December 30, 2020

Today is my wedding anniversary. While I usually don't like to provide explanations for my random poetry (since you don't have to be at this site if you don't want to), I feel the need to point out that the quoted lines in the italicized sections are from the James' songs "English Beefcake" and "Extraordinary Times." Otherwise, this is the mess it is.

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The snow makes the roads mush

As I watch you drive off for an errand

Probably unnecessary on this the first day

Of a thirty-first year and the second-

-to-last day off a tortuous year.

Everything seems all wrapped up

In the thick liquid of a serum,

The drops of the dram,

That fortify us, delude us,

About the years ahead of us.

It's not that the thirtieth year

Didn't end in extraordinary ways,

The reminders of what the inspired

Are able to produce in their times

Of concern and creative constraints.

None of that seems to awaken me

As two weeks of mediocrity

Stay unposted and unseen

With this god-awful computer screen

Mocking me endlessly.

It's always what I can't write

That gets stuck between draft

And craft and public view.

How do I get to the head

Of the line for a booster?

Meanwhile in my head all I can hear,

"There's nothing to say, I get in the way."

Pounds away over and over.

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My goal, before you return with eggs and juice,

Is to complete this inoculation

That somehow can fuse an anniversary

With a year like this

And the challenges aging brings.

How have I done?

Are my words a desired balm

Or the failure of the cure

I always believe can come

From convoluted words?

The temperature rises, melting

More of the snow and ice,

A sound and safe return secured,

In some ways putting even more

Pressure on these forced words.

Thirty-one years might as well be ten,

Or one, when the unspoken courses

Through our veins, leaving gaps

That can be misunderstood even

As they are poorly filled in.

Time is catching up with me,

The store is not that far away,

And still I sit here unsatisfied

And unsure if I should even post

Unfinished and unpolished lines.

Because in my head, all I can hear is,

"It's true I've been noticing it's love makes us blind."

Pounding away at my inadequacies.