There’s no explanation needed. Just wake up and live.
When we are free
poets drink the sky
in front of you
tasting sunrise to sunset hues
painting red veins on Blankness,
drawing clouds in my head
with you
in streams
where heavy branches touch the grass
my hands are not fast enough
to edit my memories
and time keeps fading to the background
away from here
but I’m here to burst now
like the massive stars
to be true to the moment
and to spin next to you
to breathe you in softly
and drink the sky like the trees
growing where we can’t see
arms outstretched, shaking in wonder
tongues sliding into air
The Struggle
this is my world
i can hold it and cry
bury it and laugh
it’s mine. it’s mine.
i am alone in my perception.
i’m forever confined by choice
repeatedly, i free myself
when i doubt.
i free myself, and i free myself,
until i’m free.
Cryptic Notice
i
notice
that you’re here
in this dark dark
lightness of being
arms swinging
nearly rotating
the event in our minds
a terrible device that laughs at its own misery
and the black seeds that fall on their heads
from the one who walked away
in swift rythms
and never looked back where
the lights flickered
in this stark stark beingness
of light that you are,
i notice you
One after one
Do you know it’s never just you walking when you’re having that occasional solitary walk? There are those thoughts in your head, walking around empty around the curbs. But all the straight lines follow you, and you’re not alone. You’re just never the only one moving around, side to side, shuffling your pockets and the songs in your ears. Sometimes there’s no music, just her voice shuffling, balancing a tripod in your mind, taking a photo of you. And you never wanted it in the first place, you say, you never wanted any of this.
You never asked for the confusion, the irrationality, and the mess, that God awful mess. And you can’t believe yourself, how you got yourself into this, and why it’s tasting rather sweet to you in that awful, sweet way. The way it feels when you wake up to a siren at midnight. It’s startling, that whistle that screams in your ear in the darkness, but it kissed you awake from a nightmare, so how can you complain about that?
Unpainting You
It’s not that I don’t care about you, dear
it’s more than just a little lust for me.
It is sin I paint, sin upon dirt sin;
pastel blue and white layered on you bare.
I paste it on the tan pores like madness
just to see them sizzle under the sun
with your voice evaporating like wine.
It haunts me, sweetheart, you’re a devil’s wish.
I taste your words like sin upon dirt sin
with ears that, for fun, sing along your tune–
just to see black shorts and pastel run high
all while ignoring my need to paint me
something else, golden fierce, beyond sight and
perhaps even beyond all my senses.
Though, not that I don’t care about you, dear,
I need to paint something other than you.
_____________________
Not used to writing this fast and in a different form, but this is my second, hopefully more appropriate, attempt FOR MEETING THE BAR ~ RHYTHM & BLANK VERSE. PROMPTED BY DVERSEPOETS.
Life Embraces
Yesterday I saw that photo of a man again
as he threw himself from that burning
silver tower.
I don’t blame him,
he wanted to go fast and not have to burn.
It can’t be called quitting when
he went to work a man, and walked
out of work a diver.
Our kitten never died a cat,
it just stepped on air
six floors happy
to be caught by angel wings,
and it was born and gone a kitten.
So when you turn away so fast,
it startles me.
I’d think you must’ve heard death calling
and wanted to answer her.
In the same way it tickles my scars when
my heart leaps for you sometimes,
the scabs just fritter in their place.
I’m not sure if I’m burning or falling.
To be honest, sometimes I think
they’re the same thing when with you
I burn as I wait for your return,
at times the smoke inflames my lungs,
but I wait in that white haze
and in the way a suffocating person would,
if they told me you were a pink cloud
floating in the cool air outside my window,
I think, like that man,
I’d dive right into earth trying to catch you.
_____________________
For Meeting the bar ~ Rhythm & Blank Verse , PROMPTED BY DVERSEPOETS.
Raisins on the Tongue
one smoke-drenched heart
but burns for you
like the last shivering-blood drop
on a desert-skillet
the Haleakala-woman
a dormant-lover
ignited by you
And let me tell you,
I panged and panged
(it made news)
and pushed, I just
pushed you in that
well of ice
deeper and deeper
inside me
where all the barriers
split into cubes
glacially-melting in your mouth
I didn’t see the meaning
for a dragon-mouth
to sink teeth in newspaper
and have black-stained
finger tips on the table
with a cigarette,
at least now,
there’s a heart that
burns for you a heart
itself burning within
a heart of a pearl-woman
gracefully-breaking
dissolving
in your breakfast with
a cigarette butt
_____________________
For Kennings –the metaphor of Skalds, Prompted by DVERSEPOETS.
With Your Blind Hand
touching me
gliding fingers over arms
hesitant, delicate
buds of skin
elbows shaking in the wind
chills
feeling my nose stiff as glass on my face
it tells you how cold it is
but i really can’t see what’s happening
with you
it’s like the wind
you can feel it
travelling along your arteries
and my nostrils magnetize it all
like a drain
i inhale cold as death
exhale hot as birth
_____________________
Writing a poem without utilizing the sense of sight in poetic “imagery,” for MeetingTheBar: The Blind Poet ON DVERSEPOETS.
I got my poetic license at fifteen
I thought I wanted love like the abandoned. Then, one night, I realized I wanted to be heard. Somehow in the silence and in the dark, it dawned on me that I needed to listen more than be “heard.” Like a shadow that follows the light learns that day and night conceal each other, I learned I was the shadow concealing myself from something.
There’s so much you can tolerate growing up (just living really) before you either choose to continue on being deaf, or accept that you need to “listen,” whatever that would mean. So I tried in the dark to write. To “listen” to that unknown mountain that knew me, to introduce my darkness to the light. And when I listened to the silence, I “listened” long until the silence shattered in whistles. As I wrote everything seemed loud. Everything came undone.
Then I finished it, whatever it was. I wasn’t sure if it was a poem or nonsense, but I saw it, I knew it, and it knew me. Then I laughed. Then I cried slow, dimly-lit tears. Then my heart spun like an owl’s head. Then I wanted love like the abandoned.
_____________________
Lila's Twist 