Slaying my dragons

My friend hangs his head, listening to me.
Nightmares? Not again. You write about
Night terrors and bad dreams. Again.

They are part of my life. I am trying to
face them down to battle the dragons.
I miss sleeping fully. I am exhausted.

You are obsessed. You don’t want to banish
your dragons at all. They are far more interesting
than real life ever hopes to be.

I twitch. Get out of my head.
I am in terror every time I close my eyes
knowing that sleep is imminent.

You are a fraud.You love it.
You love having something to talk about.
All poets are egotistical.

The pot calls the kettle what?
I shift positions in my seat.
My legs are restless. I wave at the waitress.

Yes, I am a poet too, but we are not
alike. I am in it for the art. You are
in it for blood. You are in it for the bodily fluids.

Silence. Facial twitch. My eyes dart.
So? Haven’t you ever heard of
sacrifice for art? What made you so smart?

I read one or two of your poems.
I saw your heart. You are a bit of a coward
Yet you jump back into the fray. Every day. 5 a.m.

Sometimes I sleep until 6. I bite my lip.
My hand twitches on the table and I thump
my fingertips and nails in a staccato beat.

I have a pill that might help you.

It’s not a bad thing.

No, not bad.

I thought others might feel less alone.

But what will you do if the nightmares stop?

Making friends

You are a stranger, now
not overlooking my own
peculiarities. And
we walk about
barely knowing one another

(despite matching scars
like ties and shoes)

Then, the fog lifts. And
I can see your face
as you open your very depths
in the sunshine
getting at the heart of you

All our mistrals

I reveled in storms
then
standing in my yard
daring the lightning
and laughing
my wet hair hanging
like a robe

Mom was always afraid
of storms, something
I could give back
talking her through
every burst of weather
on the touch-tone
telephone

In 1996
when the tornadoes came
and a tree fell, just inches
from her mortality
we laughed.
I had coffee, cold
with the lights out, and
she had tea

Mom died
from the cancer
almost exactly a year later
but for a minute
it felt like we would live forever
and when the thunder cracks
I can still hear her laugh

Dark days

My brother says
I over-analyze
that people are simple–
blood and ache
and want.
The birds still sing
to one another, do they not?
we are merely
listening in

Are we allegory–
are we poem?
Are we become
the monsters that we feared
when we were kids
under the bed
dogging us
saying–hey man
when you gonna

Notes on mercy

I fell into your notebook
and crawled out
smelling like bog standard tea
dressed in ocean greenblue, with
all your thoughts coating my skin

You can’t make me over
but bathed in kindness
I feel a layer of flesh
(my armour, my wall, my fortress)
sliding off and hitting the ground

Veiled to save face
we walk through a door together
knowing that there are two paths
on the other side
one rainy–one dry