Haikus on Climate Change

Leave it in the ground
It took billions of years
To get there. Leave it.

Leave it in the ground.
Good fuck! The science is clear!
You're killing us fast.

Leave it in the ground.
The sky weeps and the ground is
On fire and the seas rise.

Leave it in the ground.
No one else will save the world,
We must save ourselves.

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/keep-it-in-the-ground/

A nursery tale

Nabokav's balls sit in a wooden box I keep on my beside table
One end is smooth sack and the other is jagged, like little roots
Or many bloody uvulas, flapping without sound perhaps
My best friend has the balls of Kerouac
My roommate claims to have one of the testicles that belonged to John Muir
But it's so pulverized it's genuinely hard to tell.
Please, tell me again what it is: literature?
Is it fantasy?
A lesson to be learned?
A radical political expression?
An original thought?
If you're curious
Nabokov's balls smell like little girl.

A bug's life

Insects have six jointed legs, four wings, three body segments, two antenna, and one exoskeleton.

Six: The number of times I got distracted during work today just thinking about the way your hair falls behind your ears. I have been teaching for nearly ten years but today I paid no attention to the way Lee refused to share blocks with Claire until they were both crying.

Four: The number of dances we had on Saturday. I remember the tunes we danced to were Siren's Fiddle, Apple Blossom, The Hat Thief, and Heartbeats in A. In that order.

Three: The number of times I was sure I should kiss you but didn't this weekend. Once after our third dance, once at the late night song share in the sheep shed, and once as we were saying good bye and you were gazing into my eyes and my heart was pounding and I looked away first.

Two: The number of days it has been since we danced. The number of days I have been thrilled at every text I have received from you. The number of days I have analyzed and studied, to the minute detail every interaction we had this weekend. The number of days every love song I have heard on the radio has been about you. The number of days I have been penning poems on perfume scented paper with hearts over the dots on the "i".

One: One juicy enormous stupid fabulous secret crush on you.

Some days

Some days I miss you like the ocean pouring over the edge of the world
Uncountable gallons of water rushing into nothingness
In a roaring, pounding endless movement, impossible to drown out.

Other days you are a bruise on my heart
I only remember the hurt when I bump into the accidental memory of you:
When someone makes an offhanded comment about the linguistics of the Seneca Nation
Or I pass exit 18 on the Mass Turnpike.

Tonight I did not watch the sunset
I went shopping and did the laundry and the dishes and vacuumed my rug,
Exercises I refuse to turn into a metaphor of missing you.
I did miss you anyway
An ache to match the distant hum of my sleep-deprived headache building up behind my eyes.

When I finally lay down, exhaustion a twisting pain in my back and neck
I lay in bed with my eyes wide open staring at the ceiling.
I had to turn on the fan so something would drown out the constant murmur of your name in my ears.

Goodbye

I miss the sun
Waiting
In her cloudy bed
Below the earth.

Some days I cry
For hours
At the kitchen sink
Because something

Reminded me
Of you.
And when I die, burry
Me in red earth

Beneath a lemon
Tree and
Make lemon and rhubarb
Pie from my bones.

And tell all the
Non-believers
That my spirit wrings
Bitter tears from stone.

The day you left
Was sunny
And sweat ran rivers
On my back as

I watched you leave.
"Sunshine,
Come back!" I called but
You couldn't hear me.

Witching weather cont'd

I don't want sunshine. That tame, sleepy warmth.
Give me storm clouds, gath'ring like a  coven
On the horrizon, clothed in their best black
Cocktail dresses, throwing amphibious
Ingredients with abandon into
A cauldron until something starts to boil.
I don't want sunshine. I want witching weather.

Give me the kind of witching weather that
Sucks the breath out of large men and blows the
Strongest off their feet. Give me the kind of
Witching weather that will tangle in the
Long dark hair of my lovers and whisper
Secrets into their lovely ears. Weather
That will bring the rain like an explosion.
I don't want sunshine. I want witching weather.

Give me lighting on the horizon and
Pressure licking my skin. Give me the hair
Quiv'ring on the back of my neck and shaking
On my arms. Give me thunder rumb'ling under
My boots and air with rain I can taste.
I don't want sunshine. I want witching weather.

I want to dance through the storm. I want to
Fuck through a hurricane. I want lightning
To pour through my body and light up my
Every nerve. I want to stand against a
Tsunami and let the wave wash me away.
I don't want sunshine. I want witching weather.

Witching weather

I don't want sunshine. That tame, sleepy warmth.
Give me storm clouds, gath'ring like a  coven
On the horrizon, clothed in their best black
Cocktail dresses, throwing amphibious
Ingredients with abandon into
A cauldron until something starts to boil.
I don't want sunshine. I want witching weather.