The heat we made lingers and I ache. Love is supposed to make the world better. It’s not love. It’s not love. And it’s not a waste of time. No, no it’s not a waste of life. When I was a child, I was blessed by an un-light, Taken into a family of One, Then led through fields and forests and swamps. Through the quiet country and the monstrous places, I roamed across a broken land. I am man of peace Standing at a barricade Screaming: love everything, goddammit all! But screams are soldiers’ sounds And I am a man of peace. True to the universe that took me, I will wander every room, Aching when the warmth Touches my cold, tired bones.
love
When Something in Nature Reveals All*
We often talk
long through the night
of mistaking our selves
as things that endure
and how quickly
we forget that we’re
creatures using narrative
to get on in this world.
Let’s recall this story:
To love
everything everywhere
is the mission
.
To love
everything everywhere
means, “Forget your self
.”
To love
everything everywhere
all at once and forever is to be God
.
Not like.
Simile.
Not as.
Metaphor.
To be.
We Are
That
We Are.
So, let’s sit together
through this long night
and come morning we’ll see
what the sunlight brings.
* “A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day’s unity.”
– Charles Ives, https://charlesives.org
Of Course
There’s more to this
than what our fickle free will
would have us believe.
Do we beat our own hearts?
Can we not hear the thunder outside?
You do
what you want
to see me do.
And if your mind sometimes
gets wrapped around it all,
Well…the birds fly.
The ocean waves.
The wind blows.
The mind minds.
Find people
who want for company,
not conspiracy.
In a reality
that is an unfolding
of course you’re gonna
change your mind.
You’re gonna change
your goddang everything!
Just look at someone
and it changes everything.
A sharp inhale
SHhhhhhhhhhuuup!
It’s all changed.
Better/Worse?
Of course.
The birds fly.
Fear.
The ocean waves
Elation.
The wind blows.
We are that WE ARE.
This life is filled
with love and indifference.
Of course,
of matter of course it is.
I want your company
so here,
this is my heart:
I put it in your hands
for safekeeping.
I trust you.
Haiku for the love of everything
That and this and that,
Such improbability.
Sunrise…grain of sand.
Weeping While Melting
This is the way romance engulfs:
with air that tastes like burning
and eyes that penetrate like
long-buried memories of forgotten,
backseat lovers.
This is why we have moral majorities.
I never said, “I can’t do this.”
Still, you glared at me for an eternity
and when you blinked,
I shifted shapes:
a man,
a child,
a silent forest,
a flower with no petals.
I blinked away
from in front of you
into your mind
where you could be
somewhat left alone with your thoughts.
“I love you,”
you whispered to yourself.
“I always will.”
You once told me what would happen when the end arrived.
You told me the gulls would fly backwards
and the moon would split into separate, but equal, parts.
Still, we danced.
We laughed.
We approched every apocalypse
as trained eschatologists.
Now, in the deep recesses
of your fractured memories,
I still sit surprised
by how warmly you welcomed
those frightening flames.
Astronomy without knowing we’re made of stardust
There was a sky of waning moonlight
and a half-filled brandy bottle.
There were cigarettes without filters
and smoke obscured your sultry eyes.
We wrote our names in nightlight,
waiting for the end of time.
We stayed up late together.
We considered all there is.
We took each other everywhere.
*************
We ate the food of our ancestors and the raw meat devolved us.
*************
*************
We lived like feral animals.
*************
*************
*************
We lost our every language;
*************
*************
*************
*************
*************
**************************that means we lost the words for love.
Slowly, we returned ourselves.
But didn’t there used to be a waning moonlight?
Didn’t there used to be heavenly bodies?
I Love You Like You Love Anyone Else
I never knew what I wanted,
beyond feeling relaxed,
but even that seemed at odds
with what nature desired for me.
Nature desired for me
a lot of silence
before causing my head
to swell uncontrollably.
“I love you, I love you,
I love you like you love anyone else,”
was my constant refrain.
My head remained so large
for such a long time,
so big that I constantly
woke to check that it was true.
But it wasn’t.
In that moment, I understood
that the truth was everywhere
and to see it required
no effort whatsoever.
I saw that the truth was true,
and could do nothing to help it.
“I don’t like this feeling
of simple truths,” I told
my mirror when he and I
met for breakfast yesterday,
“it’s not really my thing.”
“The feeling I’ve got now,
well, that’s my feeling,”
I told him. “It’s a true feeling
of feelings of correct ideas
“of true feelings
in a true world
that has feelings of
truth in the world.”
“Your mother told us that you wanted
to be a singer,” my mirror said.
“And a singer must always know
the true feeling of feelings.”
I raised my head in an attempt
to be kind and replied,
“I think I’ll have
a better time
with true feelings
if I am by myself.”
“But listen,
(and this is what it was)
it was that I didn’t know,
I didn’t know the feeling,”
“It felt like feeling
like everything was possible.
Like some things were
about to sort of happen.”
And some things did.
I made a move.
Wherever You Went, There You Were
I wanted to kiss you until the stars blinked out into cold masses of dust and I wanted the heat between us to ignite a new universe filled with new stars named after candy and breakfast cereals.
And I wanted you in my bed, curled under my arm, whispering to me secret names for god and sex and I wanted to see you naked in the flickering candlelight, blankets bunched down at your ankles, sheen of sweat upon your thighs.
It’s a good thing we don’t have to worry about a future together.
It’s a good thing it won’t ever be our turn to suffer through such loss, yes what a good great thing we will never come to that.
Yet I can’t help but wonder what happened.
Where did you go?
In which wild country did you live?
How do we find the future if we don’t understand the consequences of our actions?
Are we human beings without?
That is, can we even be human without what if?
How do we feed? Who will take care of us in the future? Who will look after that which we have done and not done, kissed and not kissed, loved and not loved?
Will you remember me in your future?
Will you remember I told you?
Will you remember forever?
Why do I wonder?
My husband was like me. He lived a life filled with routine and convenience followed by frustration and depression, and while he had a respectable career in corporate America, he was not satisfied.
The only passion he chose to follow was raising our children. He loved them dearly. He wanted to keep them happy in a world filled with so much despair and misery.
He wanted them to have a future filled with light and love and love and life.
He wanted them to have a forever.
I think too often on forevers.
I think eternity is such a long, long time and I think I meant it when I said, “forever.”
I think I really meant it that time.
And Then I Had to Tell You My Secret
Love love love
Love will break break break
Love will break break break
You wide open
Still
Love love love
Love is all All All
Love is all All All
All that matters
Screaming Chaos sings sad songs to the cold bright night while the A.I. continues,
“Read the Rising Wind lyrics:
When you’re sick, you’re lost
When you feel lonely
Your world is crumbling away
When you’re broken down
You are the world
Wake up, don’t cry
Love is all All – You can be able to
You won’t see the light and see the sun
That you’ve fallen for the wrong person
Love is all All – Not what you thought
Love is all All – I’m not able to
Love is all All – It’s not a lot
Love is all All – It’s not that which it is
Love is all Love – Not not perfect but not
Love is all All – Not not
Love is all All – I have not what you thought
Love is all All – I have no things at all
Love is all All – Not no things, nothings
Love is all Love – I’m not a perfect thing
Love is all All – I didn’t have the thing
Love is all Love – Is not not is not
Love is all All – It wasn’t all that bad
Love is all All – There is no need to rush.“
Believing, Doing, and Sharing in What Was True
We can walk around the block
in the time it takes us to listen
to Wang Chung’s ‘Dance Hall Days’,
so I wanted to write a poem
tying the song’s lyrics
to observations made along the way.
For instance, I’d quote,
“And take your baby by the ears”
as we stroll by the police station
while employing certain literary tools
to highlight comparisons between the cops
and now-faded pop stars from the 1980s.
And I’d somehow tie together,
“And you need her and she needs you,”
to urban gentrification
and how pushing away the poor has somehow
escaped potential developers of downtown Kansas City, Kansas
despite wholly reshaping Kansas City, Missouri into something…else.
And then I’d end the poem repeating,
“Dance hall days, love, dance hall days
dance hall days, love, dance hall days.”
But without a smoking sax solo,
the entire affair seemed hopelessly missing
that something wholly necessary for lasting greatness.
Jason Preu 