decks shifting

Decks Shifting



You understand what I mean when I say
wow that went fast
you know what I’m intending to be
when we hug

so these, and other things, make me a poet.

Where I come from it’s cold and hot and seasons rub fiercely
and sledding is a thing that’s essential
and I spent nights with snow stinging my face
holding my mom’s waist down the hill in our front yard
I shot arrows in the fall and slipped on ice in the spring
and have loved and still am loving

and now I live in L.A.
and I am still loving

There’ve been coffee
and cigarettes and asthma doesn’t appreciate that
but someone does.
I’ve alluded to problems with alcohol
and have had the privilege of
turmoil in the country
and words baffling me
and measley divorce.

Jumping thoughts and, simply, attempts at simplifying and capturing scenes.

I live in a world where honor is present.
There is honor
humor
in the ways of things.
and a piece of lint
in my beard

My fancy is windows down
and lines that strike
like ‘this is a hard, stolen land’

I have a threaded history of pine needles
and bee stings and roasted chipmunks
it’s the truth
and am capable of
not thinking
before acting
tickling
My shaking hands can’t stop
and my family…
stitching the two together
after wearing them apart.

and I’m sometimes a branded man
and othertimes squinting with so much day in my eyes.

© 2007, Jared Linzmeier