Thoughts from my walk through life.
Gravel In The Air.
Around here,
there is always gravel in the air
and I am just as often
on my third cup of coffee.
In conversation,
we scrape trampled flowers
from our memories
and mold them into snow globs
with hope it might spark wonder
in the ears closest by.
Around here
there is always gravel in the air
and you are just as often
on your third cup of coffee.
We pack bags
full of memories and newly found things
just as precious
as any diamond ring,
that was tossed like it were gravel
through the air
and into our lives
where we hope
it will stay.
Every Layer.
Somedays,
I wonder
if inbetween
the curtains of your eye
and my ceaseless attempts to make you laugh,
do you fear the decay of words?
Or the windchimes growing still?
Do you fear the moon might not return
or the growth of weakeness in my hands?
Or do you dwell with higher things?
Do you relish the petricore
and gifts given to your skin?
Can you see the beauty in every layer?
Could you teach me to see it too?
For I am nearly torn in two
never more alive
never more afraid
ever more alive
ever more brave.
I am floating,
I am complete.
Wrapped in every layer,
ever more awake.
Clyfford.
I see;
trees in the breeze,
swayed by the
twilight hanging by a thread in the air
while the stars begin to wink
at all that sits below,
A cloak of blood,
and a violent mind,
A crying sun
next to a reaching daughter,
the dove
boldly diving toward it's home
just passed reality,
and
a cloud of cigarette smoke
engulfing the brain
over a conversation
which is pushing
back the darkness.
In Earnest.
In earnest,
I want to find
pulchritude.
But the days paint with
shades of gray
and cast me into
self dissection.
These knuckles run
with the waters
of my resistance,
and yet,
these walls
will never
change their color.
So,
like a comet
I will phase
through the hours
bearing hope
that one day,
I might truly
become something
or burn up along the way.
The Craftsman.
For the wooden man
to do carpentry
is a curious fate.
For him to scrape away his skin
searching for something
there within,
is he a sculpture
or a person?
He hopes his grain
will explain.
But to find it,
calls for pain
after pain
a craft he worries
won't end
until only a splinter
remains.
What my Building Hope Sounds Like From Below the Ground.
An orchestra of crickets
with accompaniment
by the locusts
who linger
in the dancing and whispering trees
of withering summer
and in the dirt,
I realize
It's still
worthwhile.
The City Mind.
Plants made of metal,
walls without a place for the sun to slip by
that it might
whisper good thoughts
to those inside
rectangular mountains,
beside which,
someone is asleep
on some man-made rock.
They are blanketed by only
the knowledge
that they
have been forgotten
or ignored.
The city mind
too many
eyes
partially blind.
Sunflowers Turned Gradients of Red.
Love seems a near apocalypse to me.
The type that no one saw coming
and will forever
change life as we know it.
It seems like a fresh piece of paper,
before the words start to tumble
and the poem could become anything.
The heart accelerates
as foolishness overtakes it with optimism.
Love is a whale,
and we are in its belly.
It is
an uncharted land
and everyone thinks they have the map,
but I think I'm lost,
and everyone I ask for directions tells me something different
then the person before them.
Love is an unutterable
and unpredictable thing,
and I think
that I
am afraid of it
now.
Still,
each night
I find myself
laying in my bed,
wondering if we're both listening
to the cry of the same
lonely train
which crashes through the night.
Richard.
Today,
I was thinking
about how nice
it would be to see you.
I could use your advice.
You lived a thousand days
and still,
in the end,
you were content
and kind.
I often wonder how you kept
your heart so soft.
Maybe,
we could stroll down the avenue,
as if we were the water of a creek
slowly finding its way down the quiet forest.
We could pause
now and again
just to admire the comfortable little homes,
and wonder
what the lives were like inside.
We could talk about the weight of living,
and I would listen to the words you chose
to share with me
as if my life was dependant
on my remembering them.
I wish you could see what I'm like now.
I'm all grown up
and I am sorry to report
I don't wear that red cape,
or the mask made of paper anymore.
I'm not sure why,
I guess my heart is just too busted up
for that type of behavior.
I wish I could ask you how to deal with heartbreak.
I wish you could teach me what you know
about being gentle
in a violent world.
Because only heros know how to do that.
When I wore those paper masks,
I was pretending to be
Batman,
or Superman
or any other number of heroes.
But,
Deep down,
I always knew
you
were the real hero.
I wish you could show me
how to be one too.
The way you use to tell me what the tools in your garage did.
See,
I've been trying
to make my cape real
ever since you had to go.
But,
most days,
I make a mess of things.
Maybe I still wear
a paper masks
after all.
Damn it,
it would be so nice to see you.
Boy.
I am a bucket of dust
I am a grocery bag filled with flowers.
Megaphones and cough drops
keep me going every day
while
memories and vacant hours
kill me along the way.
So far
I've survived these
bedhead months
and
my two left feet.
But,
at the same time,
I'm just a paperclip
on some forgotten envelope.
I'm a lemon drop candy
That's melting in the sun.
I've got patched-up dreams,
I've got shattered knees,
and
I'm never really sure of me.
I’m a paper airplane,
a bit crumpled and bent
but I'm doing my best
to find my way
in the wind.
The Midnight Paintings.
He awakens without weight,
suspended in coolness.
His gaze
is caught in the vastness above him.
Then it hits him,
the way a fly swatter greets its pray;
that is from whence he came.
His breath feels yet illusive from that free fall,
and he can't help but wonder,
what it was that robbed his lungs.
Was it the lack of control?
The fear of doom?
The Uncertainty of that which quickly approached?
And where did his lungs find stability once more?
He can feel them now,
Their expansion and contraction,
in diligent and determined succession
like the beating wings of a bird
trying to stay suspended in the air.
That's when he notices a feeling
that is yet unfamiliar to him.
It seems something like a
trickle from the skull down to the toes.
He discovers that his eyes
Are the source of the leak
and their release
reverberates through his whole being.
Is this what peace feels like?
The waves that kiss his body
seem his only tether to the earth now
and he is engulfed in the tranquility
of the mind's dispersion.
He has found himself once more,
and this finding feels much like
the warmth of an old friend
who you've not seen in years.
Suddenly,
The world seems softer.
Not kind
Or gentle,
but softer somehow
and filled with the dullness
of light filtered through the cloud.
the breeze whispers an apology then,
It's sorry for all the yelling,
and it's wondering if he might like to dance.
He would.
And he thinks he might like to stay here a while.
The Midmorning Poetry.
I think that the free fall
is the only place I feel at home.
The air doesn't lie to me here.
Instead,
it screams past my ears with vulgar honesty
and plays thief with my lungs.
Then,
I am
hurled into the lonely,
and its waters become
towering, violent, blankets around me
and under their pall my brain begins to avalanche;
Did my spine just snap?
Will I ever walk again?
Maybe it's time I give up,
stay under this bedding,
and just breathe in.
Tension.
Longing;
What a mystery of tension.
Oh, my pliant contentment.
Oh, her echoes of yearning.
It is two voices singing in harmony;
it is two contrasting colors,
it is a give and a take,
it is a mirror to the tide,
it is predictable
as the skies of my home.
Perhaps, this is my fate,
as a man who lives with one ear
tilted toward his chest.
Perhaps, I shall ever swim in uncertainty,
and pull apart at the seams,
only to find caverns underneath.
Should I embrace my disarray?
Should I leave myself unfolded?
For I am not fully realized,
and yet,
I do not lack hope.
My Bastion has Fallen.
Perhaps,
When it finally moves
The sole of my foot shall land upon untread soil.
I am hesitant these days,
anchored and yet untethered.
Maybe it is my lack of a compass,
but I find it wearing to discern
which of my actions
are
fright
and which
are
anticipation.
Still,
I have yet to forget
my name,
even in this,
the unrelenting.
Oh,
that wonder might keep its grip on my soul.
Oh,
that my voice once more might rise
like the blossoms of spring
after the bitter cold.
My Bastion has fallen.
I shall not fall with it.
The Pharisee.
I loved the letter for good reason,
we often met there.
You would kiss my eyes with your words
and you made them grow wide.
What was my medusa?
I never meant to wander.
But that's the effect of eyes gone cloudy.
My skull began to rattle from the silence
as my lungs ached for a taste of the wind.
I wonder,
Are you willing to exhume me?
Or have you had enough?
Inspire Me.
Inspire me.
Like the grass of spring breaking fresh soil.
Dance in me,
like a flame to the cold night surrounding.
I melt like snow,
that which was dry becomes soft.
I hold my breath,
wonder grips my soul.
Inspire me.
The Still and Silent Giants.
The still and silent giants
offer their looming goodbyes
under the cloak of a falling storm.
I am aware that neither words,
nor any work of the hand,
is capable
of expressing
that which our eyes and heart
should choose to behold.
So perhaps,
we create in vain.
Perhaps,
we are ever grasping
at that which
captivates,
yet,
illudes us.
But what can one do
but overflow?
When stilled by that
which is indescribable,
I presume
one finds they cannot
withhold
that which has been
poured into them,
and then,
spills out.