Cary Briel

O coffee, you beautiful,
oily friend,
your smell quite alone
will so cleverly mend
the worst day.

The clicking you do
as you grind on the blades
of my grinder, each morning,
speaks in such ways
that a Mormon can’t know.

I wonder if you
feel the loss of your soul
as you stand firm and deep
in the filtered abode
and it rinses away from above

to join my soul–
O how it quickens my days
as if born-again life,
but refusing to stay,
I’ll need souls again.

What secret is this,
for the asking,
coming in its time–
determined when there wasn’t time–

Twins divided
by wind?
He rages in cloud, as offers are made
of height and station

and Being,
and bed pillows are tempted,
and weary rest’s stifled.
He rages,

when sand lines are shifted–
and mountains are hurled–
and islands are scattered–
and secrets remain

well beyond leaps from steeples
to save familiar people–
though not known from where or when.
Let angels catch thee

lest ye be smashed, utterly–
lest banded roots perish
in desert sands–
lest He forget His Beloved.

I hardly remember
the days without care,
when my body was toned,
a full head of hair.

I’d never have thought,
if you’d have asked me back then,
that I’d be buttoning my pants
and sucking it in,

Nor would I have thought
of elastic waistbands,
nor of calorie
counting, low-carb diet plans.

What a trick God has played
that comes on us with age,
drooping and graying,
and the futile wars waged.

Waiting– I find–
time’s oceans can seem
daunting,
thus building
patience’s virtue, as Grandma would say.
Cosmological plays–
wind actors fighting
sexual wars, travailing,
catching
up children
to Grandpa’s right hand.

I don’t know if
your tooth-clenched pen
exacerbates your click, click
indifference,
but I will have words with
the silly women.
The blank stares
at sports scores and uh-huhs
belong no more
to the lore of woman,
nor to the apathy of man.

I meet people I don’t know.
They don’t speak words to me, per se,
but personalities they have
just the same.
Books–
I could write books
with what I know
about the nameless sounds
that pervade my spaces
without permission.
At times a war of words
with no words,
or simply plug my ears
and hum away the quiet.

The Queen,
our Queen,
not Alice’s today,
seated,
and perched,
while Mom shoveled away
as she watched
and directed
lest a shovelful be missed.

It’s fairly certain,
I’d say, a CD needed change,
or she’d received a text,
or something else
“important,”
else why would she call
from warmth to Mom
to bitch
of her inconvenience.

I think when I come to the end
of my days
in this blink of dream
that only seems
like reality,
I’ll only remember you.
I won’t remember
the garbage disposal that leaked,
nor the mice in the attic.
I’ll totally forget
our relationship static.
I won’t remember
those things at all.
But I will remember Misty’s howling call
to you
and to me.
I’ll remember it
because you remember,
and that’s all I’ll see.

Don’t read in
things I hadn’t said.
No glean could have
conveyed that
from word or look.
Had you been
connected
to who I am, you’d know
that I’m more complicated,
not black or white, more shaded.

“Coffee?” She asks
innocently, with tongue in cheek
I have to believe.
There’s never been a “No.” Never an
“I’ll pass.”

As I glimpse through the blinds,
Laura leaves, independently.
Scrutinizing is pointless, anymore.
The illusion of control
has passed.

I write in a dark room
to pass another day,
or simply to let it pass by me.
Or perhaps we alternate our wins. I’ll take
Wednesday and Friday.

Smelly feet–
or just FEET–
leave me conflicted,
and often sickened
well– with smelly, always sickened!

But, in general
it can be
a holy-crapshoot
whether I’ll believe, or not,
I’d ever lean

in and touch one.
Or– I’ll seethe
if one should touch me
even inadvertently!
The pedicure women

who are gloveless,
bathe, it seems,
in matter that I cannot
discuss on an empty stomach,
lest I vomit,

though I know Chris would.
Chris has made note,
cavalierly, even indifferently,
as she can on such matters,
and be not sickened,

that those gloveless fiends
will, with fingernail,
exposed as sand to sun,
scrape flesh and cuticle,
and bite their nails when they’re done.

“Doing time–”
the unfitting way to say it.
“Listening” is better–
or sounds better.
“Sacrifice” nails it.
“Love” is at the heart of it.
Can you remember this when
you’re doing time?