ronny

i’m so happy and i’m so peaceful, and the world is full of suffering. i wake up every morning and sit quietly with my eyes closed for 30 minutes, trying to do nothing but be present. happy and peaceful in the present moment. a million thoughts crowd in, but i smile and thank myself for trying anyway. i walk my dog to the park and this makes us both happy, she because she can relieve herself, me because the sweeping beauty of the bay. here is a gorgeous and fit young person on their morning run. here is someone who hasn’t bathed in months, maybe years, muttering to themselves about “pork futures”—people love bacon, he reasons to himself, so pork futures are always a safe bet. the sun is warm, the breeze is cool, everything is perfect. nothing is perfect, everyone is suffering. a joyous woman in her late 30s just died, leaving behind two children and a bewildered community—why her? i am alive, i am breathing and trying to be grateful for the fact that i am breathing, i am alive. i have my parents, but for how long? i have my dog, but for how long? i have my friends, but for how long? i have my life and breath, but for how long? right now, right here. it’s so beautiful, everything is so beautiful. everything is so tragic, it’s so tragic. a good friend’s good friend just hung himself; his son found him. i take a sip of wine. i don’t cry. my heart is beating. i love my daughter. i don’t have a human daughter and don’t know what that’s like, but i love my canine daughter. i love my niece and nephew. i love that they are alive, i love that they are breathing. i love that you are alive, that you are breathing, that you are even still reading this. respond to this, send me a sign of life. i would love it because it would be a reminder that you are alive, that you are breathing. in this present moment. i talked to a friend this week: she is going through a very scare health scare, but she feels calm and fearless. i love her. i talked to a friend this week: she wants me to edit her collection of poetry about the times when she was a sweet young thing. i love her. i talked to a friend this week: seemingly out of nowhere, she told me she was depressed, and collapsed into my arms, crying. i love her. i talked to a friend this week: she held my hand while we listened to Lennon and McCartney in HiFi. i love her. people say that’s love, people say that’s not love. people say a lot of things. i love them all, and i see them suffering. the world says so much, and it’s full of suffering. in this moment, i am grateful to see it all so clearly. i am grateful that i can even see at all. i love you.

OBIT [DRAFT]

R—— K—— died today. He was born on May 26, 1988 in Daly City. His Arizonan father worked as a database administrator for a defense and aerospace manufacturer and his Nicaraguan mother, after a few years at home, worked for the airlines. R—— learned to read at an early age thanks to guidance from his older brother B——, and his love for reading and writing helped him regularly perform at the top of his class.

After graduating from Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, R—— attended Pomona College in southern California. There he met many lifelong friends, including those he met during a semester abroad in Athens, Greece. With a B.A. in English and minor in Computer Science, he entered the workforce as a tech blogger before moving across a variety of in-house tech marketing roles focused on social media, public relations, corporate communications, copywriting, design, and brand.

In 2015, R—— quit his job and walked across America from New York City to San Francisco with his then-girlfriend N—— J——, who he married in 2017. They divorced after 10 years together, and he lived nomadically for a year and a half before settling back down in San Franicsco. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, R—— founded W—— C—— LLC alongside his partner E—— E—— with the mission of exploring and connecting the Bay Area music community.

He is survived by his dog T—— and his niblings J—— and L——.

LINES WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF R— LEAVING WILLOW & OAK

i love you and the frogs outside are chirping. i am very clearly in love with you, and also, wondering: do frogs chirp?

light on transitions

the world is full of puppies and genocide and what else? the spectrum, infinite nothingness exploding into unfathomable visions of light and sound, prismatic spinning tops which sometimes bear witness to life and death— puppies and genocide.

the world is full of rape and bliss, murder and harmony, rage and ecstasy, peace and annihilation. at birth

we are thrust into the world sopping wet and sobbing, blinded by the transition, weighed down by gravity, into the hands of some stranger, and so. how long do you get? moments, decades in the hands of strangers, some of whom you may come to love and leave and love and leave and love until the day you’re thrust again, desiccated and drab in your fashion, lightly into the void. you transition into death, you transition into life, and how? suddenly

with instant remembrance of a puppy’s eyes, the eyes of a child no longer living torn to bits by profit and greed and morality, assumed. like a magnet drawn to itself, blazing heat and slicing cold ice— one, the same— the highest height, a profound abyss— the brightest light, blinding— the deepest orgasm, a beheading— the largest, most vicious lie, someone’s truth. here is mine:

puppies exist, and wolves too.

LIKE THE FARM

a seed an egg the sun silty clay and worms—

what isn’t like the farm?

everything starts small shrouded perhaps in the billowy powder blue grey fog of the headlands and ends

later

a golden glowing orb, sizzling squawk and song, lisianthus the size of a human heart, dahlias like slow motion fireworks, tulips big and bodacious, standing proud pedaling shimmering radiating life

like

thyme sown on a warm spring day, perennially wild and free, offering oil essential in the bright light madness of midsummer somewhere between the bloom and the harvest the sale and the slaughter the sweat and the smile when one asks “are my hands still on the wheel?” unbelievably they are we drive forward counting the days counting counting counting counting the deficit of time, of money counting the surplus of time, of money counting the wealth of your presence counting always because always i am in the business of you—

and at the equinox we can pause and breathe finally something like relief in the company of family and friends gathered round like a wreath, which is many in one, like this place we nurture, which is many in one, like how the water of two oceans poured together is truthfully one ocean reuniting with itself—

a wave a wave a seed an egg the sun silty clay and worms—

what isn’t like the farm?

when the day is equal to the night when a man is equal to a woman in wondering at their place in this transition between planes, geometric centers, and discs with feet planted firmly in the dirt, hard before the rain, fingers encrusted with faith in time, boots muddy in expectation of a blossom, soil everywhere signaling innumerable blessings, flesh of flower and animal, our selves becoming

in truth

one body breathing in love inextricable.

sip this broth and kiss— old souls sighing lavender pleasure poetry.

a message to a teacher from childhood

Dear Mrs. Heenan, Thank you for letting me read the dictionary.

home sweet home

hat hung on a hook a breeze thru the clouds, feet up eyes closed and a kiss.

guilty pleasures

no guilty pleasures— only gilded pleasures, joy blazoned in gold, fire.

ocean

a fountain of ink spills blissful blind on the page sea of poetry.