Happiness Does Not Keep
June 24, 2022 § Leave a comment
Sadness is shelf-safe.
It preserves forever, uncaring if the dust is thick;
It will be waiting, even if forgotten.
It never goes rancid.
Who could tell, anyway?
Even fresh, it makes one sick,
a bad odor, a terrible taste,
a texture to cause gagging.
But Happiness
must be newly picked
So that its juices are sweet and flowing.
It spoils so quickly
One must have a ready supply
always ripening
always growing
Happiness does not keep.
In its abundance, share it;
Happiness is not for hoarding.
08-03-2005
Poem 117: Mean Reds
July 22, 2021 § Leave a comment
Mean Reds
This is the hue of my Mean Reds.
This is cruel and wild and violent.
I want to bite something til it bleeds,
pin it down,
and mock its cries;
I want to bite something while it screams.
This sharp-clawed thing has a dragon’s wings.
I know what kind of meal it needs.
It wants to tear my heart
out of me;
It wants to taste the flavor of that meat.
I want to bite something and make it bleed.
I want to swallow blood and vomit fire.
I want to destroy
what I can’t acquire:
the balance of my spirit at peace.
I want to feel flesh cut under my teeth;
I want to rage until I am spent.
Blood and tears have the same salt taste;
This is the hue of my Mean Reds
a darker color than Holly meant.
…
10/22/2005
Untitled
May 10, 2021 § Leave a comment
Words, I thought, would tumble out
when I opened the door to them.
So I took a pen and readied paper
but there was breakfast with hot coffee
and so I talked, instead, for hours.
It’s fine. Isn’t the way to write a poem
through the experience of living my hours?
Whatever comes, no one is waiting
for me to hand over a poem.
Well, no one expects one, except my future self
I suppose.
But I think
I think she’ll understand
what happened on the way.
5-10-2020
Bird-in-Hand
June 15, 2020 § Leave a comment
because you have had them before
colorful feathers out of reach
and the bird in hand
understands the feeling.
There is room for more
but while you are chasing
what left you empty-handed
the one you have
feels unneeded.
The open sky offers her
a warmer hold.
October 2006
Even Angels
April 18, 2020 § Leave a comment
In the easement between
God’s will, and the plans of devils,
where the roots and leaves of time
mingle without season,
a girl can pass.
Girls belong neither to the apple
nor to the garden;
we are not made of clay,
that mud of Eden,
though we inherit the stride
of our mothers who answered betrayal
with a step that crushes serpent’s heads.
Even angels cannot walk with us
without bearing burdens,
not while we are only girls:
the blush of knowledge new in our cheeks,
the breath of creation in our chests.
The power of girls
passing between —
we lose it when we lose
pieces of ourselves
to the odd devils of changing age.
May 2016
In 2005
December 21, 2019 § Leave a comment
Do you remember what you came here for:
Green tea & Rock and Roll,
The convictions of a monkey’s mind,
Liberty for All?
What conspiracy theories?
Speak, I’m listening ~
the maddening musings of a misunderstood mind,
the babbling of a not very tortured soul,
Incoherent ramblings
Powered by paranoia,
Fluff, flowers, and verbosity;
Your life can be used as a bad example to others.
Where the rivers meet,
All the lights are blinding;
The trees are singing water.
Between a rock and a hard place
a Sanctuary of darkness;
Raw wonders
in this other corner of the web.
Let me tell you about my boat
Because for some reason, you want to know me
I’m innocent, by standards.
I am your Painted Whore.
If you let me… I will change your world
One day I’ll be famous… I hope
Sunglasses help.
Time to move on.
My assault on the world begins now
The reluctant nomad
on Journeys through writing
Making love to language
Sudden inspiration.
Scratched into the door,
a Chronicle of a life measured out in coffee spoons.
Peace found here ~
Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t
…
11-6-2005
Senbazuru
July 10, 2019 § Leave a comment
Instead of stone, I will be paper
Conscientiously, with simple folds
remembering what I have already learned
Several times over.
I am folding a thousand cranes.
I am seeking calm in valley and mountain
and traveling toward the understanding of
where patterns fall and rest,
the solace of geometry.
Restraint is not control, and control is not peace
In this exercise there is no place
For scissor cuts, for the force of blades
on something that will not take
the shape of my wishes.
I have stopped counting
the ones behind me and those ahead.
At my peril, I will be paper;
Within me, enfolded, the breath of my patience.
9/5/2005
So maybe
June 9, 2019 § Leave a comment
So, maybe
Writing
Is firefly light, flashing over water
and a hope for something
other
than my own reflection, there.
5/20/19
May Cats
May 2, 2019 § Leave a comment
Now is the time for all good cats
to rise up from their afternoon naps
and shed the bulky, cold weather coats
leaving them on their keepers’ laps.
5/2007
Aesop’s Crow
January 21, 2019 § Leave a comment
Three things.
There are things I can love safely
and I pour myself into to them
desperate for a new shape.
I see myself doing it,
tipping my pieces out
and saying, “At least this–”
Because my whole life, it has been
the pebbles that save me
pebbles in a vase, raising the water
so I can drink.
I put a shape inside a shape,
culmination of acquisitions
Because when you pile up seeds
you can make a mountain
No special faith required
just one after the other until there is enough.
And I believe that, almost,
I have faith in that promise.
Every day could have three things, safe to love.
Five minutes to learn a language;
A phone app game motivates a walk;
And a poem, why not?
It’s a holding pattern, yes,
I know.
It’s also a shape
A form my life can take
So I can address my need.
Cris de Borja 