Empty store
A TV. On mute
It feels so empty
In a corner
A high chair sits
Covered in dust
Long forgotten
I wonder
Was it ever used
Did a child
So loved
Once sit in it
Now gone
Blue with colorful
Cotton candy designs
Where is the baby
Did tragedy strike
To steal it away
From it’s loving parents
Plucked like a flower
Cut down before its prime
Feathers floating
Softly to the ground
Did an angel take it away
Or perhaps
The child just
Grew up
The chair
Just unneeded and unnecessary
As a child
Grows to big
For it’s former joy
Growing apart
From all it
Ever knew and loved
The child was taken
Away from it’s chair
Because it no longer needed
A baby’s chair
So now
So empty
A blue high chair sits
With cotton candy designs
In a corner
Forgotten
Gathering dust
Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
High Chair
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Halloween
Saturday, October 31st, 2009Don your masks
your alter egos
it’s time for the dance
a dark waltz
full of mischief and grief
hide your face
and smile anew
the night is yours
no light lies between you
no boundaries
just a moon
and a cry
to keep the night alive
grinning faces
with twisted smiles
children running
tricks to be played
under the night’s watch
for a night
you are who you truly are
when the masks go on
they finally are off
let out your darkness
to share with the world
close your eyes
pull down your veil
it’s time to play
let out a howl
it Halloween day!
Cheshire Grin
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Smile real wide
Let the Cheshire cat inside
He has been waiting
To be let in
Ever patient
With a demon’s grin
Waiting outside your window
Looking inside your life
Looking for a way in
To your lonely little world
He has a fancy for games
And riddles it seems
So play a game
Let down your wall
And let the Cheshire cat in
Watch as its face splits open
With the devil’s smile
As it laughs
And laughs
And laughs
At you
And the game you call your life
Yet there is nothing
That you can do
As you sit paralyzed and wait
Insanity is knocking on your door
You have blocked and barricaded
And sealed all the locks
Yet every moment the clock
Ticks faster
Until all your time is lost
The cat is laughing
As you loose your mind
You plead for help
But it just keeps going
And going
As the pendulum swings faster
You pray for silence
And your eyes to block out
The demon’s smile
It is eating you away
Until you realize it is nothing
Just a cat and its smile
Just a laugh and a whisper
That all is not well
Look the cat in the eye
And walk away
Down the path you came
Smile real wide
At the forest’s darkness
And let the Cheshire cat inside
Thanks Mattie Leed for the amazing pot and the inspiration.
Coffee Shop
Sunday, October 25th, 2009Every chair occupied
Tables covered
Newspapers open
Showing crime
Pain
Misfortune
All born by man
Incessant clicking
Of fingers
Swiftly moving
On keyboards
Coffee beans ground
Thick heavy scent
Of coffee
Mixed, tainted
By the ugly scent
Of humans
So many blank
Open faces
Trying unsuccessfully
To communicate
With one another
But the space
Between them
Is just too far
The gap of worlds
To large to cross
Open mouths
Lacking any sound
Hand gestures
To a blind man
A woman sits
In the far corner
Laughs
Big teeth
Open abyss
Consuming all
Putting nothing out
People talk
But nothing
Ever comes out
Maybe
They just have
Nothing to say
Wishing out of habit
Not necessity
Here in a coffee shop
So close
Yet so far from the world
Coffee and people
So very different
Forced to live
In silent harmony
The Starving Musician
Friday, October 23rd, 2009I got this poem published in the school newspaper, for those that didn’t get to see it, here it is.
He plays the piano
Rocking back and forth
Cradling each note
Giving life
But holding onto each
For just a single moment
Before it is released
Sent out into the cold world
To die or survive
It all lay in fate’s hands
Not his
Not anymore
The artist, the musician
With starving eyes
And frantic fingers
He swayed
With his head held back
Listening to the birth
Of each note
As it sprung forth
From nothingness
But the barren plane of his soul
He breathed life
Into each ivory key
As his fingers danced
Playing a sad
Yet beautiful song
The song of the sirens
Set out at sea
The bewitching words
Of a long forgotten curse
The notes passed through
His ragged body
Each throb of his veins
Pushed tired blood and music
That begged for life
And took everything
From it’s living master
A master who would die
For his masterpiece
With bleeding fingers
Pressed against bone keys
Each print left
On the piano
Left it’s bloodied print
On his haunted soul
But when the music
Has finally left
He has nothing
Is nothing
But a starving artist
Deprived of paint
He has nothing left
He gave it all up
For his sacred art
His Bible of notes
Gave his heart and soul
And all else he could give
But his ears to listen
And his fingers to play
As he cradled each new life
And sent it away
Alice (Tea Leaf Prophecy)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009Little Alice
Sitting in a tea cup
Swimming in a sea
Of tea leaf prophecy
Sinking into a
Deceiving warmth
Of false security
A spider’s lullaby
So sweet and comforting
You could die
And never know it
Little Alice
Takes a big breath
And goes under
She opens her eyes
Peering through a
Refracted world
Where lines are blurred
And everything shines
Where you are
Simply floating
No heaviness here
No weight
Holding you down
She blinks
In slow motion
As her hair floats
A halo framing her face
Little Alice
Is weightless
As her lungs
Begin to ache
But she still
Stays under
As her eyes
Start to tear
And her mind
Begins to fog
Here the world
Is so beautiful
Your souls only mirror
She opens her mouth
The last bubble escapes
Floating to the surface
For a moment it waits
Just below the surface
But then it pops
A whisper escapes it
But no one hears
Little Alice
Is sleeping
In her little tea cup
Peaceful and beautiful
A sleeping angel
As a sparrow lands
Balancing on a line
Between our world and the next
On the tea cup’s rim
Singing a tea leaf prophecy
Of a water angel
Not afraid to die
Little Alice
Was the brave one
Who stood up in the end
Took a look
Into the abyss
And jumped right in
Portrait Girl
Sunday, October 18th, 2009Wire teeth
Frame a smile
Pulling up corners
Like a curtain
Let the show begin
Feather plumed lips
Fall into a pale face
With cheekbones of glass
Each jutting out
Ragged yet beautiful
Stained glass eyes
Gleam in refracted shards
Color shines through
Empty yet bewitching
A gate into a hollow soul
Spider web hair
Brushes her face
In the breeze
Shifting and changing eternally
Soft as silk
And fine as diamonds
Here you are
The portrait girl
They love you for
Your eyes
They love you for
Your smile
They love you for
All the wrong reasons
Until you die inside
Harlequin’s Lullaby
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Dark hands
Reach for you
Suffocating, drowning
But yet you see
There is nothing
I can do
Water rushing up
All around you
A dark embrace
Never letting go
Just another puppet
In a marionette show
Puppets dance
Jointed dolls twirl
Then fall
Broken limbs, empty eyes
A shattered face
A ruined disguise
Strings plucked
Dark hands stream
The chords of your soul
Any moment to break
To fall back to earth
Just the devil’s stake
Frowns pulled
Into fake smiles
Masks drift towards you
Just people turned puppets
Never ending nightmare
Nothing to do to stop this
Marionettes twirl you about
Just pathetic toys
For a dark twisted God
Torn from the world
Into this evil façade
Dark hands
Empty eyes, broken masks
Sway on stage
An empty abyss
A song rising
Can’t you hear it
Drifting on the wind
Puppets sing, scream
Do you hear
Their desperate cry
This my dear
Is the
Harlequin’s lullaby
Defiance
Thursday, October 15th, 2009“I am done being scared”
She said
Picking herself up defiantly
“I won’t be pushed around anymore
I’m gonna be the toughest girl around”
She balls her tiny fists
And looks me in the eye
I just feel old
Looking the avatar of defiance
Right in the eye
I sigh sadly
At the visage of a girl
Going done a difficult path
“You don’t have to be tough
You just have to be smarter
Than them to win”
I say sitting in a chair
I feel so tired
“No”
She says flexing
And unlacing her fists
That should never know
The feeling of anger or hate
Her faces tightens
As she shakes her head vehemently
“I will show them
I am not just some stupid girl”
She is angry now
But so am I
“Well maybe you are just some stupid girl
What then
What if you can’t change”
I yell at her
“What if you are stuck forever
Just being that dumb girl
With the angry fists
What then
When all they see is a girl with
Hate coiled in her eyes and
A fist for a heart”
She looks at me
With shattered eyes
And the beginning of tears
“I’m sorry”
I say desperately
As I reach for her
To cradle her sadness away
“I didn’t mean-”
She turns and runs away
Leaving me with open arms
As I watch her run
But for a moment
She stops
Turns back to me
With a pinched face
And defiant eyes
“You’re wrong”
She whispers
Those two tiny words
Ring in my ears
Ricochet through my brain
And she is gone
I sit back
Rub my weary eyes
And sigh
“I hope you’re right”