Felicia, You lay secrets down like wood, letting them burn into something else—something seen, something freed. There’s no distance in this, no detachment. Just the pulse of it, moving from the deep end to the quiet of daybreak. And yet, what lingers is not just the fire but the act itself—carrying, placing, counting. Not rushing to meaning, just being in it
I’m honored that The Last Stitch was chosen for this installment of the Poetry Haul. This poem is a tribute to Connie, my wife of twenty-two years, and a reflection on the complicated process of healing and letting go. Every moment we shared has become part of who I am, and as this chapter closes, I find myself stepping into a new one—one where her memory continues to guide me. While I am no longer trying to repair what was never mine to fix, I am learning to honor the love we shared, as I begin to write a new story.
You carve this out in two voices—one caught in habit, counting cigarettes, watching the clock, the other hearing what the forest has always been saying. One hand idles, the other is already gone, already forgetting. I feel the weight of that symposium, the knowing that grows even as the numbers shrink. The tree remembers. The forest keeps score. And yet, there’s still a voice, still something speaking. Maybe not too late.
thankyou for your thoughts Jay, and the gift of interaction with writers and their work. yes there is still a voice, too late for some but not for everything, or so we must believe. this like most of my poetry and uh, other stuff is inspired by witnessing the confidently swaggering banality in those that know not what they destroy, about the casual nature of a workday which piece by piece erases every example of life interconnected, reducing gaia to a step on the way to the suburban dream, that we can say we love nature while participating fully in a society that consumes everything to exist, or those that would never beat a woman or a child, but unthinkingly in this case, but perhaps less commonly and more tormentedly, knowingly but feeling without choice, ensure their futures are not safe by putting food on the table in an insane system...
Yes, not too late for everything. That tension—between seeing and still participating, between survival and destruction—runs deep. The system pressures, and people choose one way or the other, even when they see the cost. And yet, voices remain. Maybe that’s the part to hold onto
I dive into the deep end of the pool
Because loving is the opposite of a chore.
Like cutting wood and piles of lumber,
I carry my secrets barefoot through the forest,
And place them on the living room floor
To burn the wood of conspiracy, legacy, and revelation.
With anarchy comes a curfew,
So we do not fly too close to the moon.
I count back from eight,
To seven,
To six,
To five. . .
Until at four the smoke fills the room,
And I begin to swoon
Til two,
Til one,
Until the daybreak. . .until today.
I pray at sunrise
Where there is no time or definitions of delay.
Felicia, You lay secrets down like wood, letting them burn into something else—something seen, something freed. There’s no distance in this, no detachment. Just the pulse of it, moving from the deep end to the quiet of daybreak. And yet, what lingers is not just the fire but the act itself—carrying, placing, counting. Not rushing to meaning, just being in it
I’m honored that The Last Stitch was chosen for this installment of the Poetry Haul. This poem is a tribute to Connie, my wife of twenty-two years, and a reflection on the complicated process of healing and letting go. Every moment we shared has become part of who I am, and as this chapter closes, I find myself stepping into a new one—one where her memory continues to guide me. While I am no longer trying to repair what was never mine to fix, I am learning to honor the love we shared, as I begin to write a new story.
Weather warming
I heard
Looked up
A formation of geese
I can’t fly
he thinks of relaxing in the pool
after the tedious fucking chore
of chlorination
as the woodchips fly
he wonders will his daughter
keep the curfew
must keep her safe
so much danger
in the world today
he pauses, saw idling inside
the commodified tree
lights a smoke
glances at the pack
fuck, eight left
might have to knock off early
=
wise teacher
harmonium of genes
symposium of dreams
the being they call forest
screams
as its students
ever greater
yet fewer in number
blind to her gifts
reduce her to lumber
You carve this out in two voices—one caught in habit, counting cigarettes, watching the clock, the other hearing what the forest has always been saying. One hand idles, the other is already gone, already forgetting. I feel the weight of that symposium, the knowing that grows even as the numbers shrink. The tree remembers. The forest keeps score. And yet, there’s still a voice, still something speaking. Maybe not too late.
thankyou for your thoughts Jay, and the gift of interaction with writers and their work. yes there is still a voice, too late for some but not for everything, or so we must believe. this like most of my poetry and uh, other stuff is inspired by witnessing the confidently swaggering banality in those that know not what they destroy, about the casual nature of a workday which piece by piece erases every example of life interconnected, reducing gaia to a step on the way to the suburban dream, that we can say we love nature while participating fully in a society that consumes everything to exist, or those that would never beat a woman or a child, but unthinkingly in this case, but perhaps less commonly and more tormentedly, knowingly but feeling without choice, ensure their futures are not safe by putting food on the table in an insane system...
Yes, not too late for everything. That tension—between seeing and still participating, between survival and destruction—runs deep. The system pressures, and people choose one way or the other, even when they see the cost. And yet, voices remain. Maybe that’s the part to hold onto
the poets..... ATE! Didn't leave any crumbssssss!!!!!!!!
The Game Between Us
🎱
She finished her chore for today,
muscles sore from the lumber yard,
just out of town, where the forest begins,
settling beside the pool,
the evening air thick and still.
🦌
The stranger appeared—
neither man nor woman,
just someone whose genes didn’t fit the mold.
Her eyes went straight to the bulge behind their buttoned fly,
a quiet heat building inside her.
🎱
“Eight-ball?” she asked,
her voice low, smooth,
a casual invitation that held more.
💓
They stepped closer.
Cue sticks clicked,
balls cracked and rolled,
the game fast, their bodies moving with the rhythm.
💃🕺🏽
Smoke curled from a distant fire,
rising and mixing with the air between them,
the tension growing with every move.
🔥
Curfew didn’t matter now.
💋
Today, it wasn’t about the game.
It was about the pull,
the connection
building with every shot,
every glance.
♥️
And the night was theirs.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ٩(˘◡˘)۶
Eight Past Eight
Waking, a pool of light
Floats upon my face
What is this?
Clouds, it was to be cloudy,
This day, today.
Floating there on my face,
This sun chore from which to
Move away
At eight past eight
The morning after the
Big red moon was covered
By clouds
This eye-squeezing-shut sun chore to move,
To lumber, away from through my day
The blinding spotlight waves on my face
No rest, no calm…
But wait
At eight past eight and a little bit more
Another window, smoke,
Moving clouds,
Not fire, but spring storm,
A promise for rest, a moody grey peace
“It’s in your genes.”
My mother would say.
No need for curfew
When grey forest cloud
Fills the sky, I fly to rest
To breathe
I am home
LexLeonard
I’m not afraid to fly,
only afraid to soar,
soar higher than anyone in my family has ever seen.
Soar higher than a plane, or the mental pains that came with the territory!
But I’m not afraid to fly,
just afraid to soar,
through the smoke and mirrors that the world has placed between us.
But I’m not afraid to fly,
just afraid to soar,
through that big forest of the unknown,
where real life and fiction always collide,
and there’s barely anyone to stand by your side!
But im not afraid to fly,
No longer afraid to soar,
Past what these cursed genes have left me.
Today we SOAR high in the sky,
Twirling in a figure eight,
showing off some no one can even relate,
or remember when,
they held you down,
or when you were afraid to fly,
Because now we soar above the sky!
#artstackpoets #ThePoetryHaul
A tanka:
"Summer again
at the edge of the forest
all these butterflies.
Another fleeting painting
to frame for today’s room."
——
Prompt words: forest, fly, today
——
@ARTSTACK #artstackpoets
This week’s words are:pool, chore, lumber, forest, curfew, fly, genes, eight, smoke, today
@ARTSTACK
I long for a pool of silence
Words fly, I’ve heard this story before
Today, I take a break to smoke
Which only takes three minutes.
I worry if it’s in my genes,
He’s eighty eight.
Lumbering through each day waiting to die.
Why is it I wish he had a curfew?
I need the peace of mind that flies away
When I hear again…
Did I ever tell you….
Yes,
I just want a nap!
A Hard Hand
It’s long past curfew in
the lumber yard. Eight
shades of smoke signal
the end of another forest
fire. Not much time to fly
around when the wind
makes today a chore to
be choked on. It all
comes down to genes
and the man you’re made
of. The pool you sprung
from when the earth
decided you the type to
handle a hard hand.
My genes pool by the edge of the forest
They lumber there like smoke on a slow fly through an eight day week
Simmering about today
The curfew of a relationship
Calling me back from the edge
The chore of breath
Grinding me forward
"Swallowed the Sky"
The glass-bellied pool swallowed the sky whole,
a mirror too tired to hold its shape.
Somewhere, an unlatched door creaked—
a reedy voice called a name that wasn’t mine.
The chore of forgetting left dust in my lungs,
settled in the quiet folds of yesterday’s shirt.
Lumber groaned beneath careless hands,
a house shifting in its sleep, remembering.
The leaf-heavy forest kept its own secrets,
let roots curl around the bones of what was lost.
Curfew was a word from another life,
one where strident footsteps mattered.
To fly was a child's wish,
a rumor among bare-kneed summers,
but genes weigh heavy in the blood—
some of us are meant to stay.
Eight crows carved the sky into fractions,
measured the wind with their wings.
Smoke rose in the distance–divided the horizon,
thin as a promise, thick as a prayer.
Today tasted of iron and oranges,
a sharp tang of something coming undone.
The air bent beneath a whisper—
no one left to hear or witness.
Some absences press their weight into the walls,
shadows where hands once rested.
Silence threads itself through the rafters,
sprawls into the corners, lingers in the dust.
The floor remembers every step,
even those that never came back.
Somewhere, a peeling gate swings open,
but no one crosses through.
Time hums in the bones of an old clock,
soft as breath, brittle as autumn.
It drips through the cracks in our voices,
spills between fingers too slow to catch.
Glass pales, wood hollows, names fade—
everything a body touches forgets it in time.
Only echoes remain, stretching thin in the dusk,
longing for someone to call them back.
The bottom felt like home,
And there I was,
At the bottom of the pool.
Each bubble
Released the little air
Left in my lungs.
I don’t know if it’s because of my smoking habit,
But in less than a minute,
The air had escaped.
Each bubble marked
The arrival of curfew.
8,
7,
6…
Just one more bubble…
Just one more chore to end this.
Just stop,
Cease to exist.
5,
4,
3…
I saw that lumber
In a forest full of butterflies
That fly only to eat
My skin.
I saw yesterday, tomorrow, and today—
All reaching out to me.
But my genes
Told me
To stop reaching back,
To simply
Let go.
2,
1.
The forest pool
was pretty cool
but
it was also a chore
and a bore
The lumber around
was abound with smoke
and a curfew
was in effect at eight
today
The genes of the trees
were melting between my
knees
so I had to fly
or else I would die
#ThePoetryHaul