“Tragedy is when I cut my finger.
Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.”

-Mel Brooks

Deadwood and kindling
turned by combustion into
melty marshmellows

“The imagination is not interested in two-dimensional reductions or naively pitting one side against another, dark against light. It is interested in the place where the two sides meet, and what they give birth to when they cross-fertilize each other. That is the heart of creativity: it is not fantasy, not invention. Creativity is listeing in on the places where the opposites are dancing with each other.”

-John O’Donohue as reported byDiane Covington in

“The Unseen Life that Dreams Us”, The Sun, Issue 376, April 2007

I’m the responsible one who
is always on time
covers for her boss
bakes chocolate chip cookies
does the laundry
tucks the kids into bed
pulls weeds from the garden
recycles
votes conscientiously
invests her savings
visits elderly relatives
donates to charity

Stifling the selfish one who wants to
sleep ’til noon
drink herself silly
dance until 4AM
cheat on her husband
smoke weed and take drugs
devise elaborate lies
tell people off
not give a fuck
steal a fortune and spend it all
get on a plane for anywhere
run away.

With my mid-life crisis
thundering towards me,
I’m hoping the muzzle
will be strong enough
to keep me from running.

“L’altruiste est un égoïste raisonable. Il voudrait modeler tous les hommes sur sa propre sensibilité.”

-Remy de Gourmont, Promenades philosophiques

After nearly four years of violence, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions of fleeing refugees, how much longer can we stand by and watch Darfur self-destruct? Please join Bloggers for Darfur today to show your solidarity for the cause.

If you and I were inanimate things
trapped in the frame of an old photograph,
trapped in a shadowed box of iniquity,
then I wouldn’t have to say good-bye.

Some monstrous creature of habit,
I could continue with my delusion that you, Dad,
were a man of steel and fundamental strength,
a man who would live forever.

But quivering with age, as a sopping cat,
Father, this man I didn’t know,
ghostly as if light could pass through you,
you fell like a toppled Buddha
from the hard work of making people happy.

I was not prepared to become the
guardian of the ever-falling,
to shine on after you were gone.

No matter.

The evening held its breath, and then
a faceless fear crept around our circle.
Morning light dispelled the mist of delusions.

The hourglass is broken but the sand
keeps sifting through nonetheless to
bury me under passing days as we bury you.
My vision wavers with milky wavelets.

The house, empty. The chill comes up quickly.
Clanging door stirs dust as I exit,
fingering what remains of you:
rumpled keepsakes in my pocket,
photos and boxes, inanimate things.

***

This poem was born from an exercise proposed on the Poetry Thursday site where we were asked to develop a poem from a line provided by another participant. Except, I tried writing a poem incorporating as many of these lines as possible by regrouping them and modifying them slightly. I only actually wrote about seven lines of the above poem. As a fairly successful collective work, my thanks go to:

The Brave, Michelle, Harry, bgfay, January, fragmentsinsight, � Seasn�in, Chickadee Chatter, Deb, Rethabile, Tiel Aisha Ansari, Dave, Pauline, Beaman, Amy, Sara, Jeannine, Marcia, split ends, Brent Goodman, Madd, Shelley, Sarala and G.

“A cloud does not know
why it moves in such a direction
and at such a speed,
It feels an impulsion…This is the place
to go now. But the sky knows
the reasons and the patterns
behind all clouds,
and you will know, too, when
you lift yourself high enough
to see beyond
horizons.”

-from Illusions by Richard Bach

Apprehension lurks
before taking a first step
to the other side.

And this one for people from my home state of Maine:

The Piscataqua
divides New Hampshire from Maine
long bridge—Home at last!

“There was no harm in foolishness, he beleived, but the prospect of madness worried him a little.” The Year of Silence by Madison Smartt Bell