much trash
honey suckle
trash
honey suckle
trash
eat your pain and drink it
devour it, don’t become it
make a punch and pee it out
water grass and trees with it
weeds through the cracks
god in the sidewalk
gender queers in hard hats
retro fitting rusty pipes
sprigs of pine left perfectly wind plucked
broken walnuts staining the concrete
god in the sidewalk
god on our daily walk
god in the dog’s bark
god in the cigarette
god in the incredible never ending to do list
god in the awkward-sacred, monogamous sex
god on the street
god in the trash
god in the honeysuckle
god in the trash
god in the hundreds of butts left piled in back of our fire exit
all that tobacco — a prayer for what?
for humanity? please. for hope? yes, we need it.
texas is burning
there’s a beauty, perverse, to it —
this bright, throbbing wholeness to my life i can’t hardly take
stretching my heart to new dimensions and shapes
in every puddle, a water spirit watching the street
in ever blossom, a pollen, a sprite
spring reminding how precious, how life
how painful, how perfect
eat your pain and drink it
honey suckle trash
babies being born
souls still ferried to the moon to queue up
before they incarnate
we could break the human’s part in this
and force life to make another species after millions of years of work
but why don’t we not?
sometimes i drop my offerings on the sidewalk thrice
once, to remind, two, to remember, three times, a spell
remember the city that she’s earth, love and life
in spite of all that we’ve wrought from our drugs, trash and concrete
sunshine and birds after storm’s dancing lash
like the first day that feels sort of fine after a death or heartbreak
rain drenched tulips droop in prayer towards the earth
broken soil of recent construction teems with wild flowers as soon as it’s left to its own device
the device being life
what soil of your self can you leave more to life?
what soil of your self can you leave more to life?
white blossoms
a straw
a cracked walnut husk
i place you and bless you
please bring clarity, growth
mrs. zilner loved cardinals
hated blue jays, said they were the meanest
pansies and chickadees were her favorites
squirrel mother her nemesis
her garden was a work of art twice the size of her house.
she came to sit for my family when i was only 10 months.
i was on a phone call with a friend (who is invaluable in friendship and business) the weekend that i realized we were operating at such a dramatic budget deficit. what i had taken to be a $3k surplus vaporized in a week - turns out we are between $2-3k short each month. there are a lot of reasons i did and should have more solidly known to anticipate this, a lot of big learnings for me around the rather immutable (for humans, at least) underpinnings of life as an incarnate being on planet earth, in a late-capitalist ponzi scheme oligarchy of a “free market,” no less, but this isn’t really about that.
this is about the muskrat i saw frolicking in the grass during the call. there’s no other way to put it but frollick. earlier that day our neighbors (a non-profit that provides recovery supportive housing for women and families in crisis) had put on a big vaccination fair, just yards away from where the sleek, little bark-brown cutie-pie was now getting their life. playing, sniffing about, trotting over the lawn like our busy city street wasn’t tossed with cars and trucks and people talking at the bus stop. just being a muskrat. there is a little wandering easement of trees between the fence and the automotive-metal-working-something garage-shop next door and the houses behind it which i guess is a suitable habitat, but i was still amazed and grateful for the gift. i’ve seen city muskrats under an abandoned house behind the middle school near our old house where i’d walk laps, in an alley on the west side right by the highway overpass, in downtown merriam sunning and bathing on rocks in turkey creek. so queer, so feral, so free, so cute.
don’t give up, muskrat says. stake your spear, stand in the feeling, show up for yourself, rock, roll or climb with the current, do whatever it takes. there is no place in city or country that isn’t of/in/from/by the earth. same with your body, same with yourself. you’ve got this, they say. don’t give up. don’t give up.
thank you.
bless you.
thank you.
alexis
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WHAT I’M HEARING IS …
silo by sophie cabot black (new yorker)
after the ball by james merrill (poetry)
contradictions by salima rivera (poetry)
the forest witch by imelda almqvist (substack)