Snapshot of Paris

The thing about statistics is / after you've heard all the facts and figures / you still don't know any better / than you did before / whether you'll be the one / this should have given me cause for concern / my brother got drunk in Paris / and jumped in the river / he said / I think they call it the Seine darling / I said with a twist / he sat as the sun / opened up to him / like a gray-blue spirit / our lemonade sparkled / catching the rays / lamenting the end of summer / he did not talk of his girlfriend / and I did not talk of my past life / we just were

A Paris Connection by John K. Harrell

  

Bugs Life

How often are we the tornado
How often do we step on a bug
Slash through the air
Rearrange the molecules
Send return
How often are we the bug
Taking our time
Or do we try to control
That which is not ours to control
We are part of a migration
Of many legged bugs
Cruising together towards the sun
Towards shared purpose
Love
It's only when we fight the wind
Do we lose

The Calling

There was static in the air
There was a time where
We all knew what we were doing
Not anymore
At least the stuff they tell you
It all went
Out the window
When it happened
And we screamed murder
And got angry
The stages of grief
They tell you can
Take months, take years
What if you don't have that
What if you have one lifetime
Of reverberation
From that one mistake
Unless
We planned it before
Before we even came here
That this was
Our Calling

New Moon

It was the day I stopped
drinking
that I realized that life
is wide open
It didn't matter how you
flew
as long as you got there
Maybe the road was too long
I think there are certain
things that shouldn't matter at all
like money
Floating on a cold blue lake
there's always another wave
I walked with a crunch
that reminded me of a
far off place
Dried grass
in a hot Michigan summer
Birds and the chatter of
Poplar trees
My blue underwear on a
smooth stone
new breasts free
The moon lit from
within
drew it's shadow across
the water
It smiled at me perfectly
like you would someday