It was just a dream; I grasp at the vapors.
Lying between them, I hug their legs close.
Unworthy of wholeness, I hug their legs close.
I can’t see their faces, yet I see their beauty.
I feel where they ache; yes, I feel their beauty.
It wells up within me knowing I am unworthy.
Their pain becomes mine and I’m so unworthy.
We lie there, and I talk of light we won’t see.
The night shines above; starlight we can’t see.
They take in my words in a naked silence.
We strip away lust, leaving naked silence.
Revealing softness, we bare our raw fears.
In dark, quiet space, we share our raw fears.
In dawn’s softened light, I relax my grip.
They scatter, taking flight when I relax my grip.
Released from a dream, still grasping at vapors.
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 26 prompt: “write a poem that uses repetition”.
Recently, I’ve done more than a few repetition poems using various forms, but I haven’t dabbled in free verse repetition. I thought I’d give it a go while writing about a semi-lucid dream I had recently.
Granted, I (poorly) aped Jerico Brown’s brilliant style, so technically it’s not a free verse, but I don’t know what else to call it besides “style-jacking” so, here we are.
Oh, and I’m all caught up now, so it’s bourbon time!
Most take you to your future
– or to be more precise, they
get you to your present sooner.
But a select few can take you
to your past; a portal to a
magical era not too long
ago when books existed.
The right connection can
transcend barriers, linking you
to decades ago when you dozed,
commuting, curled within the arms
of the love of your life, before
things fell apart, or if you ride
to the end of the line, you find
your beginning at the local
community college, planning
what to be when you grew up, not
recognizing the tempered
greying reflection of what you’ve
become. Walk among the ghosts, but
you cannot interact to tell
your younger self when to be still,
patient, like a Zen monk; and when
to attack your barely sketched fate
with zeal, unbridled aggression;
some enchanted barriers are
not so easily breached, even
when using our trusted snow routes.
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 24 prompt: “write a poem that, like ‘Dictionary Illustrations,’ is inspired by a reference book. Locate a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day. Maybe a strange word will catch your eye, or perhaps the mishmash of information will provide you with the germ of a poem.”
This was almost an elegy about me not being able to find a single book – let alone a book of reference – at my current workplace (to be fair, my entire department is packing to move to a new floor, so most books are packed). Thankfully, I found a bus route booklet and flipped it open to a route I never rode on, but somehow it connected my present with my past and my distant past.
Yes, I’m behind a day. I mentioned writer’s fatigue in an earlier post, but that’s not what happened this time. I just have an awful lot happening in my life all at once. Don’t worry; I’ll catch up this weekend.
April walks hand in hand with us. Her smile
brings uncertainty in climate, stormy chills,
carefree warmth, dovetailing into longer
days, the promise of rebirth capturing
everyone in a mania as the wind
forgets its origin frequently, blending,
gradually with our fickle visions
holding court with breathing, inhaling our
intimate fragrances, nostalgia heralding
jamborees, seeds of barren winter split, cracked by
kindness photosynthesized when the sun
learns what makes us yearn to prosper, renewed,
mitosis divides us, uniting us in singular
newfound gardens of song; cross-pollinating
orchards slowly showing vibrant colors that
permeate pigmentation of lucid-dreaming
quixotically and practically within the now;
romance feels like fantasy and yet tangibly
shimmers, like sun-showered raindrops, flowers
trembling within a sudden downpour
upending earth-tones with budding-green
visions of her saying yes to a stroll
within our botanical commons, our own
Xanadu, regardless of weather, storm or sun
yields promises, warming, refreshing us like
zephyrs announcing arrival of essential change.
April brings carefree days.
Everyone forgets gradually,
holding intimate jamborees.
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 19 prompt: “write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet.”
I decided to challenge myself a bit by doing a strict abecedarian poem and turning it into a type of opposite golden shovel, where each word of the last three stanzas is the first word of the first stanza, which means that I kind of did both abecedarian forms in one poem. I skipped a day, so this was my self-imposed penance.
It began with the kind of rain
that made me change my shoes
a healthy April shower needed
for continuity of respiration
as trees kneed saturated soil
roots rooting for their share
new leaves are budding, color
restored to pre-bloomed florae
vivid hues contrast with a heavy sky
unending clouds spill themselves
rolling in from faded sepia photos
I wonder if you’re enjoying rain now
just as I am, about two-thousand miles
and the rain-soaked earth between us
a miracle of technology at hand
and I couldn’t retrace my soggy steps
to you even if I tried, but I hope
you have a good view of a budding oak
I hope the rain humbles blossoms’ heads
showing you proper respect,
attracting good bumble-bee company
for reproduction and continuity of
respiration, for as long as this rain
is doing more service for you,
you who can no longer feel it,
as long as it does more for us
than forcing me into dryer,
sturdier shoes, then I ask you,
how can I not be content with it?
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 18 prompt: “write an elegy of your own, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail.”
I almost skipped this prompt. Not because I didn’t find the prompt interesting, but because I did, and yet I struggled mightily. I’ve lost count of the elegies I’ve written for folks I lost, but I’ve never tried to keep the scope of my loss contained within the tangible world before.
If I’m dissatisfied with my resulting poem, it’s only because I had to restrain myself from bleeding wailing abstractions everywhere. This challenged me in ways I never envisioned, and I’m glad for it.
on the surface
of an unremarkable rock
hurtling through vast emptiness
in countless relative terms,
one of which –
along with seven rocky
and gassy siblings –
circumnavigates
an unremarkable sphere
of super-heated plasma
– one of countless
sibling-stars clustered
within one of countless galaxies
within numerous
super-clusters of galaxies
within the observable universe.
You lack significance
to even register as dull
as far as the cosmos is concerned,
but you are the cosmos
and you are my cosmos
smelling of lavenders
found only in our corner
of the cosmos
and you taste of honey
made by bees
who defend their queen
nearly as well
as my will
to protect you
and make you laugh,
and upon hearing your laughter,
there probably won’t be
a butterfly effect
that destroys Tokyo,
but as vibrations
of your laugh
met the membrane
of my eardrum,
my heart skipped several beats,
so you shortened my life
by fractions of fractions
of fractions of seconds,
which is far too insignificant
a measurement to fret about.
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 12 prompt: “write a poem about a dull thing that you own, and why (and how) you love it. Alternatively, what would it mean to you to give away or destroy a significant object?”
Okay, so I cheated a little bit and shifted the scale ever so slightly, and I didn’t write about a thing I own. Thirty days of poetry is a lot, you know?
I’m already scared enough of boring folks.
I worry about my own words being too dull for me to write about actual dull things. I’m beginning to get sick of my own poetic voice and writing about my favorite pair of holey underwear just wasn’t going to cut it today.
I.
We are born with no expectations
needs are another matter
connections are made and broken
attachment chains us to fallacy
nostalgia affixes our affections
regret is an illusory gift
II.
I knew you had another
saw you kiss him, looked away
saw through your lazy lies
embraced an empty peach pit
knowing that I deserved it
and perhaps, even less
III.
Told you I’d walk my “friend” home
you saw us flirting, looked away
ignored my brittle excuse
you waited in our empty bed
as I fumbled her darkness for light
leveraging for fullness
IV.
Briefly escaping her fiancé’s warmth
she incinerated herself upon a stranger
telling herself it doesn’t count
thighs crush demands for clarity
trading vows on embers of virtue
fading blissfully into warm sunset
V.
No one deserves anything
ready yourself to release infinity
embrace, learn our broken landscape
most hymns sung are incomplete
from revival to wake; no joy without sorrow
we own nothing, for we are everything
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 7 prompt: write a poem of gifts and joy. At first glance, my poem may appear to be a subversion of the prompt, but that wasn’t my intent.
I gotta be honest, though I’m pleased with the outcome, I wasn’t a fan of this prompt. I found it a bit restrictive, like trying to box a kangaroo inside a telephone booth. (If you’re wondering why anyone would ever do that, well that’s kind of my point, isn’t it?)
I know the prompts are obviously optional, but I’m a sequential thinker and not one to bail on an artistic challenge. Well, not today, apparently, as I managed to box all three elements inside this telephone booth.
Showing my work:
“I ain’t much on Casanova” is from Casanova, by Levert.
“I would love you anyway” is from Sweet Thing, by Rufus and Chaka Kahn
Belle was a humbug. No such character
could ever release a loved one from
his promise with a full heart. It is
unrealistic and takes me out of the story.
Or perhaps I should not have revisited
that tale during dreary mid-January,
with all the cheer
left at a New Year’s Eve party,
where we couldn’t be bothered to pretend
to like each other anymore. A trick
time plays on us makes us mistake three weeks
for ages ago,
and a mostly-empty midnight bus ride – heading
towards total emptiness – lurches forward
into a future free of certainty and old routines.
“End of the line, boss,”
the driver reminds me.
“You good, young blood?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I lie easily
with a smile – cause that’s my thing as
a practiced liar – skipping off
the bus into a freak wind storm.
Yes, I still skip from time to time. What,
you’ve never seen a black man on the
back-end of his twenties skip before?
It happens; get over it.
I soon stopped skipping as I began walking
North with the wind rushing me along
with the rest of the displaced litter,
placing further distance between
where we’d been, and
where ever I was going.
It began to rain that annoying Seattle spittle,
except for the random fistfuls of spite smiting me
in the face as the wind swirled and changed directions
as if it didn’t know what it wanted to be either.
I’m chilled to the bone,
knowing I deserve far worse
than this climate change.
It was only slightly too warm for snow,
but cool enough to keep me moving
through a desolate tree-lined park where
people smarter than I had long abandoned,
and the long, twisted shadows
had longer twisted memories.
“Human garbage,” mocked one of the shadows.
“You wanted her to catch you in the lie,”
sneered another. “You didn’t even have
the guts to end it like a man.”
“Shut up,” I countered. “I tried
to end it. She wouldn’t let me.”
“But now it’s different!” a third shadow joined in.
“She saw your text messages! She knows whereyou’ve been!
Where you’re going! And she still wants you back
like nothing happened! After all you let happen!”
“She knows,” I repeated,
“so we can never go back.
I made my choice.”
The darkness echoes with laughter
as the shadows talk over one another.
“What a safe and terrible answer!”
“You replaced a woman who truly loves you
with an empty vessel! An Idol of newness!”
“You’re not losing a wife;
you’re gaining a side-chick!”
“Side-chick, indeed? Ha!
You mean rebound-chick!”
“I’m sure this side-chick-rebound-upgrade is
going to work out great for you, young man!”
“I hope you are truly happy
with the path you have chosen!”
I cover my ears
and cinch-up my hoodie.
Damn know-it-all shadows.
Leaving the mocking shadows behind, I
arrive at my destination, knocking lightly
on the door, as to not disturb anyone
not expecting me who may be already
asleep. I’m just used to slinking around.
A single light comes on, and soon she
is scrutinizing my soaked face.
“I did it,” I said.
“You did it,” she repeated with a smile.
“To be honest, I didn’t think you had the guts.”
“Yeah,” I said.
She leaned into me, gently kissing my wet lips.
“Things will be different now,” she said.
“Much better than hiding. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, different,” I repeated.
But if there had been no
understanding between us,
would I have sought her out
and tried to win her now?
I knew the answer.
It’s all a big humbug.
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 3 prompt: write a poem that meanders, full of digressions, that takes its time getting wherever it’s going. Since that almost seems exactly what I always do, I really let myself ramble here. Sorry about that. 🙂
Author’s note: It’s only day three and I’m already struggling to stay on the pace! Also, between work, homelife, and writing, I haven’t tended to my reading and comments as well as I should. I’ll try to do better, but thank you all for continuing to drop in on me.
Do you remember me, Eurydice?
We danced the summer in the upside-down
In moon-soaked gardens of Persephone
Below the fruit-bats, we swooped through town
Do you recall the bells we rang;
the song I should not have sang?
Can you trace our song back to me?
Or did you forget the key?
Our harmonious flight
You took wing beside me
Our alighted midnight
When we swelled like the sea
Whether wrong, it felt right
No time for a reprieve
Weather right for delight
Harmony our main key
I could live in your light
Did you want to believe?
Do you remember me, Eurydice?
August nights in electric tide pools
You inhaled habits that felt unhealthy
We exhaled our smoke of fools
Do you recall my answer, miss,
when you asked me for a kiss?
Do you regret the spell?
Cause I don’t kiss and tell
Reminisce on our bliss
Time much shorter than this
Did I comfort you well?
Lost our reprieve from hell
On this I feel remiss
Looking back gives me fits
An improper farewell
Orpheus when you fell
Can we crawl from abyss?
Do you remember our kiss?
***
Written for NaPoWriMo’s day two prompt: write a poem that resists closure by employing many questions and ending with a question. I enjoyed this one and wanted to add to the unsettling vibe by playing with the cadence and changing it up from time to time.
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 