Vision+Voice

Liquid air,
like tar pouring into my stomach,
branding the walls,
stilling the heart.

The tar floods your body.
The more there, the faster it pours in.
eventually it reaches your brain,
and stills that too.

The tar makes you numb.
It fills in the empty spaces,
it makes everything in you feel alone.

Your heart can’t see your brain,
your brain can’t find your stomach,
your response can’t find your body,
and your words can’t find your mouth.

What’s the point of fueling a broken body.
Why would you feed a lonely heart.
Just let the sludge fill you,
and you wont feel a thing.

With dark shaded thorns below,
golden columbs of ambition and determination holding her up,
oh how she looks like an eager sparrow,
and one can’t help but offer a hand
in hope the pretty creature will take a break from soaring
to rest upon it.

A beautiful lie
Color returns to the world
Just to leave once more

Use your time wisely,
for life is too short
and regret is painful

I know an unwritten man
Untold words, a thousand lines
Cascading authenticity
Discarding all but “mine”

Painted fabrications told in slanted light
To appearingly sing beautifully in minor key
Only touched elegance achieved in anonymity
Is to bequeath what’s known as “me”

I have a problem trying to find my poet voice
Powerful, provocative, presenting
Is what it’s supposed to be
So why does it fluctuate?
Going up and down in tone
Never constant or strong
I want to put meaning into every word and not hold back
why can’t I find it?
I have my words
I am able to speak
So why can’t I hear the voice inside me out loud?
Speak speak
I want to speak up
Pronounce everything properly
I don’t want to fumble, stutter, or talk too fast
It has to be perfect
Rehearse, repeat, remember
Why can’t I remember my own poem?
It’s not enough to simply write or remember the poem
They are of my own mind
A piece of me
I am the poem, so messing up isn’t an option
Because…
What is a poet without their voice?
What is a poem without a flavorful twang of verbal expression?
A stagnant sea of lost letters perhaps, which I forbid my poems to become
So, these words are for nobody’s throat except mine
These are the lyrics of my desperate, wailing soul
I may be
Wavering, uncertain, anxious
While trying to portray eloquence
Head high, standing tall, eyes a universe away
I open the world that is my poet voice
Resounding such a willful and fierce prowess that when read only my voice is heard, my emotions, simply me as a whole should ring through the heads of those who relate or empathize with my poems
Yes, I am trying to find my poet voice

Now, these thoughts are not so young.
The last time I saw you I had my mother’s teeth;
Six thousand dollars down my throat to solve it.
You sit kindly spaced from me, a considerate foot
Between us on the bench. I wonder if you know.

Of course, I saw you in the swoop of your nose.
You haven’t looked over yet. I examine my newspaper
As though it held my secrets. You reach down and tug
At one woolen sock. My coat slips from a shoulder and
I pull it back into place. You cough. The bus doesn’t come.

As I look at you as you are now, I wonder
If you remember what I remember. The rules are like this:
You stand here and I pass the ball. I heard since then
That all our friends are gone. Out of town or dead, each.
I heard since then you married a couple times.

You who bloomed are different and not. You can tell what caterpillar
Turns into a butterfly or moth. The same hair floats
On your neck as it did back when I was taller.
A bus arrives. It’s not mine. You rise slowly and ascend the steps.
I pray a goodbye to us both as it whisks you away.

The fire burns beside me. We chat
And speak of anything but rain.

He gets the place ready to ignite.
We make the bed and dust the picture frames
Sweep but do not mop. I take out the trash–
He tells me it’s the easiest job he’s seen in years.

He tells me it’s already flammable. He tells me
I’m already on fire, that I saw tears and knew to burn.
He praises me for being ready to blaze.

When we’re done, I pack up. It’s cleaner that way, he says,
Better you know what you are saving before it is burning.
We exit, hand in hand, and I ignore the feeling–
His fingers scorch, palms enkindle,
But I squeeze harder.

With one breath the house is gone.
Ash rests on the tip of my nose.

He nudges me.
It’s better off this way.

And we go ahead and climb the stairs,
Suitcase wheels clacking behind us.
When he releases my hand,
I feel the warmth still.

Across my palm, four seared marks.
I look away and clench it into a fist.
Even now he has not let me go.

That I should be without it for a second is unthinkable–
this love which so weighs my shoulders and pulls me to you.
I dream of you in the lapses between bouts of obsession. (These
last throughout my waking hours; my only rest is sleep and even then
you manage to appear, undiluted and vital.)
My heart, my body, my soul, they follow you,
like chicks following a mother hen. You lead me places
I had not the pleasure of knowing before, vast oases filled only with
your image. Take me by the hand; only with such closeness
May my fevered lungs breathe. If not for the Earth’s refusal,
each night we would sink beneath its crust, drawn together.
I would apologize a thousand times over for laying a finger on you
if you hadn’t pardoned me with your own.
I love you. I hope, somewhere, you exist.

So we kiIl each other and call it glory.
The forest sweeps around the road to our street,
A commanding sort of silence
That lets you hear its presence. She takes me out.
Now the dogs are awake, the world is cold.
Our heroes are dead. I want to kiss her.

With someone like me, she says,
You have to tell me each day who we are,
And I’ll do my best to remember yesterday’s answer.
Nine teeth on the ground. I found out
That with your cheek to the pavement,
You can hear the hum of each train as it comes.

Her tires are smooth. Surely
When hell freezes over, we’ll skate right across.
How can I explain?
This winter, we’ll see God and pass him by.
Let me let you sleep.