ice clinks

sweet tea ice clinks
while my head rests in my hands
spinning thoughts
upon crazy worries and dark images
like the thick, brown syrup
tangling a sunken, frozen cube
upon the sweating bottom
of a glass half-empty,
and i tearfully wonder
if this is the madness she suffered
if this is the mania he endured
or if i am simply imagining
being saturated by gloom
in some feeble attempt
to stir time backwards
so i can embrace them again
in honeyed, sugar kisses,
and stick them to me
permanently, forever.

Resolutely Against Chorus d'Negative

My resolution for the New Year is to stop thinking so much, to simply live and just *be*, divorced from the analyzing, worried chorus that sneakily jumps out from behind trash bins or pops up in my car’s back seat to offer a depressing sonnet always just when I am on the verge of smiling. Like this morning, for instance, at a couple of turtledoves roosting in the bright sunshine on the walk behind my apartment, my warm cheeks began pulling my lips upwards, when suddenly the gloomy thought of all those birds falling from the sky in Arkansas descended upon my head like the red-winged blackbirds themselves. The sweet moment was startled, and my smile was killed instantly. As I proceeded down the walk, a little black cloud expanding above my head, I declared in a somewhat dramatic, Scarlett O’Hara clinched fist raised skyward fashion, that as God is my witness, this will be the year I will let go of useless, negative thought and thus its power over my mood. The plan of action? Well, it involves meditation, grace, forgiveness, and petitioning for a restraining order against that sly little chorus. If you see them, please give them warning.