love-notes.jpg

love notes

a ritual to start the work week

Monday, June 13, 2022

How the night?
And how the day?
How the April?
And how the May?
How when summer
comes for June
does the light up there
burn through the moon?

How the fire?
And how the well?
How the prayer?
And how the spell?
How when you
envelope me
am I more I
as we turn we?

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Tuesday, June 7, 2022

To know the middle, we must know the end,
but so few finishes tip their approach,
their modes and momentum, magic, besides.

How then can we calculate our halflife? 
How come we to comprehend our climax?
To reconcile our first words with our last?

Perhaps by knitting, looping in loose ends;
or gardening, tending blooms, weeding beds.
Perchance, to know, to be, we dance instead.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Wednesday, June 1, 2022

1 line
2 words
3 points
4 songs
5 stars
6 lungs
7 sighs
8 stares
9 knives
10 wounds
11 wars
12 doves
13 trees
14 groves
15 plots
16 peaks
17 slopes
18 gains
19 gone
20 tales
21 trails
22 tries

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, May 23, 2022

They come in waves:
the heat and hope,
meaning, mizè:
spheres of spirals
that spike and poke
as they ebb, flow:
balls of bands, gas
that snap and spurt:
their consistence
hidden behind
their confluence.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, May 16, 2022

all’s well that tends well
that cares well, that serves
all’s well that bends well
that changes, that curves
all’s well that sends well
that gives well, compounds
all’s well that mends well
that heals well, rebounds

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, May 9, 2022

Moon left, pulled under toe
to surrender longing. Lover alone
also through spin, wood backwards,
flesh a dream. Skin-time,
neon-green, bone-like
shadow. Death follows cautiously,
flame walk also. Also,
left switches light, right?

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, May 2, 2022

To close the loop,
press down slightly
on your past self,
allowing your current
path to slide over
and cover it completely.

Use just enough pressure
to depress the trigger
hidden carefully beneath
your hardened shell
— some cracking is normal —
releasing the awareness
valve to let growth flow.

Do not force it.

Too much effort could
result in permanent
damage to the seal
causing ongoing leakage,
a sudden descent or
unpredictable departure.

If you miss the moment
and continue on the same
circle, wait patiently for
the opening to come around
again.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, April 25, 2022

bring the unending potential
beyond yourself within, one
slithering breath at a time;
feed your vastness with our
vastness; expand of us; two
by two turns four to universes;
one poem’s every poem; impressions
sink into surfaces, form
scars of impacts shaded from
sun’s reach, each of us a moon;
fingers stretch farther than their tips,
tickling little ribs and sensitive bellies
from across the room; openness
opens opportunity; the slightest
nudge a landslide from nothingness
into infinity; inhale;
soften once more if you dare

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, April 18, 2022

infinite openings
overhead and underfoot
boundless springs tightly wound
listening for the call
to unfurl forever
their lives their sole response

How come we, friends, to choose
which lucky sprigs to pluck?
Which yellow to follow,
green to deepen and grow,
branch to hold, stone to step,
thought to spill from our pen?

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, April 11, 2022

Goosebumps like speed bumps say ‘whoa, slow down,’
a little friction to protect us. 

Yet tension slows movement, growth and love,
a little oil then, to prepare us.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Brain abuzz like bursting bubbles, TV fuzz,
mind drizzle fizzles on my white hot skull.

Pent-up potential energy grows frenetic
before kinetic conversion releases my flooded creases.

Deepen the well, I tell my hungry my lungs.
Breathe in the rushing air, even as to-do cliffs steepen.

When monkey-wrenching thought-swirls take hold
unclench, unfurl, uncross, unfold.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard