GREY POETRY

Chaos Theory:

I don’t need to pretend that I came into the world

Fully formed,

I didn’t,

And, quite frankly,

Neither did you.

I don’t know why it means so much to us all to avoid

Our failures;

I fail all the time.

It’s practically who I am.

I see how the world is starved for affirmation

We all crave it like a drug

we all crave drugs to make our need

And further

Hide.

what is your drug today?  piety?  self-righteousness?

mine is red wine,

cheap, red wine from my ghetto liquor store...

but it does the trick.

Why do we crave our piety and wine?

We think that it’s the only way we’ll be accepted into the fold of the world.

‘I never did anything wrong.’

‘no, I never failed that test;

Or had that impertinent thought

Or misjudged my friend,

Or ate too much turkey,

I never did those things…

Did you?

Oh, good...

But you know all those other losers did.’

I see you… you hide…

You hide behind your labels and your color coded boxes,

You hide behind your perfect life

The chaos

That is inside you.

But I see your chaos,

It’s magnificent.

I know what you think, I used to,

You think the world will crash down if your chaos gets loose—

So you tie every bow quite neatly,

And you organize

And you put the hangers just right

And the frames are dusted so…

So that you can hide your truth—

You are a poet,

You have a madness in you that wants to get out,

You are an artist;

And you are curious about it all.

It’s okay to be curious.

George is,

He seems to be doing okay.

Maybe I’m wrong about you—

Maybe you really are buttoned up tight,

Maybe you really like the ducks to be in a row just because you like the symmetry;

But you are too full of contradictions

For that to really be the case…

You are full of chaos

Beautiful,

Earnest,

Eager,

Uncontrollable,

Chaos.

Let it out of you!  Let it out!

You weren’t come out into the world fully formed!

It’s okay to be a wreck, it’s okay to say, ‘this happened!  This happened to me!’;

It’s okay to write about it, it’s okay to feel about it,

And it doesn’t need a bow.

It doesn’t need a label or a box;

It doesn’t need the stamp of anyone’s approval…

Ah!  My wretchedness consumes me…

But yours,

Yours…

makes me smile.

River of Dreams:

I used to walk along the river, picking up cans and my father would tell us

To protect the earth,

It was God’s footstool.

The dappled leaves would crunch under my feet

And my bag of cans would rattle against my leg as I proudly

Walked through the grove,

And the mighty Mississippi rolled past.

I used to skulk by the river

Alone

When no one knew;

It would be winter and I was wearing snowshoes.

The raccoons and deer which hid themselves against it’s swampy banks would emerge in my presence

A visitor

In their domain of the city.

I would wonder

I would wonder if I could get swept away by the torrent of the thawing river

Would I go on an adventure like Huck Finn?

Or would I get compressed before the first

Lock and dam I often would view from above and the slits in the grading—

They always made me scared of heights.

I would watch the drift wood wandering past

And was curious if it could carry me

To distant lands

Wondrous places

With people nothing like me.

Not like me.

I am usual

I am plain

But they,

They would be inventive and varied,

Colored and shaped in ways

Only God could dream up.

I used to dance alone on the riverbank

Afraid to dance inland

Where the eyes were.

Afraid to dance to my tune when the eyes were watching.

So the raccoons and deer and ticks and perch

Would see me there

Clunking in my snowshoes

As the ice pack would drift pass

Humming in the crisp sun…

Remembering cans.

I used to kick the sand into the ocean,

Just north of Malibu

Singing at the top of my lungs to the waves and the eagles.

The highway would clear me from any and all visitors…

No one goes to the ocean in February…

Unless,

Unless you’re a poor orphaned Midwesterner.

I would sing and the waves would applaud me,

Even as the crabs would give their review.

I didn’t care, the sea gulls were a worthy audience.

I used to steal boats from the refactory and row them to the middle of the lake deep in the night.

Remember when you would come along?

The lightening storm flushed over downtown

And we knew that the danger was present

But the beauty of the night

And the stillness of the water

Kept me there,

Kept us rapt in the attention of the night.

I have been young and foolish, young and wise; I have aged into my boredom and my fury…

But there have always been moments

Along the waterways

For a little poetry.