Impediments

You have yet to live

until you’ve understood

the way to live without.

Mystery’s never answered

without a query.

Note Arthur Conan Doyle’s

punctuation. One key on

his Underwood

worn the most.

 

He said a blind man

sat beside him, read his every

line as he was typing.

Recognized the patterns

of the strokes. The sound of

40 gunshots. Able to solve

each case—before Holmes had

scribbled a shortlist

in his head.

 

You ask me why the

sightless shut their eyes

before they sleep.

I’ve learned to slay

a riddle with a riddle—

 

Barber’s Adagio, for instance—

how the deaf will

well their tears

at the surge of strings,

know of its cracking

pith.

 

An aphonic

says I love you

as she dies—as though she’s

saved her voice

for only this.

 

If you had an hour in

which to run

and not be wheeled?

To whom would you

finally leap?

 

Take the hand

you’d never touch. Not mine,

but the man in Corpus Christi

swaying limply from a bough—

prosthetics which are propped

against the trunk—freely

kicking his stumps

above the earth. Figure

if he really longs for death.

Or craves to dance the

mambo in the only way

that’s left him.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

November 1, 2026

photograph: Michael Terrace

On Our Jubilee

At this stage, I cannot give you

chocolates in our abode.

They would go fondue

in a matter of minutes—

the apartment at 92 degrees.

Our matching

fuchsia sweaters? Swollen

at the waist, like a pair of

stretched balloons, pregnant

with the air. My belt has

snapped again. Now everyone

thinks I’m Amish in suspenders.

My strawhat hardly helps.

 

Blossoms would

simply slump

within their vase,

like you by the end of

cribbage. At least I

stay awake, stroke your thinning

hair as you retire. But still

you’re humming You Don’t Bring Me

Flowers in a passive-aggressive

way.

 

Our bed springs

are like new. Have yet

to kangaroo. Sweep you

off your feet? That was pre-Yahoo

chat. The days of wine &

mullets. Ozempic’s not the same.

 

What I can do, is take our corn broom

to the kitchen, clean the

floor of crumbs 

I couldn’t bend and toss away;

spare you from the pain.

 

Our cellophane's

now for noses

not for roses. Your lipstick

doesn’t recognize my face—

as if a mugger in a

copshop line. Criminals

look alike when they

are pruned. Pick the raisin

from the bowl that did the deed.

 

Our evenings? Would rival

Rip Van Winkle’s.

Watching the wallpaper

fade is about as Indiana

Jones as we can get.

 

But there’s still a single

glass upon the counter—

there to serve us both—

 

this exchanging of our germs,

without wince or hesitation.

Like the time we traded

dentures, laughed ourselves

to sleep. Silly, hopeless

romantics that we are.

 

Andreas Gripp

October 31, 2026

photograph: Dunca Daniel / Dreamstime 

Terra

Then the LORD God formed a man

from the dust of the ground

—Genesis 2:7

 

The ground

is the humblest

of creation. We give it no

lauds or praise. It drinks

decomposition. Feeds on

grisly waste. Gods would

deign to dwell; it’s why the sky

is holy.

 

It gets no gratitude.

We curse the way it

stains our blues & whites.

Belittle its worth—call it

dirt and grime.

 

We rid it of the ice—

not so it may breathe,

but we won’t slip & topple.

 

It gets a once-in-a-lifetime

kiss—only when we realize

it’s been missed. Has housed

our deep foundations.

Swallowed our myriad

dead.

 

It gifts us gravity—

then keeps us

against our will.

What a dichotomous

creature. Locked in

loneliness; the longsuffering of

its love; our boots which

trek its spine—hunched to lift us up

upon its shoulders

(for its hills would span to

heaven if they could)—

 

a father with a daughter

on his delts; her breath

upon his nape,

 

her fingers unfurled

to snatch a buoyant cloud—

as though the seed of weed,

as though it held a wish,

 

the answer to

an aberrant prayer.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

October 29, 2026

photograph: JM Paget / Dreamstime 

Eternity

Forever is not a diamond.

It’s an airy, plastic knickknack

from a box of Cracker Jack.

 

One year, there was a baking

powder powered submarine.

Of course, the powder wasn’t

included. But love is not endowed

within a ring. That part’s

up to you.

 

I’ll refrain from the

chemistry lesson. The buoyancy of foam.

The bubbles of

CO₂. The bobbing up & down—

the spout of a bargain

beluga that’s held its

breath.

 

I’ll spare you how I

snuck into the pantry—

not for cookies but for Magic.

They’ve yet to change their label—

in 130 years. They say if it ain’t

 

broke, then hold it upside down:

shake its mage’s

secrets of endurance.

Let it know what it’s like to be salt.

It’s not as vegan as we think.

Go ahead & ask the

wife of Lot—whose celery

stayed unseasoned

till his very end of days.

 

Our wedding bands are claddaghs.

It’s not that we'd cheaped out.

It’s just mining is a heartless liar.

The trees attest to this.

Behold their amputations

fore they’re felled. That is hardly love.

 

Ours is a Celtic knot. Alpha without

Omega. Mine is fused to the

foundation of my finger. Even pumice

can’t scrub it loose. I like to feign

it’s you and not my ever-

burgeonation.

 

Forever’s never proffered

to the miners. The ones

who slog the hardest get the least.

Such is the rule of the world.

See it in their squints

as they ascend to greet the surface—

the sun a blinding gem. The out-of-reach

of light. It may as well be the

fraud you flung in the sea

from an early suitor. How it only

stayed afloat & wouldn’t sink,

 

encircled by the gull who

must have marvelled, dove into

the ripple of this buffed & tawdry fish.

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

October 27, 2026

photograph: WorthPoint

Falling Back

I loathe this time of year.

You get an extra hour’s

sleep. That hardly atones for

a sun clocking out at

4:44 pm. And everyone’s

falling forward when they trip.

Your shitty little ditty to

remember has been wrong.

 

This gift of 60 minutes

comes with strings:

my conscience is

a brutal, drilling sergeant—

not Schultz & apple strudel.

It will hardly let me slumber

my way to 9:30 Cap’n Crunch.

 

It’s an hour to live again—

make up for my sloth upon

the sofa; scrolling through a

kitten cornucopia, the sea of

Trump fiascos, the latest

midnight brawl at

Waffle House.

 

This year it is different.

I’ll serve a royal breakfast

for the unhoused souls on Main;

dialing Musk and Bibi, able

at last to convince them  

 

genocide’s so passé.

I will jump in the ring

with Fury, give my millions

to the Lord. He gets it—

could have used one

less tortured hour at Golgotha.

 

I will pen an anthem

for the world—

sung in the key of love;

hip-hop to a cello,

the harpist strumming KISS;

with Blind Bobby Seyfferth

 

ripping off his shades, able to see

the blues, the sun a lagging child

skipping a smidgen behind the times.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

October 25, 2026

photograph: SB Arts Media / Adobe Stock 

Sick Day

The worst thing you can do

is murmur your little secrets to

the Wind.

 

It gave away my “illness”

to the principal

by his window—my kite became

a chopper

flashing lights into his office.

Despite my pleading

keep it below the trees.

 

I told its fickle bluster

I was going for the bleachers—

a cannon shot

beyond the outfield fence. Not only

did it signal to the catcher—

the swing I had in mind—

it began to howl

in the opposite direction—

the shortstop

had a breeze

with the stunted pop-up.

 

It promised to keep my

hair in place

when I confessed my plan

to perm. It’s a gossiping

little shit

throughout the halls. I can

still hear hey sheepdog!—

 

to this very day.

And now it begs to trust it,

asking the reason why

I’m traipsing up to Kellie’s—

with kaleidoscopic

blooms—that would shame

the coat of Joseph, a drunken

Dublin rainbow, or even a

peacock’s plumes;

 

my petals swirling madly

before I make it to her porch;

a dust devil—daubing the sight

of all—my lamenting why it couldn’t

hold its breath a minute longer,

just had to spring the zipper,

open its big fat

fucking mouth.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

October 22, 2023  

photograph: Tom Werner / Getty Images