At the park in Seattle the day after the Uvalde shooting, 2022
1.
The Information Age
I am
Floating disorganized
despite my best efforts
Here is a list
of my grief
Honestly the brain chip was sounding
pretty good these days
Apocalyptic dismay
oh, sorry
My dog Lucy took interest in a couple
observing the flowers near us
The keyboard
is the lens
Ever since the word processor got me writing
daily
2nd grade
book reports
Thought of screenplays thought of teaching thought of news
thought I could learn from the private sector
Recently I’ve just really been getting into this non profit
simulator
“Take a break and see
how you feel”
Today
putting it into the database
Writing is thinking
almost
To be separated analyzed rebuilt shattered composted
by the future mind
May he look back
kindly
2.
I’m still with Lucy in the park with her ball
on a sunny mental health day
Feeling the trees and the sway
it washes over me and so I sit
With my pocket computer
which connects me to the awful reality
That has disturbed my ability
to think rationally
Working to offload my brain into information
organized contextually fluidly
Lucy sips from the water pants in the shade
looks at the strangers on the balance chord
Hoards her ball from
the man driving the tractor mower
I think I love her joyful trot
most of all
She drops her ball
the quiet eternity has faded
Back to time
violence present but subdued
The man in the tractor mower takes
a phone call
The world has unpaused
it’s time to walk home
3.
Meditation wind chime
spinning garden wheel
Neighbor packing up heading out
down the escape route
Cutting into this slice of startling
beauty and quiet
The chime hangs down a trembling branch
the space to breath and think
Unexpected blue
from tarp to sky
To paint
matched to fade
The world has been too much of late
how much longer can we live with denial
Before it costs
can we make good as we are
Or should we even I don’t know
the structure belies the possibility
Beneath
the end of —
Joe Taylor 