Trying and failing
is like missing your
turn in a traffic
circle: you always
get another chance
to ride the circle
again, loop back around,
and take the right exit.
“Failure” – sugar and sandalwood
Tag: poems
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Failure
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Lost.
Yesterday, I got lost.
But,
I didn’t realize it until I
reached my destination. Somehow,
I got to where I was going
without a map —my phone died,
I couldn’t recognize any strangers
on the sidewalk with faces
that looked like they knew
where they were going either.But,
I’m sure they arrived where they’d intended,
just as I did, and
I’m sure, like me,
they’d had no idea
they were even trying
to get somewhere
in the first place,
or that they were evenlost.
“Lost.” – bem
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Sight.
At last night’s dinner party,
we laughed around the unlit fireplace,
and dizzy from after-dinner drinks,
talked about the first time we saw
something — opened our eyes.I never listened to the answers,
but dazed, contented, and buzzing,
from amber-colored brandy,
looked out the window — then crash !
“What was that?”
A heavy, white globe rolled across the red carpet —The professor palmed it, laughing
— savored the weight and smoothness of it, then
pulled up the pane of the adjacent window,
tossed the baseball back to the boys on the street.“Just like that,” he said.
“Sight.” – bem
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Bathing.
Last night, I bathed for the first time.
It was a beautiful, porcelain bathtub with
silver claw feet.
Inside it, I reclined.I rubbed the soap across my skin
with sponges and soaked in salt and
exhaled,
surrounded by vanilla candles, lit
and the fresh, cool spring air wafted in through
the window – I inhaled.Then I climbed out of the porcelain tub,
dried myself off, sauntered
over to the window,
drew the curtains, and
pulled open the window further and
found the entire neighborhood was sparkling
clean.“Bathing.” – bem
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Ablaze.
That night in the deep, dark
woods, she woke up in her tent,
aroused by the heat.She unzipped and stepped outside,
finding herself surrounded –
Ablaze – the trees were
like a circle of hell
from the soil to the sky,
nowhere for her to find solace except
looking upward to the deep
navy sky.“Run.”
Gulping the steaming hot air,
she sprinted through the flames —
with open arms and palms and face still to the sky —she burst out the other side:
gold stardust surrounded by midnight,
reformed and dancing with the fireflies.
Casting new shapes and shadows against
the cool, damp ground.Contained in the blaze,
she’d rushed through the flames and
emerged, glittering and brand new.
Cleansed.
Courage numbing her as she shed her
old skin, which crumbled and dusted in ashes
beneath her gilded
footsteps.“Ablaze.” – bem
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Hatchlings.
In the first grade,
our little group walked
double-file down the hall,
around the corner,
behind our teacher
to the wing with “KINDERGARTEN”
painted so high on the wall,
it almost touched the ceiling.“To see a surprise,” they said.
We went into the large classroom
at the end of the hall to find
little incubators filled with eggs,
warming.
“Baby chickens,” they said.We waited and waited
and watched and
came back and left
in anticipation.Then finally, eventually, the
little brown eggs started
to crack and crack
and little beaks poked through,
jutted between jagged edges,
fracturing the smooth, tawny shell
surfaces they used to call home.We chattered amongst ourselves
in excitement, watching intently and buzzing
as we watched each little neon orange
beak clickclickclick through.– First delicate and untouchable, now
a minor inconvenience they needed
to rid themselves of – too
confining and dark, encapsulated
from oxygen and sunlight.Finally, all the little chicks
were out!
“Wow,” our little 6-7 year old
mouths gaped open
in amazement and as they hatched,
we cracked open
our eyes, mouths, minds
with a little more experience and
ready for the next surprise.“Hatchlings.” – bem
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Serpents.
Don’t be fooled –
the deceiver loves to be
deceived.A mirror –
feeding their ultimate
reflection.You and I get what we want
and they get what they
deserve.For the rest of time
slithering around on
top of each other in
the heat,
hissing and writhing –convincing each other their
songs sound as sweet as
the birds high in the treetops and
clouds, flying, soaring,while they’re confined
to their own ignorance
in dank baskets on
solid, cold, ground,
their imagined palaces sheltering
them, hidden from the light, feeding
on each other’s poison. Unable
to recognize the soft, smoothness
of a blooming flower, the
masterful, shimmering cut
of a clear diamond – the
freshness of the Mediterranean
in the springtime.No.
They only see
the mirror’s reflection:
glassy eyes, flickering forked
tongues and joker’s smiles
spreading wide in demented contentment.“Serpents.” – bem
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A world in flux.
A world in flux
is a world alive.
Black Sea mixes with
Red Sea.
White sand burning
Gold.
Oceans blend into
Oceans.
Infinite Metamorphoses.Nature
knows no separation.
Seeds
blown off trees
over borders
crossing
continents,
countries,
city-states,
counties.Mud to mudpies
clay and clay
to dust.Growth, death,
re-growth, re-death,
then back again
360.You and I blend together
the same.
Matter turning to liquid,
melting –
like chocolate
fondue
– all flavors,
better to dip the strawberries
in and lick,
savor,
swallow –
dissolve
again and again.“A world in flux.” – bem
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Changes.
Somehow,
we become an adult
from an infant.In such an incremental way
progressing from inches to
feet.Our hair and eyes change,
height,
weight –And still we remain the same,
our transformations keeping us whole.“Changes.” – bem
heartbreak and cigarettes 