homeward/bound to the kennel

napo two thousand twenty-four: melancholia induced by my lack of self
napoweek two thousand twenty-four: phantasmic glory: the last summer tryst
napo two thousand twenty-five: tracing the firmament of a memory
napoweek two thousand twenty-five: posthumous; trees ablaze, guiding lantern

goals
[🐾] write thirty poems
[🐾] have fun
[🐾] participate in april madness
[🐾] write thirty or more comments on other threads

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[color=darkolivegreen][b] title [/b]  # (total) [/color] [color=sienna] 4/datewritten/26 [/color]

dilapidation (slack-jawed & inescapable) #0 3/16/26

link to published version

these chains that bind us will
one day rust, and i will finally scour my
paws clean of this detritus that
we purport as affection, and pad along.
yearning for the so-called home
away from home.

this regret-embedded path is the only
one i've ever known. for being such a
fearsome bark, the bite seldom follows,
thirsting for blood but never willing to
go in for the kill, i am the worst kind
of ruthless.

bred for hunting-- i chase at any respite
i can take from the hauntings-- running
from my shadow as i both pounce and
cower at the hand that feeds me, this
want in me tells me to stay, but fight or flight
notwithstanding, i succumb to ferality.

too mangy to retract my fangs and
hunger-panged phantasm, too
gracious to give the mercy kill--
how loathesome it is to be
a mutt made out to be an executioner.

i only hope that in my next life
(though canid) i will be able
to free myself from the shackles
of this well-troughed/softly-trodden
path, but the further i wander into the forest
the more i think my chains are rusting, breaking,
and that i will never find my way back home.

no matter. somehow, i will claw my way out of this one.

precautions to avoid being drafted #00 3/21/26

i am a son raised by women– a mother’s
“sacrifice” is something i will never know
because for being a boy in touch with
the "feminine"– epicene in nature– i am
still yearning to be sculpted in the image of
a martyr.

in fact, i am so afraid of this “masculinity”
that we use as a thin veil for the kind of
violent affection-- all consuming and
terrifyingly encroaching on the
serenity that i have tried for so long to
clutch on to with all my might.

burying these paternal ties with the
soot of the so-called hearth of
fatherhood. i do not want to be a father,
to inherit the inherent brashness-- sharp
as the fangs that i was born with,
losing the dulcet voice i was nurtured for--
i mourn the future precognitively.

they say that there is something so
mundane in motherhood and that the
bite you had is all but lost once you succumb
to the docile life-- and yet here i am
waiting at home for some battle-torn
soldier to glance at the scarf i have
woven for him.

it will fit perfectly around his neck.

last ditch effort #1 4/01/26

like the brief respite of false spring before the
second winter, there is a heaviness in my heart
as i take in the last, fleeting rays of sunlight.

here i am, yearning for the maw of the dirt
to consume me and spit me out with the crocuses,
so that this next growing cycle, my heart, and my
soul, will melt gently and leave no room for
my blood to spread. instead, it will flow gently
across the grass, clearing itself of this sin.

my purity will not last for long– it is only temporary,
so that i can continue the insurmountable
task that is reviving the kindles of
what once was a forest fire. for someone so easy to
afflict others with what seems like lovedrunkness,
it is not so easy to lull myself into a sense of security
that’s well, secure enough, to believe in all that bullshit.

i tug on the vines that dig into my neck as i
scramble to edge away from the fence, the shade
will kill me, so i will make the final sacrifice
for my future. if that means killing
what could be my only way out, i can
accept that.

i only hope that the next life
has it a little better than i do.

spring interlude (springterlude) i #2 4/02/26

the clouds still remember the faces of the flowers that
poke through the grass. they try so hard to emerge from
the womb, and so, the soil shall adapt for the
ever-resilient crocus as it does its best to push through the
ice. and what a feat that may be.

total remorse of the sun #3 4/02/26

when i am feverish all my tears
fall down my face burning hot
and with a vengance, with a hatred
for the mothers before me
that shed their tears for their
sons and daughters and with the
remorse of all my heart for the fathers
that i let down.

i will cry until the day that i die, and even
then i will be mourning into the afterlife.
these tears are the only thing
that i believe to be truly forever.

the end will be the beginning, i am a widowed
son and the widowed sun, eclipsed and grief-stricken,
i no longer shine upon the grass that
i remember.

there is no candor to elucidate
nor stars to hide for,
it is all so bleak now.

how terrible it must be down below.

third person #4 4/03/26

uncurable, the memory will stay with me.
snow cannot blanket the so-called truth,
tulips will not hide the plagues from my nightmare
sequences. diseased and bedridden,
i will never wake up.

the time will pass through me, i will watch as
a bystander to my own life, or should
i call it his life? because if i am merely
watching him go through the days
then maybe it should all be through the lens
of what it really is--
a watcher.

he will grow up to be something
beautiful, i'm sure.

one day we will all die #5 4/03/26


i.
here i am again, waiting in the field for the snow
to melt away so i can greet the crocuses once more.
i know that somehow they will push through,
because they have to. as an extension of my psyche,
as an extension of all plants, the crocuses
will grow once more.

i will caress the petals gently, as to not choke out
their beauty. never-plucked, ever-in-memorial,
this memory of mine will be engraved into my
heart so i can avoid becoming harsh and
anti-floral. maintaining dormancy.

ii.
they say that the fireflies are all going away,
something about their flickering, i think.
the way that they flash their fleeting light
for, at times, nobody at all. hoping that
the filaments of love that they send
out into the world will be enough.

yet still, they are leaving this plane
for a better place. but if you are dying
(my father says) then you deserve it. (he says)
that if we did something bad in the past then
we will get our justice, and for most people
that justice, just is, death.

devout #6 4/03/26

where do the prayers go for the ones who are faithful?
devout, desiring, desolate -- where do their prayers go?
there has to be some person taking all these aspirations
and turning them into the stars. that is why they shine
so brightly, after all. they are all the prayers that blissfully
rose into the inky sea.

mine will never float that high, but it helps me rest at night
knowing that there is a younger me out there who
clasped his hands and believed, at least for a moment, that his
dreams would be etched into the ocean forever. and i am glad that
it is him who is immortalized.

without ceremony, still clay-bodied #7 4/03/26

i am sculpted in the image
of someone that has been
long gone. effigized and
romanticized, i am constantly
trying to reshape myself
to become someone that i am not.

the clay that makes my body
whole is the same material of that
which rips it apart, these hands of
mine meant to console and soothe
are only helping to discomfort myself,
my stomach churns in disgust as i
reach under my ribs and try to
start breathing once more.

it hurts to walk, it hurts to be anywhere
without you, but still i tread on,
chained to the only thing that is
hindering me-- myself. shackled
to my own legs as i force myself forward
with no way to look back and reflect,
and no will to keep my eyes straight
to see what i will walk into next.

to be guided through the darkness #8 4/04/26

there are no monsters here,
no fanged creatures are hunting
the shadows under the bed,
and anything that you heard padding
around down there is simply the
creak and bend of the hardwood.

the shadow puppets are to stay
against the wall, so you can rest
easy, breathe with your shoulders rolled back,
i will sing you a lullaby that a mother
would have sung in another lifetime.

so be not afraid, my child,
for the moonlight will break through
the clouds and you will lay
in serene fields of moonflowers,
and their sweetness will guide you through slumber.

and i will be resting-- so that
the mother-me can help me
through whatever hellscape
you call a bedroom.

springterlude ii #9 4/05/26

the dew will eventually fall off of its leaf,
graceful and serene, and i will be there
to serve as a witness.

springterlude iii #10 4/05/26

when the morning fog clears, i will finally see the flowers in motion.

mother-soil #11 4/05/26

though diseased, i am still blooming
in the way i intended to. growing in
the image of the one who sculpted me,
which means some sort of rebirth.
i pluck the leaves that are awry and
reclaim myself into something beautiful,
these petals were meant for the grace of
the sun.

i am not malignant, i tell myself, as i reach
myself further into the soil, which for a flower,
must be the womb, so that someday i will
know more about her than ever before.

and i will become beautiful.