HAPPY IN THE CHORUS
Book of Matches Issue 13, 2025
1.
Using the shopping cart to dispel darkness,
racing Anxiety to the checkout.
Rowdy plastic cups spill themselves.
There is no movie without popcorn.
Run to the register or die.
This is the new normal.
I had so much fun at the zoo yesterday
Oh, honey, that wasn’t yesterday, that was last week.
Love-block. Pop. The kid looks away.
Another child in chains. Another heart thrown to Time.
All that’s left for the kid to wonder is “What can I buy?”
2.
The hollowness of empty rooms,
an in-between, no one is meant to hear.
I tune in, make note of all the ways
the light comes pouring in to say goodbye.
I see the trees hold each other, ride out the seasons.
They’re happy in the chorus, elegant in their place.
I want to stand on the hill and look down the valley the way
the Revolutionary War scouts did, feel their knowing, their words,
their stories, the ones told all these years by grass, rocks and trees.
So it is. So it continues. So it unfolds. So it is. So it continues.
The new revolution will be led by those who believe
there’s something new to believe in, love for, be dreamy and steady about.
3.
To come to at home is a reason to celebrate.
Rebirth can happen on any day or every day.
I wake up in my own evolution, where obedience
to my own kindness, to my own joy, is my truest freedom.
Connection is a noun and nouns know how to breathe.
Stop. Make ugliness go back to where it came from. Please.
The New Testament is a riddle, written plain for anyone to see.
Its letters are numbers and the old Greeks are waiting for you
to find its meaning, its shapes, its compassion and its light.
Hierarchies distort, make up stories, in the same way Fear feasts on Doubt.
Retrograde aha, retrograde civilization, control option shift, the big reset,
when Mercury moves that slow, Sophia and Saturn take back what’s theirs.
4.
This moment right now is no nightmare; it’s meant to be.
The stars at night, the earth under your feet,
the oceans, the rivers, the prairies and everything under the sun,
they’re all yours to take with you as long as you leave them behind.
I gather nothing but books and I leave those where they can be found.
Reading is telepathy, a conversation full of saints, criminals and blown minds.
Albert Einstein’s father complained about him not doing his best.
And Abe Lincoln’s wondered what good all that learning would lead to.
Myths are allegories, metanarratives to reframe the moon and sun.
Sensations are funhouses, where I look leads me on.
My thoughts come and go, my breath directs the action, there’s the way,
there’s the day when “I am another you” is met with “You are another me”.