Time for the Thaw

Sunlight pours down
and spreads through
stiffened limbs
like warm honey,
inch by inch
restoring life along
with grace.

The world relaxes
into color as
the outlook shifts
from gray to green.
SAD days are over--
time for the thaw.

Ides of March

Happy Ides of March! You may think it morbid to celebrate the day given its historical significance; however, the Ides of March has become more to me than the anniversary of Julius Caesar's death. It has become a family holiday for my sister and me--an inside joke between the two of us that none of our co-workers can understand since they don't share our literary tastes. As teenagers we had our own version of the famous prophecy associated with this day, "Beware the eyes of _______" (insert name of creepy guy that rhymes with March). As I said, only a true literature buff would see the humor in that.

But this year, the Ides of March has become more to me than just a literary inside joke. I have decided it is a day to celebrate friendship and loyalty, a day for true friends to stand by each other. Although for Julius Caesar this day meant betrayal, it does not have to be that way.

On the Ides of March
I do not say beware,
but take heart.

For when Brutus comes
I will be there
and others as well
to stand between
you and his knife.

With our loyalty
we will surround you,
protecting from betrayal
and willing, if need be,
to take the blow ourselves.

My friend,
on the Ides of March
do not beware, but take heart.

Mask and Miscalculation

The mask--
I donned it willingly
knowing full well the consequences
the sacrifices required

Yet somehow
miscalculating the placidity
of my own soul

After years of practice
I think I wear it well--
that frozen smile

But inside I
languish beneath the mask
drumming fists against
the rigid facade

Pining for a
few unfettered steps
outside the glare of
the magnifying glass

The choice I made
this visage I wear
weigh heavy on my soul
how long I can bear it
I do not know

Ode to a Seatbelt

Amid the crunch of
collision, such a small
thing wards off death in
the moment of slow-motion
crash, protecting from
the reckless hand of fate,
but not without cost.
Sighing in the instant
before impact, it warns,
"This might hurt a little."
Then steels itself for
the inevitable task--its
created purpose--and
when released from duty
bemoans the necessary
bruises it left behind.
Such a little thing, really,
yet with so great a job.
A small strip, narrow but
strong, the very reason
I am still alive.

this silence is killing me

Words crowd into my mouth,
burning my tongue,
pushing against lips sealed
shut by fear--the paranoid,
paralyzing kind.

To rid the acrid taste
I swallow back each
incendiary noun,
verb, and adjective, though
the action scalds my throat.

Before the pain can
subside my stomach
retches them up again
to begin anew
their acidic onslaught.

Why do I not speak?
How can speaking out
possibly cost me more
than the turmoil
of keeping silent?

No answer. For the
questions never leave my
head. Afraid to speak yet
tortured for not doing so,
this silence is killing me.

To Day From Night

O Apollo,

blazing golden in the sky,

ruling day from a chariot of fire,

think of me,

Artemis, pale goddess of night.

Imagine me

waiting in a shadowy glade.

Silver arms outstretched,

beckoning you

to my wild embrace.

O Apollo,

meet me in the dusky

hues of evening

and in the first,

gray light of dawn,

Where we--

twin halves of one soul--

can unite

and once again

be whole.

Media

I wish I could

slash anger across a canvas

that shrieks to be seen.

Or draw bare lines

whispering of loneliness

so that all who look

turn away with wet eyes.

I wish I could

paint joy in colors of the sun

with laughter pealing

from the end of the brush

so that hearts and the corners

of mouths are lifted.

But my paint-by-numbers hands

only copy laboriously

images conceived by another.

I content myself with words
and brush them across the page--

the only canvas I will ever paint.