Sunday, February 4, 2024

wasteland


I watch a video of everyone stopping to watch a kid play piano in a crowded airport 

And do you ever think it is a miracle 

That any of us got up out of bed


There are a billion and one things 

That could go wrong today 

And nothing to assure us it won’t 


Can you believe we still look at the sky 

And the light on the sheets 

And talk about the new episode of our favorite tv show coming out 


How we look each other in the eye

And don’t forget to say goodbye 

And have guest rooms for people to stay the night 


How we dare to hope we might get better than what we fear we might deserve

For maybe even one more day


And another and after that who knows? 


I watch us all go, smiling,

Fighting our brave little battles

Making all the difference in the world 


We hope for water to flow

Out of the stone, 

On a fool’s errand to find joy in a wasteland


And yet look, again,

There is more than enough 



— olivia gwyn





Wednesday, November 8, 2023

burial




I get on a plane
To the other side of the world
And something touches me 
On the inside 
When the recording says—

“Be sure to adjust your own mask
Before helping others.”

That we humans saw fit
That we needed this reminder
In case of life or death 
Every time we get on a plane 

While in another plane
Bombs are being dropped on homes
And hospitals full of people 
Just trying to make it another day

Just trying to give their kids
A life in this impossible world
That keeps showing them
Despite their best efforts that
They don’t matter enough 

We watch quiet from our 
White washed coffins
While they dig unmarked graves
For unrecognizable human bodies 
For their friends and sisters and babies

We turn on our white noise fans
In our white walled apartments 
That we are not afraid of burying us alive 

We wash our kids white feet 
And don’t let them see the news

And who do we think we are
That we deserve any better
That we have anywhere to call home
That we have not been left alone 

And who the hell do we think we are
To say they don’t matter enough?

This too is an unmarked grave, 
A death, not worthy of burial

— olivia gwyn

Sunday, August 13, 2023

rocky shore


It’s the way that you are always coming home
To me and I to you

It’s the way you are gentle with me and it is music 
To my ears the way you come to me 

Like the ripples on the lake to the shore, relentlessly, easily, 
Like you’d do it till the water runs out

Till I am worn down by the kiss of your lips
On my rocky shore 


— olivia gwyn