Such short days lately and deep darkness. I hope this finds you finding your inner light.

Mosh Pit

I think of it sometimes,
when my adolescent son and I
are going angry at it.

I crave punk rockers,
the threat of spilt beer,
combat boots, the smell

of hairspray, clove cigarettes.
It was 1985, I was seventeen.
There was mostly
mostly

a civility to the violence,
it was chaos contained,
they’d let the girls in sometimes.

Around and around we stomped and pushed,
the whirling dervish of slight danger,
soothed something.

Bands like Black Flag and Suicidal Tendencies
screamed from the stage in downtown Sacramento,
I adored and feared them all.

Bare chests, black eyeliner
a place for anarchy and angst,
It felt to so good to knock against,

to raise my fists with the others
and know when the music stopped
it would be over.