What Sitting Here Can Do

It goes like this. Scrolling along, I notice no poems have been posted here since last July 2025. I have been depressed. This is what the debris from depression can look like, meaningful things left unattended. They pile up.

So I decide to write a poem right here, right now. 

Drenched in airless thought 

where laces always unravel,

a special heart dance

clears my shoreline of grief

and whatever else has 

accumulated.

The steps are my choice,

not the phantom looming.

A toe cramp waves at me

as I sit in silence.

I imagine it tells me,

We have the nerve to

to move on our own.

Amusing me

is now relegated

to my big toe. 

M. Flannery

15 October 2025

Getting the Drift

skipping around in the sunshine

scrapes sand scratchy beats

against the sole of my memory

the miles we trod,

with the weight

of a brain stuffed with thinking,

leaves only a scrap of laughter

on the bus stop bench

more bass than treble

his voice needs that much

adjustment

tell him yourself

I have skips to count

and preserve 

somehow

without telling myself

old shoes sound better

on swept pavement

M. Flannery

July 2025

Gravel Paths

Gravel lines the paths

of my neurons.

texture organic, it sounds

as if my woes

are cracking out

of speckled memory eggs.

some of the past

will cackle right away

while others will sway

to the smile melody

dancing on my lips.

my belly brain cupboard

is sorted, can to box,

plastic to tin.

silence in the dark,

the unfolding of me 

into this day,

drags thoughts

into a new rhythm. 

I know that now,

there are two aitches

in rhythm.

M. Flannery

June 2025

~~~~~~~~~~~