Works of verse
Love is the warmest breeze—
Sailing with the deepest breath
Tugging at the summer dress
And it’s not that
the dress lies flat on my knees;
Or that the sail doesn’t catch a breeze
Because I’ll tell you
My summer dress has been tugged at last
And the sail is hanging at half mast
You’re not a zombie. You toke it and you smoke it and you drink it and you
think it, think things like the zombies in the songs about people like you.
But you don’t look like them; you can’t be like them. You hang with your
non-zombie friends who are just like you but really not like you, who talk
like you and walk like you. You and your non-zombie friends, who when we
talk about what you do and why you do you deny you do at all. I’m sober,
you say as you walk up to one of non-zombie friends with a 20-dollar bill in
your hands, and I sit there and don’t think I’m stupid like you. You who is
so smart and so sweet and so caring and so stupid as to throw everything
else away for the high because you like the high and your friends like the
high and why not get high? Why not get high? But hey, if you don’t want to
it’s cool because I kinda like you even though you know you are lying and
you want me to be like you so you don’t have to throw me away too. I wish I
could be like you, but I won’t throw me away for you because even though I
like you I like me too. You and your non-zombie friends. You lead such
normal lives, you fool everyone by looking so damned normal, and you do it
on purpose so you do I know you do. Maybe you are normal, because isn’t
normal what the majority’s doing? Maybe everyone’s used to everyone because
everyone and their mother does it too, they toke it and smoke it, drink it
and think it those thoughts just like you, they dress like you get in to
messes like you skip their classes like you but they’re not like you. They’
re not like you. And anymore you’re not like you either. You wear the mask
you and your friends like to share, and I put up my barriers like I do when
I don’t trust you but I do trust you, when you’re you. But you’re not
because you’re like your non-zombie friends now, having fun like they do but
we had fun too, you know. We had fun when you were you. I’ll make you a
deal. Don’t be like me and I won’t be like you and that’s OK so long as you’re
like you, OK? Just so long as you’re really you.
My face is hot but my feet are cold.
I’m choking on the emotion
I won’t let myself feel,
Wishing my mother was here,
That I had a father to speak of.
Because one is not two.
I hate that I’ll remember seventeen like this:
Responsible and overwhelmed;
Dying and living each minute.
Wanting to do nothing,
while knowing there is so much left to be done.
I’m overwhelmed and there is too much,
she says.
She is the me looking back and caring.
And I cry.
You’ve taken me for the fool again—why don’t I ever learn?
Lessons taught and lessons learned haven’t amounted to anything
Why do I let you walk all over me?
Sometimes the good outweighs the bad,
But when it’s all said and done I’ve cried more than I’ve smiled
Every minute that my eyes are open is a minute that I’m breathing for you
God, sometimes the pain is so intense I can’t breathe
God, sometimes the love is so intense I can’t leave
But I need to know what to do
I’ve never been good with words, but it seems you’re good with lies.
Is there anything as eternity?
When time promises it will never die.
But time with no end
Is time with no beginning…
Has time been living for eternity too?
I am told
That before the birth of the universe
There was no space.
But was there time?
And what did the clock measure,
When there was nothing?
I am told
That there is something like infinity,
The truth of which I can well believe.
But has the pendulum been
Swinging before creation?
Was there ever
Anything as eternity?
I could fill each line
Every single blank space
In the entire world
Force it upon people
“Poetry. It’s poetry. I’m a poet”
I would say haughtily
And it wouldn’t mean anything
I could sit and spew words in ink
Wind Elephant Moon Tattoo
And insist that it’s poignant
Only me and the “ignorant”
Would know I’m full of shit
And that I don’t say anything
Everything is disposable
Why should words be different?
I’m not sure, but in rare cases
They are different
And effecting
And altering
These words aren’t
But when it burns right
And your mind makes it to the page
It is—in a way no one can explain.
The reality of solitude
Is simple and obvious
Though entirely unspoken
But the practice
The goddamned practice
Is another issue completely
Best described as blurry
And constantly fluctuating.
If we’re as singular as evidence shows
Why are there so many people?
It seems that despite every yin
Having a yang
There is no balance in people:
When one is needed
They’re in hibernation
(or their souls at least)
And when all that’s desired
Is peace and time to sift through
Our individual insanity
You’re swamped by insipid people
Wanting from you
What they don’t give in return
I see the bud slowly opening
Its pale petals to the sky.
The sun welcomes it with its warmth—
Warmth of love.
And life garlands it with pearls of dew.
The flower sways gently in the breeze—
Breeze of comfort.
It nestles in the safety of the leaves,
Inconspicuous—but beautiful.
The breeze builds to a gale,
Rocking the frail stem.
But the flower stands still,
Fighting with courage,
For it wants to live to see life,
To be greeted by the sun every day,
To sleep under the night’s stars,
To lend nectar to the bees,
To do what it can for the earth’s peace.
To die, only when the petals
Shrink to nothingness.
I see God’s every creature as that flower,
Fighting to live in a cruel world.
Yet longing to give and help,
Longing for joy—and peace.
Every heart is a soldier,
And a beautiful flower.
A flower that will give
Its radiance to the world.
A flower that wants to live,
Not simply survive.
how can I not have known you
how can I have not seen you
did you hide from my prying eyes every day
were you smiling as I walked by oblivious to your beauty
am I intertwined with you for some reason that I cannot know
do I feel the same pain that I did before I knew I could not have you
how can something that fits so right not be made for me
did you see me watching you when you walked by
can you help me
that mountain stands before me and I do not have the energy to climb it
will you please notice my pleas
you intimidate me with your infinite knowledge of all things incredible
I watch in awe
I watch in disgust
I miss the times that I could have known you and didn’t
I tire of my thoughts and yearn for yours
can you even hear me?
like clockwork you pass
it’s time for me to leave
Oh God,
put your arms around me
and whisper in my ear
Late at night, in my dreams
when I feel like
crying out, for I fear
I cannot hear
your whisper or voice
Late at night, in my soul
when I feel like
crying out, and I
know it to be
sweet as candy
soft as velvet
and evertouching in my heart
Speak to me Lord
Late at night in my mind
when I feel like
crying out, ’cause when
I was a little
baby
I’m sure I heard you then
Late at night, in my crib
when I felt like
crying out, I want
to hear you now
when I need you
Is that really too much to ask?
Late at night in my bed
when I feel like
crying out.
It is a difficult thing at seventeen
to read Poe and Stevenson and feel a certain connection
with them, knowing that recognition
was almost solely posthumous,
post-death,
having spent all their lives pouring—
emptying—their very beings onto paper,
into masterpieces of life-containing language,
and then struggling with the hope
and ever-accompanying despair—
will this alter an existence?
One poet said the best measure
for good literature is whether we
live more intensely for the reading of it;
Poe and Stevenson spent
decades waking early,
wrestling with idea symbols
read left to right,
and then, eyes bloodshot,
crawling into an arctic bed, shivering.
Their whole lives long, they never knew
if the fervor they had squeezed from their own
would transfer to others’ or if it
would wash away
like windshield graffiti in a thunderstorm.
In suburban America I am told that I
still have six decades to look
forward
to. I think that will perhaps be
a terrible trial, an artistic
eternity; to write even when no one
cares enough to love you like Greene
or to even to be as important as Orwell to
know you are hated.
The paper stretches blank
before me, beckoning my pen.
As if drafting a will, I worry that it will matter to none
until I die.