MIND DRAWINGS

by
UPKE



TWO REVELATIONS AND ONE DISCOVERY


ice cubes
don't
keep
the
refrigerator
cold



having
a
lover
won't
stop you from
feeling lonely



M&M's
do
melt
in
your hand











soft-plumed grasses curved to perfection
circles of white
sending seeds to the earth



broken-off sticks from dry manzanita root
desert treasures
that are small works of art



bonsai-shaped pinons with soft-swaying branches
eliciting music
from the wind dancing through



one human being tossing a cigarette
careless disdain
leaving all of it black








I'm glad I have 2 feet so that when one looks strange or has a bump I never saw before
I'll find that bump on the other one
and know there's nothing wrong

which

makes me want to have
2 brains so that when one is freaking out I'd have another brain to calm it down
and tell it we're OK

then

why not have two lovers here
so that if one rejected me
I wouldn't care
because
I'd hold and hug the second one?








why does the violin
always marry
a
trombone
and
why
does joy get hitched
to
melancholy
where its laughter
must be silenced or transmuted
into
pain
?








nothing exists

I know

because I see it









I am the anthropologist
and
the
aborigine
searched
for
in the shards of clay
which might
if studied
reveal
a truth
that now continues to elude
me in
the dark-dim
layers
of my mind









if
I could
find
that
perfect
balance
of
the
child
I was
and
bring it
home
to the
adult
of
wisdom
I have
since
become


would that set free the peaceful me
I once was meant to be
?









there is a cliff outside my window
that at dawn looks just like
Lincoln smiling
and at lunchtime like a fat man
who has lost his head
while twilight
makes a steer begin to toss the rider
of a dusty rodeo


should I go out
and catch my mountain
in its moonlit
image
of the night
?








I
wrote
two
novels



one for
every man
I loved



I
seldom
read
fiction
but I sure
seem
to
live it








I
tried
to stay
but now I separate
the double image of a
you I could not understand
until I felt that cold wind howling
through all the empty tunnel cracks
of willful blind affection that
held me captive and then
gave your doom
the right to
choose my
destiny








3
little snails
in a race
to be first
at the roofline finish
of my window's track
which is two stories high
and
one of them makes it
almost to there
but then disappears
with that motionless sound
of a snail falling down
like my tongue going
"click"
on the roof of my mouth
and the fall broke its house
then
it
died







you
scare
me
when you are so kind and gentle
with a stranger
yet speak those raging hateful words
about the ones you say you love
which makes me wonder
how such opposites can be together
in a single heart - and then
you
scare
me
when I think that one of you must be a liar
and I fear it's not the raging hateful one
which means that all your
kind and gentle caring
is but a tool you use
for faking it with strangers
while hating those you say you love











the sound
begins to whisper
through the canyon
yet all is still
here
where I am


until


just moments later


the sudden puffs
of desert wind
intensify and bend the branches
of a pinon tree
then
reach my skin
with gentle blows of
laughter








it was silence
not your absence
that has
re-arranged my thoughts
into a gentle vision
placing trust
in
what I find and understand
along the quiet margins
of
those sad and lonely pages
that illuminate my life








how did I feel
when I called him with a great idea
and he said he was busy then
so could he call me back
and I said yes, of course
and later
glad he did
I rambled on until
he interrupted me
and said he was exhausted now
and could I call again
some other day
and
like a fool
I said of course, I could
while wishing that I'd never felt that tiny need
which made me call him in the first place
and then I thought
how come when he calls me
I'm always there for him
and glad to let him speak
for all the time
he ever
needed to
?















copyright 2004 by Upke / all rights reserved



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