Kindred Spirits (December 2015)
Been posting various poems and such lately, but this is the first in a while that really stood out to me.
Sometimes things catch you so off guard you can’t even describe them. I gave it a short.
Molehill (October 2014)
Introspection can be a tedious charm. Or charmingly tedious.
In either case it’s never the same.
Butterflies (September 2014)
Little bit of that, little bit of this.
Clair de Soir (April 2014)
Little bit of this, little bit of that.
As If You Know (January 2014)
Been a while since I posted anything I’d written.
This is based in part on Evangelion Re-Take
Whether you need to get out of your head or get into it, maybe it’s time to look a little further.
Lessons (October 2012)
This one has a bit of nostalgia all over it.
I don’t recall if I was thinking of the life of an immortal, or just end of a man’s days.
Either way–
The Spirit of Adventure (July 2012)
Not much to say on this piece.
I think people lose themselves in the world around them, and forget that they’re alive.
By Her Own Two Hands (April 2012)
This piece may seem a little harsh against religion or governments, but for those who want to understand where I’m coming from, I would ask you watch this clip of Bill Mauer’s Religulous without prejudice.
Religion and government have their strengths, but the world’s in a rough spot right now, and I don’t think enough people notice or accept responsibility because of faith in higher powers and organizations, instead of the strength of our own two hands that build the world around us.
My hope is that despite what people believe, they will recognize their own strengths, and that we will step up together to make things better.
Negro – the Dirty Color (March 2012)
I’ve never much embraced parts of my heritage, and there’s no good reason why.
It’s important to share and receive as many perspectives of life as possible, in order to understand things from more than just your side.
Quiet, Slender Keys (February 2011)
Wrote this one on a caffeine binge during night shift.
Seemed like abuse and suffering were themes that kept coming up for one reason or another, so I decided to write on them.
One of my personal favorites.
Kindred Spirits
It all happened quite by accident.
I glanced at you, and you didn’t look away.
With moonlight caught in your tangles,
I felt for a moment as though I’d never been broken.
It’s never the same and I’m never sure.
Sometimes I think it might be best if we forget before we dwell on it,
But your fingers cross mine as you call bullshit on my lies.
The two of us can’t believe a word I say.
I’ve locked myself in a guarded vault, and I cannot understand how you got in.
Even so, there’s still so much I haven’t told you.
I think I’m a bad, bad person. But you think I might be worth it.
And we’re dancing.
I can’t rest with your words so fresh on my mind,
it still begging to know why your scent–a warm bar on a cold winter’s night–won’t leave me.
Our hands meet beneath the table, your whisper stilling my heart.
Where do you take my fear?
Sometimes I wander, unable to find my way.
Trying to fix pieces that never quite fit.
You steal me away to hidden corners, secreting kisses when you think no one’s looking.
‘cause we think we’re so different from all the rest.
Sometimes it feels like running from wolves,
Seeking where once our bodies lay.
And at this moment, you think you’re alone.
But you somehow always forget–though you taught me so well: you’re bigger on the inside.
Molehill
Above the scent of freshly dug earth beneath the mud-stained autumn sky.
Right is wrong and no decision matters.
She passes the day as the day passes by, nothing better than clean air in your lungs.
Like the fleeting ecstasy of sliding your toe into a frozen summer lake the first day of July.
There’s a deeper beauty behind the careening of the violin’s bow.
Horsehair grudgingly scrapes against nylon, ever echoing its sorrows.
Worse–they only hear the music.
For just an instance, she remembers what it was to be.
Without knowing, what it is or what it was, she longs for it more than anything she’s known before.
Resting your eyes–just for a minute–in the warmth of your departed lover’s lap as your childhood puppy comes to kiss you goodnight with his fowl, dog-stink breath.
For just. one. moment.
From somewhere crunches crunch about outside the window sill.
Close enough to awkward footsteps after the first snowfall.
Like the footsteps that will follow after, if it ever really began.
At the end of the line, all that lingers is your story and how it was told.
Of your genius and missteps, your melodies and lullabies.
As if she’s trapped in a dream of herself.
Tasting the tapestry of her life as the spindle’s width thins.
When the lights rise and the orator takes the stage, the audience watches on eager for something new.
Be it a timeless tale or rhymes of unorthodoxy, anything to keep their entertainment until their entertainment runs out.
The next time your fingers graze your face–not the show you dress for the patrician and pedestrian alike, but for you, your clean face–brushing your hair aside like lost, careless threads, you’ll wonder as I will:
will you make your poem one worth telling?
Butterflies
There were words I used to hear.
In no particular language, bearing no particular form.
They weren’t even words, really.
In living so often the music is lost.
Forgetting the lake in harmony with the summer trees.
Fighting time which cannot be fought for things that cannot be won.
It’s the rising of the sun over the rising of the tide.
That morning breeze whispering with rasp as it gusts a gentle “Hello World.”
No longer any meaning to the moments when conviction turned into a thousand excuses.
An imaginary friend thought to me in a tiny little voice, “Is today your future?”
The lark that never stays but won’t ever leave.
Is there time in the minutes before dawn, when the nightmare thief arrives late once more?
The feel of graphite breaking against the page with no sharpener in sight.
It’s watching the end of the world, and wishing it well.
Clair de Soir
A key, striking a chord to unlock the door to a room never opened.
Wondering whether one can weather the weather lying just beyond the tinted pane.
Staring into the beginning of nothing, nothing remains but the beginning.
Like a map strewn with immutable steps.
Except for the very last, and the one that comes after.
Many paths lead many places, to the future, to the past, and beyond.
Only by tasting death can life’s essence become ripe.
Longing for what no longer is sates less than searching for what never was.
Embracing the Danse Macabre brings that which the lovers seek, and gives forevermore what nothing can ever take.
A key, striking a chord locks the door of a room that’s never opened.
And here you are, wondering.
Wondering whether one can weather the weather lying just beyond the tinted pane.
As If You Know
It’s as if you know.
The words to come.
Before they spread themselves across the page, for your viewing pleasure or disdain.
Whether they bring you glee, grace, or something other, they remain only words—and nothing more–
You remember the last time you felt “that way.”
Before the ending of the end, the beginning of the new beginning.
Where the old things were left for reasons we can’t remember, but the longing still remains.
So unfamiliar, and yet, it’s like the sound of your mother’s voice crooning the words, “I love you,” as your eyelids become too heavy to resist.
Sunlit afternoons that never happened; sharp grass pricking the soft of your foot, biting as it caresses.
Buried thoughts of the one day never to come—obnoxious laughter of a child discomforted by the quiet.
And yet, still one small hope lingers, of just that tiny little wish I wanted to share with you—it’s the smile that steals across your face when you can’t stop the thought.
A memory of seeing the sight for the very first time.
You could almost feel that warm, comforting breath brush against your skin again.
…Just for a moment…
And that’s all there is.
For now.
But maybe one day, just once, there could be just a little bit more.
One day.
Lessons
In a field full of green a young man lies.
At beginning of the day, how could he know that he dies?
In earlier years he indulged in every desire of the living;
but age brings wisdom to foolish eyes, and time is anything but forgiving.
Watching blossoms wilt as blossoms bloom, composing an elegy of regret in their demise;
he sees the young learn little from their elders’ passing, following in step with eager eyes.
He’s found that living is the rapture of life, to lovers not lost in their games;
but no trophy is awarded for amassing the most, without ever knowing their names.
Lyrics sway idle minds, convincing followers that musicians lead the way;
but his experience says those who love you most can see clearly where your path lay.
Reflecting on his best is the same as reflect on his worst, exhausting time on what he’s become;
losing himself in trying to win, he’s wasted the last of days that’s nearly done.
The Spirit of Adventure
Echoing quietly in the background of an old man’s life, the music box plays on.
Back to the swaying pine trees with their fresh needles blanketing the ground,
In the summer days of sweltering heat and carefree nights of doing no great things,
When just the thought of heading to the water would bring refreshment untold.
Sitting here now, older but I’m not so sure wiser, the seasons continue.
Memories buried under new ones, which themselves are overwhelmed with the nonsense of day-to-day,
What ever happened to the spirit of adventure?
The children sit in their comfortable chairs, bored with their technology and longing for something they’ve never known.
Soft pine needles breaking beneath their feet mean nothing as a warm summer breeze drifts along,
but somewhere in their minds remains a place they haven’t yet been.
Catching the scent of dirty lake water on the wind, the youngest knows there’s something they’ve forgotten.
The world may change, and we along with it,
but parts of both will endure.
Whether we can or cannot remember, or even if we never came to know it,
We shall never lose the spirit of adventure.
This I remember, as echoing quietly in the background of my last days, the music box plays on.
By Her Own Two Hands
If yesterday is any indication of the things to come, perhaps it’s better to drive on blind.
Unknowing how much further there is to go, seeing nothing may mean more than seeing a goal too far to reach.
The world of man was built by her own two hands, with no finish line in sight:
Let those hands decide when her work is done.
Music begets harmony, which was born to soothe the soul.
Deafness permits different shades of theology to stain the spirit,
And sick men war over the use of its chroma, murdering in the name of their hue over an ignorant differing appreciation of art.
Colorblind acceptance is key.
That a person can have so much that staying alive is no longer a priority is a shame.
Instead of listening, leaders’ predication of their own views becomes paramount.
Views that have never seen what I have seen, or what you have seen.
Leaders speaking over the needs of their people to assert their own will never be able to hear the knell of the funeral procession as it approaches.
Every soldier knows the will to live is better than being willing to die.
The will to live is what brings them home, and battles are not won by the dead.
But leaders, and people, live on in complacency,
Taking for granted others will die for their convenience.
Negro – the Dirty Color
It’s hard to be a pessimist in a world so bright.
Where there are so many open doors, with the sky as the limit;
You’d think it’d be easy to reach for the top.
But there’s one thing you didn’t take into account:
You’re ‘negro,’ the dirty color.
You were brought into the world ignorant of your place, with no way to know where you belong.
Your history, the part unforgotten, is made of mud.
The mud not so unlike your own skin, that they think of you as the same.
You might be a person, if only you can convince them of it.
Because you’re negro, the dirty color.
Your birth was not a blessing, but an unfortunate mistake.
One most assume will fix itself soon enough.
This because they won’t sully themselves with your niggard name.
You, whose brethren war amongst each other because they are told they have no future, and know nothing better.
How lucky you are, negro, the dirty color.
At the end of the day, you go home only to be told to go home.
Among the other slurs they save for the ones of ‘impure’ skin.
The ones who could never be like them.
They forget they’ve lived here only as long as you have, only because of you.
They forget they share your blood.
Guess that’s just how it goes when you’re negro, the dirty color.
The problem begins when you accept their lies.
That you are worth only as much as they think you are.
That you are immoral, criminal, rapist.
You needn’t prove you are “one of the good ones” just to be second-rate to them.
After all they’ve seen of themselves, they still think you’re worse.
Do not fall to denigration, negro, the dirty color.
You were the first.
You have survived everything they’ve put you through, yet still you stand tall.
Your spirit is your own, and no man may take what you are.
Though they taught you to be ashamed of your pride, stand up.
You are Negro,
But it is up to you if you shall remain “the dirty color.”
Quiet, Slender Keys
Ringing out a tune of somber score,
The piano sings a story she’s hummed a million times before.
When melody and memory so deftly intertwine,
It takes her to a place even the sacred find divine
Well after bruises and beatings no longer bring the pain,
Cold ivory remembers the promises broken time and again.
Of escape and security her sweet head dreams,
Forever wondering if this is all life means.
Shifty eyes keep shifting as they gaze across the door,
Wondering why it is her feet don’t ever hit the floor.
She can see the way and the path is clear,
But even through the violence it somehow seems safer here.
No matter how hard she tries she can’t ever seem to go,
Though whether it’s fear or love she’ll never quite know.
Her fingers glide along as she plays through her lies,
Praying to God she’ll be saved from this place before she dies.
Tomorrow will be better, someday the nightmare will end,
A miracle will come, and the world will seem right again.
Looking back at the clock, knowing he’ll be home soon once more,
The piano sings a story she’s hummed a million times before.
Bohemian Lullaby
Thinking of you, my honey bee
And how you respire so sweetly
I thought I knew just what to do,
So I marked the map and followed through,
Trudged and trudged and caught the cues,
But still my dear I couldn’t find you.
I thought you’d heard, my silly bird,
What news was on the way,
But as I came, nothing changed
And that’s why we’re here today.
I guess it’s good that I’m lost in the wood,
For in this place I’ve found a friend.
His skin is rough, and his body is tough,
But I think he’s on the mend.
My friend you see, he is a tree,
Who has had a problem or two.
He was all wrong and now his leaves are gone,
And each of us is hollow without you.
But if life is long for men who are wrong then at least one thing must be true.
For as long as live I’ll never forgive that I allowed myself to live without you.
Starlight
Night sky, sky night
Starlit, star bright.
Wishing on winds so winding they seem,
Wishing on Welkin to bring forth my dreams.
I remember you, I remember your blue,
The sky so wide my vision grew.
I can’t tell if it’s true, the sound of you,
My ears, they hear what I want them to.
But if it is and if I might,
I’d ask only to dream of you tonight.
If you could, before I go
Come see me here, so at least I’ll know.
Soon she’ll near the end of her flight,
So please I ask before Luna’s lost from sight.
City Nights
Dustless smoke circumscribes the evening clouds,
Shrouding the anticipation of the night to come.
Hot lights on a Saturday night leave heaving bosoms desperate with wonder.
The piano man practices his lost art along the glitzy sidewalks of the big city, seducing his keys for coin;
they surrender so softly to his tantalizing touch.
Inebriated explorers wander the bulwark of the running river, their gaze drawn along its careless malaise.
Always, it reflects back the lights of the scene that can only exist after dark.
The barge drifts along, with its captain standing at its edge, looking back to the vagabonds looking back to him.
Eyelines cross, and the thought lingers of who will disappear first.
Greatest of the skyscrapers scratch the city heights, standing as the crown jewels of triumph in man’s dominion over nature, yet the solemn trees watching over drunks and midnight lovers seem much taller.
Plucking vibrantly her proud strings, this guitar hero knows no songs that ever had a name.
Her tender tendrils writhe around the fret board in ecstasy of this, her feminine frame.
She’s nature’s mother now.
The List
I sat on the cold bench, waiting
Listening to the sirens go by
As I heard bystanders murmur the names of my friends
The blaring horns overhead are indistinguishable,
No doubt issuing a warning that’s far too late for some
It sounded like a whistle, something a child would sing
Harmlessly careening through the sky
It dropped itself lightly, like a football lost in flight
Before exploding at the scene
Chunks clunk clunk clunking on the roof above
Air rife with smoke and powder
Confusion with ammo crossing paths, out for blood
Looking around, taking names and making sure everyone is safe
My list seems a little bare, three lines are left blank
