poetry of a NEPTUNE BENDER

I would like to lean, on or into—

some loneliness for awhile 

I think I’ll die in this war

if memory serves— I always have

the tactics and the landscape change

but the blast of obliteration 

never really leaves you…

I dream about sinking 

and scars in sacred places 

good and loving human companions 

are true blessings—

even if I want to run away

and live only with animal ones

I believe that without ecstatic death

no ecstatic birth or bloom can reign

and I’d like to lean up against 

some loneliness for awhile 

for as long as it takes—

to both soften and stiffen 

melt and mold into

a shape that fits and shifts…

DD: July 15, 2021