love

Garden Rival

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments
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A Steller’s jay. Photo by Michael Anfang on Unsplash

Garden Rival

I called to the Steller’s jay
rooting for seeds in my shabby garden,
but he didn’t answer; he

just kept flittering hither and thither,
loudly shacking his territory with
a harsh “SHACK-Sheck-sheck-sheck-sheck!”

sifting the choicest bits
ahead of the luckless wrens and finches.

I didn’t think he was listening,
but I couldn’t help myself.

I asked him if it was true
that in order to love another,
you must love yourself first,

for I observed that I’ve loved some
like my life was forfeit, and yet others
forced love from lungs in violent spasms,

spilling onto pages and surfaces,
surging to fill every crevice and valley.

I’ve loved tenderly and scandalously,
I’ve loved dutifully and illicitly,

I’ve withheld from others
and denied myself the respite

and believed fatted luxurious lies in real-time
to preserve rotted acorns of truths long gone,

often hating both who I was, am,
and whatever I have become,

and so I asked him, am I doing it right?

I didn’t wait for his answer,
because he’s just a dumb, greedy bird
hording the good seeds for himself.

The Steller’s jay stopped flittering,
made a loud “skreeka!”
looked me in the eye

and said, “That’s the stupidest thing
I ever heard! Love don’t work that way!
Maybe you’re just too dumb for love!”

I read somewhere that Steller’s jays
often mimic birds of prey
to fool rivals into hiding.
***

Originally shared on Medium.

Also shared on Poetry Pantry #495.

Bound by Three Scientific Methods

/ Just Barry / Leave a comment

Bound by Three Scientific Methods

1.
You are a commonplace being,
bound to one of many wandering orbs,
circling one of countless common
main-sequence stars

–  not unlike the twinkling sequins
pinned overhead to our night sky –

within one of a myriad of galaxies
among the observable universe,

and yet, despite our observations,

there is no evidence among the galaxies
of another galaxy like ours,
for among the trillions upon billions
upon trillions of doppelgangers

– give or take a few trillion,
for this poem is of art, not science,
and numbers that big hold little meaning
to an average poet’s brain –

there is no star like the one star
entrapping our world,
no world like our world,
and no one on that world
who makes me smile like you do.

2.
I wrote about how special you are,
trying to quantify and distill your
essential essence into

an incantation I could call on
to fortify my purgatory
with memories of you,

but my words were too remote,
too chilly, too clinical, and
may as well had been stillborn

as an incomprehensible dead language
when translated from my inner-voice
and gestated into our common tongue.

I click my tongue
in bemused disapproval
of the effort

while still retaining the ability
to smile at the universe, knowing
that its vastness contains a singular you,

a lone me, and a bond
unlike any within our reality.

I smile, knowing
that somewhere, sometime,
I have entered your thoughts

as you often rule mine,
and at that very moment,
I know that you smiled at the thought.

3.
Scientists estimate
that there are at least
one hundred billion galaxies
in our observable universe,

an unimaginable number
which is somehow far less than
my “trillions of billions” of galactic
scientific wild-ass guess,

but not nearly as poetic.

Somehow,
I guess my imagination
exceeds even the
observable universe

when trying to solve for
the commonplace, exquisite
variable of you.
***

Originally posted on Medium.

Red Spider Lilly

/ Just Barry / 20 Comments
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Image by Lee_seonghak from Pixabay

Red Spider Lilly

If I had known that would be
the last time our lips met,
we would never forget;
I would have held our kiss longer.

If I had known I would breathe
the last of your scent,
I would have inhaled your ferment
till my lungs fell from hunger.

A thunderstorm rages tonight
on the border of day and night,
of summer and autumn,
erasing our space.

If I knew the lines between us that merged
would forever diverge,
I would have dissolved them
within your embrace.

And if you were here now,
if you appeared now,
we would sit near and allow
the storm to pass, unbeknown

But you’re a memory;
red spider lilies will bloom
anew from this autumn storm;
you walk a distant shore alone.

If I had known that would be
our last time within our lifetimes,
I swear I would have said
something more clever.

If I had known
with a kiss before parting,
I would have shared something better than
“prepare for the weather”.

A thunderstorm rages tonight
within our twilight;
hope you’ve prepared for the weather.

You are a memory;
red spider lilies have bloomed, renewed
in the space that was once me and you.
***

Originally shared on Medium.

Shared on Poets United Pantry of Poetry and Prose, 2

From culture trip: Hanakotoba: The Secret Meanings Behind 9 Flowers in Japan:

“Red spider lilies are bright summer flowers native throughout Asia. They are associated with final goodbyes, and legend has it that these flowers grow wherever people part ways for good. In old Buddhist writings, the red spider lily is said to guide the dead through samsara, the cycle of rebirth. Red spider lilies are often used for funerals, but they are also used decoratively with no such connotations.”

Something about Moonlight

/ Just Barry / 8 Comments
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Image by Theresa Otero from Pixabay 

Something about Moonlight

I will moonlight to melt your nightgown,
shearing away the shear cream lace
from your cocoa butter-oiled skin,

leaving only our want laid bare
and plain in the pale, made flush and
flesh ripens with readiness,

follicles forced to attention,
energy flowing to the epidermis,
primed to exchange forces

that brought us closer than now,
the point of no return with my fingers
clenching your throat as you implore me

to bite the nape of your neck again
– this time like I mean it – and so
mid-thrust, I lean in and you moan

my name, each moan piling-upon
the last thrust, building a rhythm until
it becomes a chant and percussive covenant

between you and I, building until
you yell my name loudly, impatiently,
shaking me from my moonlit vision…

“Where were you just now?” you ask
between sips of chamomile tea, nearly spilling
it on your makeshift pajama sweatpants.

“I was telling you about the lace negligée I was
going to wear to surprise that jerk Eric before
he dumped me for that bimbo Twyla via text.”

“Sorry about that,” I offer,
adjusting my seat at the foot of your bed,
careful to conceal my erection from you.

“Wanna talk about it?” you ask, adding
“It was weird. You spaced-out and started
mumbling something about moonlight.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I insist.
“You need me. I’m here for you,”
which was true; I am here. For. You.

You continue ruminating about Eric; “I mean,
can you believe that guy? The sad part?
I’m more disappointed than surprised.

I should’ve seen it coming.”

“Sometimes, when the heart is involved,
we only see what we want to see,” I reply,
trying to elude imagining you

in that lacy getup again.

“And Twyla, of all people!” you continue,
spilling tea down your chin as I
resist the urge to lick it off.

“Some friend she turned out to be, right?
She must live to pounce on my table-scraps.
Can you imagine pretending to be a friend

just so you can sneak in on the sly like that?
I mean, how shameless! Who even does that?”

“Lust makes folks do strange things,” I tell you,
offering a napkin for your spilled tea,
now drizzling down the nape of your neck

where I wish you’d implore me
to bite like I meant it. I sigh, adding,
“What can I say? People be trippin’.”

“Not you though,” you assure me with a warm
smile. “I tell you I got dumped, and you’re here
in less than ten minutes, consoling me.

You’ve always been a good friend to me.”

“I’m nothing special,” I deflect,
returning your smile, “but I’d do anything
for you.”
***

Written for Real Toads The unreliable narrator prompt, hosted by Björn. As this is one of my favorite tropes to read and write, I had to participate.

These Murky Eddies (A Five-Part Origin Story)

/ Just Barry / 2 Comments

These Murky Eddies (A Five-Part Origin Story)

I.
I love,
I do,
perhaps not like you,

not in that
traditional
happily-forever-after way,

but perhaps
in other imprecise,
functionally dysfunctional
broken ways.

But perhaps
in many ways,
my broken ways work
in my knowing what it isn’t.

I can survey its limitations,
where the barrier of its outstretched
feathered wings fail to reach.

My love cannot care for your birthday,
but it cares deeply that you care.

My love won’t reach out
and embrace you, drenched,
saturated with sentiment,

but it will lash-out
to protect you
from all manner of harm.

My love is imperfect,
incomplete, and has been
ever since the day I fell
as a small child.

I was six when I fell,
losing balance some two score ago,
as some collateral damage
of a disintegrated heart.

II.
I was born
in medias res
of a toxic heart,
as many are,

upon opposing maelstroms,
learning to flow with the current,
anticipating its quirky grooves
and perilous nuances,

gliding along the lazy trickles,
bracing for the furious crashes,
holding my own within
fortune’s fickle ride until…

the only heart I knew split in two,
each side seeking dominion over the other,
but settling for oblivion,

the void
created by two beloved factions
consumed me
and I fell,

and fell, and fell,
and kept falling,
the only sound, the
mournful wailing of my own voice,

it too growing more distant,
falling away from me

along with the other senses of
belonging to something greater,

losing everything and
finding myself lost
at the bottom of an abyss.

III.
I was six years old
when momma went
rattling the kitchen silverware

for an adequate blade
to plunge into dad’s back,

ending years of emotional and
physical abuse by his hand.

I was six years old
when that knife pierced him
inches from his heart,

inches from his own demise.

Dad’s cousin was hysterical,
explaining to the medics
what my awful “bitch of a mom” did
to free herself from dad’s drug-fueled rager.

Though mortally wounded,
dad survived and recovered

enough to redeem some of his repugnant actions,
while bafflingly doubling down on others.

As for me; I was six then.
I am forty-six now, but
I know now that parts of me
never left the bottom of that abyss.

IV.
I love, I do,
but always in a broken,
displaced sense where
I never have to remove my velvet gloves.

My hands
hold nothing of weighted value
unless my beloved breathes value into
that space.

Images
reflected into my eyes
rarely move me

unless the images
are of others being moved
towards joy or sorrow.

I hear voices of my family calling,
but I only reply out of obligation.

I’ve smelled and tasted
gourmet Sunday dinners made in my honor,
and when an aunt asks me
if I’m glad I came home to them,

I smile and say yes, knowing that
they know I’m lying to keep the peace.

V.
I love, I do, but perhaps not like you,
or the guys on television who
get down on one knee,
proclaiming their love for all to see.

That kind of love dazzles in the sunlight,
and it would be nice if I could love like that.

But my love is born from toxins,
constructed from shards of self-hate,
twisted, entangled by the vast void
in such an oddly dysfunctional way

that when darkness comes for you,
as it inevitably comes for us all
regardless of where you are,
as I still tread these murky eddies

you will never be alone.
***

Originally shared on Medium.

Incapable of Her Own Distress

/ Just Barry / 5 Comments
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Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash

Incapable of Her Own Distress

She was beautiful
and needed to be seen as thus,

climbing higher,
her angelic features giving
a false appearance of
a fallen messenger clawing her
way back into paradise with

mud-caked fingers weaving
flowered trinkets,

an accumulation
of bruises
piled upon her well-worn
lust-slickened flesh, and

a wickedly zealous glare
affixed on something
beyond common sight,

not recalling how
she got so high
upon the precarious bough,

the wind spitting sleet into her face, she,
returning the favor, choking
on bile from her own spite
and other vulgarities

wailed in her song of
want and lunacy,

laughing mournfully
under pale lunar glow,

so when she fell
no one could tell
her fantastic mania
from her sunken plight.

She was beautiful
even then, at the end,

a siren swooned, felled
by her own song,

seeing in greater clarity
from the under-side of
the rain-drowned brook, buoyant
no more, unlike the flowers
scattered from her lifeless hands,

her peace-glazed eyes
silently affixed on heaven.
***

Originally shared on Medium

Also shared on Poets United  POETRY PANTRY #491.

stories, labels, and approvals (Collaboration with trE)

/ Just Barry / 5 Comments
ToniMorrison

National Memorial for Peace and Justice, 2018, Montgomery, Alabama (photo: Michael Delli Carpini, CC BY-NC 2.0)

stories, labels, and approvals (Collaboration with trE)

not everything needs a story
it’s possible to want justice
without being seen as angry
and you’re damned right I’m angry
when our justice is perverted
time and again, and again
you fixate on the anger
spinning a yarn about
the irrational response
of us ungrateful thugs

the ones you want to
linger beneath the soles of your feet
will be the very ones who
you’ll beg to add more days
onto your life.
and when the Maker calls your number,
I will play bailiff,
executing all plans for your demise.
and the difference between you and I
will be that I had nothing
to do with it.

make your presence known in other ways.
show this world that there is
so much more to living than
constantly trying to flaunt your
privileges in my face
OR
belittling me every chance you get.
“when they go low, we go high,”
and it must feel like shit
watching angels scale the skies
while you reach into your pockets
for God-status and pull up lint instead

not everything needs a label
it’s possible to seek solitude
without being tagged as arrogant
I look inward for serenity
I demand airspace to be me
authentically free from the box
you cram to shove me in
I guess I’m arrogant enough
to exist in stout defiance
of your weights and measures

not everything needs approval
it’s possible to just want to breathe
without society constricting airflow
or to share life, laughter with a lover
without enraging a stranger lording
bizarre, anachronistic, dogmatic views
I wish to seek the warmth of the sun
free from fear of fatalistic reprisal
because I fit some unsavory description
or I love in a way that you don’t

and, I’ve watched you, watching me–
you want me to be this robotic
thing intent on following your lead:
no disputes, no disagreements, and
no opinion of my own,
and losing the biggest part of me
is not something I am willing to do.
this frustrates you . . .
it digs into places of your soul
that you aren’t willing to share and
I have fun witnessing your strength
dwindle to mere nothingness
since it feeds off hate.
***

This is a collaboration with my good friend trE. trE is an insightful and gifted writer. I highly recommend that you visit her blog, A Cornered Gurl.

gripping the path like we ain’t gettin’ no younger

/ Just Barry / 7 Comments
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Image by Ichigo121212 from Pixabay 

gripping the path like we ain’t gettin’ no younger

master bedroom,
tinted garden-green
with golden glints
of morning

sun rises
with my grip
on the circle of
your hips

we circle back
to forest-hidden roads
traveled in youthful
exuberance

wizened
upon shared intimate
garden paths

wicked giggles
yield the voice-box
to guttural yearnings
***

Written for dVerse Quadrille #85 – Raising our Poetic Voices, hosted by whimsygizmo. Other poets have contributed here.

Also shared at Real Toads The Tuesday Platform, hosted by Rommy.

 

Paying it Forward

/ Just Barry / 15 Comments
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Photo by  on 

Paying it Forward

“You look good all dressed up”
a voice said, and I turned
to see her two grey eyes fixed
upon me, devouring my contrasts
and contours, reading my reactions
as if she knew I’d always wanted
for her to say something, anything
to me, knowing I wouldn’t know
how to reply as I stammered out
a cheesy, but sincere “well, uhm,
you look good anywhere” retort
that made her snort, her crooked
smile twinkling down upon me
from the declining escalator we
both shared that seemed to descend
endlessly into the gutter of dirty
things I wanted to do with her that
made me blush as if she could
read my intimate thoughts on what
had to be the protruding horns of
my corny forehead that she reached
out to touch gently, having heard my
thought that said “please, for the love
of everything holy, reach out to
touch me gently, or even not so gently,
I don’t even care, thank God you’re
here-” my thirst interrupted and
quenched by a tender kiss and a soft
reminder that it’s time for me to end
the escalator ride towards the center
of us and awaken to the real world,
and much like my dream, this poem
will end abruptly with a vague sense of
dissatisfaction.
***

Originally posted on Medium.

Shared on dVerse OpenLinkNight #255 hosted by Grace. Other poets have shared here. 

Holy Shit! Hey Guys! HEY GUYS!!

/ Just Barry / 5 Comments
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Currently displayed on Tygpress.com. You guys did it!

Well damn! You guys actually did it! I’m impressed. I was going to take my ball and go home, but you folks with your outrage went at this entity with your cease-and-desist and your pitchforks, and they didn’t want any of that smoke!

I know most of you were just as pissed-off as I was, and I’m grateful that you acted on your own senses of justice instead of turtleing like I planed. I am the undeserved benefactor of your righteous actions, and I thank you all. This little guy is grateful that you collection of little guys didn’t take this lying down.

I honestly hope that this the last time I find myself writing about blog harvesting, but I suspect it won’t be. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes, but for now, let’s get back to our scheduled programming.