Breakfast of Champions

Increasingly I find myself

In the deep end of a pool
I cannot swim.  I don't know how.
I'm just standing there.
Feeling death throes of the mind
While the body, passive, complicit
Shows no signs of concern
Waking up is akin to 
Recognizing suddenly that
I'm not supposed to be there.
And willing myself out onto the side.
My first thought on getting out
Was not that I was dry
But that my aunt was probably Kurt Vonnegut
We could have talked about all that
And she would have taught me how to laugh about it
(She learned to laugh about it after
her son's brain was fried by chemotherapy
meant to save his life.)
We never got to talk about it, because I had it turned around.
I was supposed to save her,
but I was never prepared for that conversation
I never had the time
So it goes.

Now my dad's brain is funny
And I have nothing to say about
how it all works, how to be happy--
"You know, I'm a Christian who believes in everything
but the hopeful parts."

And that's how I found myself in the deep end.

I have to go.  I have to eat my salad.


Posted by Hans Andersen | at 8:36 AM | 0 comments

Gacrux

you are not going to think of me
for an infinite amount of time
unless I put myself
right in front of your snout
I would
if I knew it meant
an end to the suffering,
yours and mine.

there, I did it.
it is finished.
and still, you suffer
so, too, shall I
now and for all of time.
we all knew, didn't we?
that I could make up the difference.
and yet... I condemn all things.


(smiles with bared teeth,
teeth the size of a universe)

Posted by Hans Andersen | at 12:27 PM | 0 comments

autumn

Fall fire
The moon coolly
sets us all
ablaze
and then recedes,
leaving the tousled tops
of mountains
for dead.
Leaving you
in a state
of decay.
Leaving me
with quite a view
from just over the top
of my hardest cider.

Drip, it
All must drip down
and mix.
And then, ferment.

New life
from death.
See!
Like finest silk
threads formed across
what used to be
your mouth.

The violet sky spattered
With black silhouettes
Of All Things we did
And only you would know
If they're any more
Than mere shadows
On a dank cave wall

Posted by Hans Andersen | at 5:15 PM | 0 comments

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