Excess Of It

What do I do with all my churning senses?

What is the point of feeling all these feels?

The problem with sensation so immense is

That from each feeling my perception reels.

I cannot disentangle my own being

From all that has impinged on me today;

The world that I'm forever hearing, seeing,

Touching, smelling, tasting has a way

Of overtaking, overwhelming me.

I never am myself alone; I'm more

But what I am's not what I want to be.

It's something bigger, and the stretch is sore.

What can I do? I cannot tell. I wear

And fear that as my senses melt, I'll tear.

Alack And Fie For Shame

A Valentine is just a piece of paper

But so are wills, and mortgages, and deeds.

We think of it as insubstantial vapor--

The kind of thing only a child needs--

But what we write, and who we write it to--

The purpose, execution, and design--

Are powerful, and Valentines are too

(At least if you're consenting to be mine).

Too true, there are conventions in the form

That shape the way we can communicate;

But every kind of writing has a norm

And what we choose within that norm has weight.

I choose to write to you; do you to me?

There's meaning in the reciprocity.

After Blazons

Sometimes my love is like a charged cell phone

That buzzes every time that I am needed; 

Sometimes my love is like a traffic cone: 

Giving direction but, alas, unheeded.

Sometimes my love is asphalt in the sun

Forever burning in the summer heat; 

Sometimes my love is like a Turkey Run:

Cold, up too early, and obsessed with meat. 

Sometimes my love is like a subway train

Running on rails deep in the city's heart;

Sometimes my love is like a coffee stain:

A dirty remnant of an early start.

But though my love may vary day by day

Across these changes, still my love will stay.

Chill

This is the perfect kind of day to sit

And watch the window as the rain drips down,

A cup of cocoa in one hand, a bit

Of yet-uneaten cookie, warm and brown,

Just-dunked above the surface in the other.

This is the kind of day for books and lamps,

The phone put down, the blankets piled to smother,

To warm away the winter's drafts and damps.

I wish I could. I really wish I could.

But no, I must go out into the storm 

And seek another's, rather than my, good:

My bones feel destined never to be warm.

The day's perfection only lives inside,

But I cannot, despite myself, abide.

Frozen

The time for denial is past

If ever such times could endure;

The terrors we suffer can't last

And we all must contribute a cure.

If you cannot see what's before you

Or recognize murder as such

The time has come now to ignore you

Until you've admitted as much.

The eyes of the world will observe us

And we see ourselves and our acts;

Indifference cannot now serve us

The time's here for facing hard facts.

The tyrants in books that we've read

Now work in our cities instead.

Some

There's only so much I can say 

(A thousand sonnets mark this lie)

To tell you why I feel this way

(Or what I feel, before the why).

The sun is not more welcome here

Than is the smile on your face;

And while it only shines when clear

No clouds can darken our embrace.

I use the same words once again

Remixed in patterns barely new

To tell the world--I loved you then

And still continue to love you.

There's limits to what can be said

But love's sole limit's when I'm dead.

Ice

They say the bridge will ice before the road

Because the ground is warmer than the air;

The ground, it seems, is kind enough to care

For those above it. It will bear the load.

The air is free; but freedom can corrode

If it becomes a freedom not to share

Or to consider common goods unfair--

The conman's shield and not the helper's goad.

So air, by flowing fast and wildly free,

Produces ice that makes the bridge unsafe,

And through its motion makes all others' cease;

Its right to move is its security

So duty to another starts to chafe

And its great freedom threatens others' peace.

This Morning With It Brings

The place of peace is not a place of rest.

Peace bubbles up through cracks; it will not be

Slapped on like tape. Peace always seems to crest 

Outside the confines of monotony.

Move; exhale; be part of something more

By stepping out and joining with your friends;

Keep moving on, and then, for an encore

Move yet again. The motion never ends,

For peace is not the target but the path.

It cannot be obtained, or set in stone.

Like all the others--love, or joy, or wrath--

It is not placed within a heart but grown.

To be at peace is to become yourself:

You cannot do it lying on a shelf.