BOMBASTIC

BOMBASTIC IS SUCH A GOOD WORD
LIKE THE PARADE DRUMS THAT FORCE YOUR HEART TO THUMP
AND MARCH

LIKE TRUMPETS YELLING YELLING
SO BRAVE AND PUBLIC THAT YOUR STOMACH
PULLS YOU OUT TOO

LIKE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE AMPS
AND JUMPING JUMPING

A GRAND EXPLOSION
GRAND
SO GRAND YOU HAVE TO SHOUT OVER

-Citron

The fifty-seven thousandth time...

Once, I said I was sorry
and vowed never to say it again. 
All the other times,
it was

"Six times, I said I was sorry
and vowed..."

because as soon as

"The final time, I said I..."

I die. 

Now,
I don't want to be dead
sorry. 


-Citron

Every morning

I have a morning routine.
First, I am a teepee dweller
breathing in steam swirls.

Then I am an Inca king
sipping my coffee and planning the day.

Then I am a Roman soothsayer,
picking around the gray morning in my robe and sandals,
bending down, taking the news from a bag.

Then I am an inkeeper's wife
scaring eggs around the pan.

Then I am a Russian aristocrat
reading how the world goes to tell my family later.

Then I am an old midwife
looking out the window for a sign.

Then I am a medicine man
shaking icemelt gravel on the steps outside.

Then I am a Geat hero
because the ice growls when I turn my back.

This is how all my mornings go.

Waiting for my soul.

Sitting quietly, very quietly, in a wooden chair
with a hard back.
Like a jungle member I watch and wait
for pretty soon my soul will creep out from wherever it is hiding,
towards the wooden chair in the middle of the jungle.

I love her because she has a soul.

I love old people in general- sometimes they have caught ten
and sew them together to wear like fur coats
and sit by the fire and drum.
When their arms move the souls flap and bunch up.
The old ones become a thing else, the thing I want to be.
We the young paint our faces
and dance around trees, naked as anything.

Some of us won't ever find our souls
but instead, through the dances round and round,
life will spatter through us in bursts like some kind of spin art,
Once you stop you'll find yourselves.

But she is the Rothko to your Pollock.
And I, naked as anything, sit in my chair
and wait.

The sometimes snow.

It's snowing:  I smile out a window
and catch snowflakes on my tongue.
But not when the snow is six feet deep
and not when the snow makes a tree fall down. 

When I'm tired of the snow I play with Play-Doh and whipped cream.
I made a mountain
I made an ocean
I made a fire hydrant with a man beside it.
I like them. 
Sometimes, I flatten my hand and destroy them all
and mix the colors up
and put it back in the jar
so no one else can like them. 

Then I go out and play
but not when the snow freezes over and makes me fall down like a tree
and not when it keeps an ambulance off a road
to save someone's life
or not to. 
I like life. 
I like the snow.
This snow I smile at
but I don't smile then.

Instead.

As I open this page a video clip begins on another
What if I gave up writing this down until tomorrow?
What if I gave up writing everything down until tomorrow?
Even the ones who will run away like mice?
Even the exciting ones?
What if I don't have a tab open,
Why do I feel compelled to pause the video to write a poem in the air
Type when nothing is being registered in a text box
Even if I can't find the words myself tomorrow?
Should I bother with a text box? 
Will I understand myself today tomorrow?
I just want to watch a video some days.
But,
you know already,
I type instead. 

The Owl

The owl looked at me sternly
through the round glasses I percieved
were circling his eyes.