Faceless

I’ve found myself two-faced
With scars on both sides
Things I wish I could’ve erased
Before I put them in these lies
Maybe it’s really for the better
If I just learn to live with it
But sometimes people deserve to-the-letter
Honesty, so here’s what I’ll admit

I’m not a castle made of rock
Meditating in the dark
With no personality, no time to talk
Aside from a snide remark
I don’t just breath tetrameter
Out of nowhere onto the page
Like some forlorn foghorn Demeter
When I do, I still don’t deserve praise

I don’t do self-deprecation
As a placeholder for humble
When you ask for explanation
There’s a reason why I mumble
But that doesn’t mean I dreaming
This doesn’t have to be defining
Sometimes there is no meaning
For why a spark isn’t shining

I am not some fragile shale
Waiting to burst into dust
A drunk dizzy broken pale
Excuse for mistrust
I’m not gyro-unstable
I won’t break at touch of song
My face may be mostly fable
But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong

I don’t want to be exulted
Excuse the lesson I expected
I’ve just never been so insulted
By somebody I’ve respected
And I’m no extro-introvert
Talking loud, a smile I’m feigning
Because these groupings I invert
And this pretend is all but draining

So who am I? I am faceless.
These changes never call it quits
Half the time I feel so nameless
Days when neither truly fits
And I’m not here in denial
This isn’t me complaining
Let’s just call it a mistrial
I’m a person, not a painting

Staring at this scarlet sun
I can’t but think of you
Worry that, like others, it’s undone
A no-such-thing-as-true
I fear, when I’m just a stone
You’ll read it and you’ll see
That’s all you’ve ever known
Or will ever see of me.

Broken Bands in Misty Grove

                                      In a breezy forest town

A woman, young, hears chiming grace

                                      Church bells ring a lovely sound

In what was once an empty place.

                                      People here, they keep their own and

Here is where she starts to learn

                                      None are willing to expand

How broken bands and love can turn

                                      To hate the way an oak tree grows.

The key to how a heart is lost,

                                      Hanging in a misty grove —

Why the past should not be crossed

                                      It waves its branches all away

From the form she can’t ignore

                                      Like any normal summer day

A love can die from little more.

 

 

 

READ THIS FIRST!

In case you didn’t read my long spiel of a previous post (which is likely, and also here, if you happen to be interested), this poem is called a double exposure.  Long story short, here is how you read the poem:  you read the bold-faced lines together for the first poem.  Next, you read the regular type-faced lines together for a second poem.  After that, read all of the lines together for a new, third poem.  There you go.

Fires That Burn

I like to walk as the rain falls by
I’ve said this many times before
To family, friends, the darkening sky
My hallway and bedroom door

It gives me time to reflect on things
As I wade through the raindrops sleek
They hit me like thousands of tiny stings
As they slide down along my cheek

And I’ve found that this is parallel
To the words that I pen out at night
How I shape them into the stories I tell
When the candlelight flickers just right

For these are reflections of what I can find
In my head: what I feel is here
But like all mirrors, please keep in mind
Things are different than they appear

These lines, they are written in marker
But they aren’t written permanently
As sometimes a sunset seems darker
Than it can ever really be

It might appear that my words are the truth
But truth can be relative
It makes something more than the sum of my youth
But it’s not more than I can give

I’m not actually beaten with blinding stress
I don’t just stand there filled up with dread
True, these words don’t turn off the darkness
They turn on a light instead

And for the ones left wondering, please learn
This is life; I can take the hit
These lines are just the fires that burn
And the ones that were never lit

If it needs to be told, I’ll tell it flat
There is no shame or sorrow in that

Giving Up

A blank page is the only
Constant in my life these days
And I’m tortured by the ways
In which a steel door is different
From a broken heart
But both close so smoothly
And faster than you’d think

I know this, but I can’t grasp the concept
Because when I try, I start to shrink
From the sight of ink on paper,
Paper-thin memories seep through
Like origami during Sunday school
Drowning out the noise with a careful fold

I know what this is
It’s more than what I’m told
That I tell myself the moment
Before, or rather, after, I give up

That’s what I’m doing now
And it’s what I’ll do tomorrow
Until my hand cramps
And I need a new ruled sheet to write on

My eyes stare fire through, scorching the counter
Every night around eight
Though no words will come out
I go to sleep despondent, full of doubt

And awaken to find a new stanza on my desk
I don’t know who writes them
But if I had to take a guess
I’d say it’s the someone I used to be
Quiet, timid, yet somehow carefree
Lost in the labyrinth two years ago
Where he went, I do not know

And I never went looking
Because that place, it stares back
And I’m too busy with thinking and blinking for that
Collecting old books, the odd panic attack
To do much more than write today
He’s better off on his own anyway

I can’t help wondering if that’s the truth
Or even just a fraction
Because when you are a mess like me
Everything tends to be a distraction

I know this is too, but I can’t stop myself
And that’s what I’m trying to get at
I know that things tend to go from bad to worse
But you can’t let your problems gather dust on a shelf

Blank pages happen
You can find comfort in the absence
Or you can create your own words
And maybe they will fix all the broken things inside of you

Maybe someday they’ll do that for me
But I’ve always heard that someday is a lifetime away
So here, today, I’ve decided I’m giving up
All the reasons I have for how
I stare at the page with such fury
And so much sorrow

I don’t know if it will matter tomorrow
But it’s all that matters now

Rhythm of Rain

On nights like this I can’t help looking up
As I’m sitting outside, just ready
To run, should these clouds so heavy
Burst like torpedoes aimed at the sun

The color of the sky is any-minute-now
With a subtle shade of stay-inside
And yet all of me yearns to remain seated
As the people around me begin to fade

Because there is peace in the catcalls of thunder
And solace in the rhythm of rain
Lightning shimmers, showing off in the distance
The horizon being ripped in twain

I can feel it around me; excited
It’s a train wreck and all are invited

 

 

 

Oh, look, another sonnet.  About nature.  I know it’s a bit unoriginal, given the last couple of poems I’ve put up.  Sorry about that.  I’m finding that I have just as little time for writing now that I’m working more over the summer as in the spring.  Given a little preparation, I hope to turn that around next month.  We shall see….

Sunset’s Farewell

Copper clouds
Traced with a silver lining
Forged from thouands of fluffy dreams
Which float atop hot air
Like balloons on a clear summer night
So fair

They mingle with the dusk colors, proud it seems
Of this canopy of lights, blinding
The wonder of any onlooker
And of the tinge of royal in crimson
Always binding to a sunset’s farewell

In this sight, I light a candle
For all those dreams still drifting in the dark
Lost by the winds of unnatural breeze
Or caught like a kite where dead ones dwell

The glory of shimmering sunlight
Is based on the binds of the broken
Who rarely get their stories told

When they die, I hope they become stars
Guides who can shine when the sun itself is gone

Let them show us a glimmer greater than gold

Each Day In August

Shaded eyes lounging in lazy heat
Squinting at monarchs on the wind floating by
A flutter of small twitching children’s feet
A five-second chase under cloudless sky

It’s a season for half-broken fan blades
Lavender sunshine and birthday cake Sundays
Right now, the only currency is shade
And quarters for eight-year-old lemonade craze

The sunshine gleams on a familiar breeze
Reflecting the color of grass so green
It hangs like patches on thickets of trees
While a phantom hum buzzes on scene

And as campsites shiver in the lukewarm nights
A wooden-based mountain sits, pining for fire
A dangerous fascinate life made of lights
Young faces will circle to older eyes’ ire

And it’s not just the draw of moth to flame
Or that fire licking clouds is an always surprise
It’s the wonder that a bonfire of such great fame
Came from a spark of fingernail size

These are the feelings that summertime makes
Cause while spring is the realm of living rebirth
And autumn pours days out like a fine wine
Summer is the joy of life for life’s sake
It’s a singular freedom, for what it’s worth
And that’s why it hurts when we cross that line

Just don’t let this privilege overextend
As each day in August will come to an end

A Glass of Water

I hear the rain
Dripping from the top
Of the roof of my apartment
To hang on the corner

Just outside my point of view
As I sit behind an eighth of glass
Listening as a river of tears tap the frame
And punish the sidewalk and grass below

I think I see figures outside
Obscured by the window’s sweat
And the color of my breath
They’re running around, soaking wet,

Trying to find a ready escape
From a legion of solo circles
Ovals, probably, though raindrops
Are always circles to me

The collective pounding of the ground
Bursts through my eardrums
Like bare footsteps running
Across a sea of concrete

Its overwhelming quiet heralds
My eye’s attention to the image
Of a single crescent-shaped drop
Struggling to the bottom

It races down the pain
In spite of certain death below
And it makes me wonder: What,
Of all this, does a raindrop know?

The raindrop tumbles down, excited
Collides with a couple, but still carries on
Racing generations of liquid-
Shaped sunlight, soon to be gone

And thunder screams in the background dread
It roars like lions to a rushing slaughter,
Calls blurry soldiers made of water
To follow their happy dead

Lightning strikes the ground nearby
And in that flash of light
The raindrop disappears
As if it never was in sight

 

 

I thought it was about time I put something up. I’ve been spending the last few weeks finishing up my class. It’s all over now, so something resembling a normal schedule should resume. I think.

Asphodel

I fell in love with you not long after we met
Maybe love is too strong of a word
It’s more like I liked how your head bobs to music
I can’t hear or understand

And how the words you speak glow
With a flavor I’ve only felt during nights
When a lack of sleep was the only thing keeping me awake

I’ve always thought of you as a wisp of smoke
A cloud hanging overhead that I can’t reach no matter how high I jump
And your thoughts are a pear millimeters from my fingertips
Filled with pride and pomegranate seeds

And the promise of dawn
With a spirit so galloping that the King
Of the Underworld couldn’t keep you

And that’s where we stand
Across the room from one another
A distance spanned only by Greek ships
And douchebags driving by midnight

Your hair is a mountaintop my fingers could get lost in
If only they packed enough water for the trip
The slightest laughter in your smile would make Aphrodite frown
And your eyes make me want to fly into the sun
All around, without wings

I can’t whisper enough wishes to define you
I can only hope to be struck dumb and blue
Then, I would have the words

But your mind’s hue is the color of unintentional
And I’m not sure my small eyes can handle the light
Or see the ball of thread rolling on the floor
Attached to nothing at all

What I’m saying is
My feelings for you are Trojan Horse subtle
While you are Cassandra in the rain
And it keeps me out of myself,

Tears me away from the set of mirrors I keep in my room
Refracting my everything
And brings me out into the sunrise
Removing the shine from the outside

And now, around me, the world groans and leans in
Squinting at the dew that hangs on early grass
Trying to see what’s inside

And I think I love you for that more than anything

Beneath the Skies

Down the street sings a harmony
“The ice-cream man!” cries Isabella
As she puts her dust colored child-
Like feet on her tricycle. A storm
Sits in the sky. It will run past
This town of streetlamps and quiet.

Years later, in-between all of the quiet
College library shelves, there lofts a harmony
Of wooden table carved graffiti past.
And there, reading, sits Isabella
A book about paradise, the mad ones, and storms
Before drifting away like a child.

Now older, she fears the child
That stands inside of her quite
Lovely forming life, a storm
Built to disrupt harmony.
And so sighs Isabella;
A song about everything past

Brings the images of the past
Which mirror-reflects as a small child
Who hears the cry of Isabella.
Through the urban quiet
A mother’s harmony
Calls her in from the storm.

When the girl enters, storms
Around the house, past
Her mother, the dis-harmony
Of a disappointed child
Breaks the broken-heart and quiet
Ears of Isabella.

Then walks Isabella
To break the tantrum storm
Of a girl, silent, quiet
Fuming, but mother walking past
Arms around her quells the child,
The only-ever-harmony.

Is a bell a harmony
A chime in the quiet of the past
A storm within a child?

 

 

 

Alright, sorry about my prolonged absence.  This class is taking up most of my time, and work is taking up the rest.  As I hinted earlier, this poem isn’t even a new one: I wrote it during the same time, and for the same college class, as most of my other form-ish poems.  It’s the last holdout, I think; at least, it’s the last publishable one.  And that’s because, until now, I really didn’t like it.

That’s my own fault.  I originally tried to make this poem a normal sestina, with all of the words repeating while also keeping all of the lines of similar length.  It’s like trying to write an essay underwater; it’s too much of a struggle with no real payoff.

So, I’ve spent the last day or so rewriting this to make it work.  I think I did okay.  It’s at least readable now.  I added a couple of book references as well, try to spot them (Google might help; they’re a bit obscure).  You know, that’s something I’ve always found hilarious.  In film, you aren’t supposed to heavily reference or show a better movie in your movie.  In poetry?  That’s just intertextuality!

Anyway, sestinas are difficult to write, and they confine you in too specific of a way for you to have any fun.  At least, that’s my experience with this poem.  I’d avoid using it unless you really like confining forms or you really want a challenge.

What else?  I’m halfway finished with this spanish course, so I’ll try to get content running at a smoother pace in the meantime.  After that, well… let’s just say that I have some plans for the next two and a half months.  That’s all!