The gramophone screams like a banshee
Discontented and hungry it wails
Like wind bursting in the bubbled windows
That grows pregnant under the pressure, pushing outward
Until the smash and clatter of glass raining down
Disturbs the cold stark night air
Like the nightingale’s melancholy melody for a blind poet
Which rings like the rattle used to quiet
The piercing shriek of a baby’s newborn whimper
Which sounds like a siren
Rattling in the ear drum like a stormy sea
That tried to fit into a seashell too small
And not strong enough to hold the raging waters
Of the ocean on a twisted cloudy day
Swirled with the salty wind of an ocean breeze
Until the grey casts over all things
Leaving only a faint line to distinguish
The two worlds of above and below
A gull’s cry shatters the horizon
With the force of a jarring catastrophe
That leaves the world jolted and trembling
Waiting in that horrible suspense
Of a world untrusted and unstable
Tremble trifling tower
You will fall inevitably
Is the whispered wind’s prayer
That plays with the hair of widows
Sitting in attics looking out small windows
Into a small empty world
Crying silent tears that hit the ground like sledgehammers
Signaling defeat on the dark day
We cling together in the deafening storm
Hugging tight and promising to never let go
Even though time is loosening our grips even as we speak
We cannot weather this storm
Not this time
This cacophony of chaos will tear us apart
There you are sitting across this dark precipice
And I here nursing the sickly wail
Of a cracked gramophone
Trying to screech out the song of you and I
That was never meant to be
Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
Cacophony (Gramophone)
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012Climbing Vine
Monday, March 26th, 2012A shadow sits folded in on itself
At the bottom of this dark hole
Like a love note, written
But never sent from its dark resting place
Amongst the cobwebs and spinster spiders
Weaving their lives from the fantasy
Of gossamer thin lies
Lies that build walls thicker than the fortified
Walls which streak upwards like skyscrapers
Surrounding this bent and hollow shadow
Sitting at the bottom of this dripping well
That has become her home
Wretched and empty
Hunched and alone she sits
Like a broken marionette doll
Beautiful once, but thrown away
Her strings have been clipped
As she fell down this hole
Now she must learn to move on her own
This limbs so heavy and graceless
That have never belonged to her
At the bottom of everything
Clouds of cold air escape her barely parted lips
Breathing life into this desolate place
Reaching with the awkward limbs
Of a bird not yet learned how to fly
She feels blindly with her head held down
And her eyes closed
Finger tips glancing the damp walls of her prison
Gliding along the rough edges of bricks
Laid by careless and callous hands
Not the hands of decent men
Her decent hands feel the gripping edges
Of stone sharp enough to draw blood
But dull enough to deny hope
This landscape of craters across the well’s face
Are beheld like Braille under her delicate fingertips until
Cringing like the legs of spider
Stumbling across unwanted prey
Her fingers curl and unfold again
Touching gently the obstacle encountered
At arms length away
With eyes not seeing she understands
Her fingers tracing the smooth contours
Contrasted against the rough stone walls
Of the petals of a plant, a vine
Curling its way upwards toward sunshine
She feels the twisted outline of the vine’s body
As it arches upward, bending, twisting
Manipulating its way up the coarse walls
Of a well too deep for human souls to be released
The shadow lifts its head slowly
Facing upward like the crawling vine
Looking without seeing with dull grey eyes
She can feel the faint and distant kisses
Left by the rain that fell far above
Disappearing before it made ground
She breathes in the moment, almost alive
She reaches with her other blind hand
Out, upwards, stretching to touch the rain
But like the climbing vine
It never quite finds its way
Glance
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012Oil on water
Slick as the night
As the morning tries to wash
The darkness from your face
It clings with the desperate fervor
Of child to mother
As a hand slides from the grasp
Of one person
To another
And is gone
This strange moment of fluidity
As worlds barely touching
Eyes barely meeting
Only to glance away
Converge
Only to float silently away
It is there, wrapped in this
Tight tourniquet of fog
That holds us closer
Than a final embrace
Between to people who know
They will never meet again
The moment before all is lost
Standing at the edge of this precipice
Solitary in this mist
Permeable yet dividing
I am lost
Left behind by that evanescent flicker
Of worlds stopping for a brief moment
Reaching out to one another
Knowing there is reason to stand still
But feeling the push and pull
Of a world that never knows how to stop
This winding of a clock
The count
Of one, two, three, four
Finds its way of rhyme
Even as the world begins to slide
Here I am still standing
Not knowing the words to say
Not knowing how to scream
I stand in this silent emptiness
Watching you recede from me
Half Heartedly
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012I fret back and forth,
Bite my fingers for a moment
Hide it by tilting my face away
Look, look away
Tilt my head this way and that
Frame my face with worried fingers
Supporting my chin on my hand
Purse my lips, bite my lip
Look back again
—Mom!
Like a thunder clap
It brings me back again
The clouds over my face part
I smile half-heartedly
I have to go
She looks up at me with an odd look
Lurking in her stormy grey eyes
They are her father’s
So much like her father
I begin to bite my nails again
Flick my eyes off towards the window
Throwing my attention across the room
So I don’t have to look at her
Question looming in those haunting eyes
A light but insistent tug on my dress
Brings me back
I look down and smile
Half heartedly
You are going to have so much fun
I place my shaking hand on the top of her head
Feeling her feathery hair
Trace my finger along the red ribbon twisted
Among the feathers of her hair
So soft and smooth
So much fun
I mutter to myself as my attention drifts away again
–the bus
the honk hits me like a slap to the face
I wince slightly
Clawing to bring me back to her to here
I really have to go now
She reaches up with her little hands and turns
The door knob slowly and with effort
I place my hand over hers
Helping her open the door that is too big for her
I feel the softness of her unmarred hands
I wonder if she feels the bones of my fingers
The sadness etched lines of my hands
It swings open
She runs out the door
Like a clumsy fawn
Her back pack shifting back and forth
The monster in front of the house waits
Taking her away from me
I hover at the doorway
Unwilling to leave the threshold
But unwilling to let her go
–Wait!
A desperate yell
Bursts from my breaking heart
She stops and looks back at me
That question still hiding in her eyes
I hesitate for only a moment
And depart from the sanctuary
Running down the little walkway
On legs atrophied with sorrow
I stop before her
She says nothing
Just looks up at me with stormy eyes
Innocent and curious
I grab the end of the red ribbon
Which had come undone on her escape from the house
I kneel in front of her
And tie the ribbon with foolish hands
That shake even as I smile
Half-heartedly
And look into her eyes
I smooth her hair when I am finished
Put my hands whittled away with grief
On her small shoulders
Let out a sigh
That wanted to be a scream
And watch
As she faintly smiles and turns away
The monster honks again
Taking her away from me
I slowly stand as the bus drives away
Leaving me on the shores of my sorrow
Alone
With half a heart.
Wind Mother
Thursday, December 1st, 2011The wind gently rolls through the trees
Like a mothers soft whisper in her infants ear
Telling her of things not yet unfurled
But waiting on the distant horizon
Like a run away balloon
Swept into the abyss
that is not cold, dark or lonely
but quiet and filled with the warmth
of a contented heart that beats
not because it has to but because it wants to
Dancing in pirouettes on the shoulders of the leaves
Rattling the bones the edifice of this green breeze
Until just one person stops to watch and listen
To the secrets swept up by this whirlwind
As the bones are rolled to reveal the truth that lies
In the scattered remains, a world foretold
But not yet cemented
The wind is shifting in this dire breath
Switching back from foot to foot
A ballerina bowing and swaying
With the whispering wind
Dancing not because someone is watching
But to release the rhythm bounding in her mind
Clarity is the remnants of the words left behind
As your hair is tussled and your clothing left displaced
A clairvoyance unachieved until this moment
All you needed was the gentle prompting of the wind
Like a mother letting her child go into the dark, cold, lonely world
That isn’t quite so lonely
And isn’t quite so cold
yes there is a darkness
But your child will find the way
Like a blind woman they will be guided
By the caresses of the wind
When all else is darkened
There will be your hand
Grit and Gravel
Saturday, November 26th, 2011The soft bare flesh of your palms
Marred along with the bony knees
That refuse to carry you along this path
Dirt and gravel dig into your skin
As you sit facing the Eastern Gate
Prostrate like a child before your relentless master
On hands and knees too weak for strength
But too strong to kneel
Defiance is your name
As you grit your teeth and grip the gravel
Between your blistered fingers
There is no blame just a silent battle
As you crash to ground
Like the rebounded toss
Of the writer’s crumpled paper
As another idea
Dies and dies again
Breathe in the ochre
Of this ground where you find yourself kneeling
Paint your face with the ochre
Of the very ground you were once told to kneel upon
Let it be your armor, your war paint
In the coming battle
Where once you had hesitation
Shaking as straw in the wind
Let this gravel be your battlefield
And your oppression become strength
We are the children of warriors
But we have yet to prove ourselves
Even as you sit with battered pride
And bleeding palms
This is just your beginning
Let this blood be the signature
That is remembered by all
You who wept for what was right
We remember your name
Determination
Sunday, May 15th, 2011The dust is the shroud wrapped tightly around her shoulders
A death shroud veiling her from the world she is simply passing through
Transparent eyes look at nothing but the horizon of the world
With feet that drag as her invisible chains burden her steps
She moves on, deliberately, persistently with no goal in mind
She must move, she must not stop or else she will be found
You see, her shadow is chasing her but cannot find her in the dust storm
She is the lost, she is the invisible left to wander when the storm is over
Determination is her name
But what good is determination when there is no objective
Simply the will to keep going, keep moving when all has imploded around you
She knows all about failure, pain, and the bottom of the hole
The grave she has dug herself into yet seems to continually evade
She dances around death with the practicality of a mathematician
Life is a calculation to her, the only components that exist
Are her obstacles and her ability to push onward
So she finds herself walking down this road again
Chased by her shadow and the inevitably of death
But this time as it always has been Lady Luck has swept her away
In the arms of a storm that is all consuming and all knowing
Maybe Luck knows just how it feels to be out of luck
So she took pity on a poor girl down on fortune who was betrayed by her shadow
But in the end luck has nothing to do with it
Her shadow will eclipse her in the end as all are and no storm can save her then
But for now she continues her dance, her game of Cat and Mouse
With those who cannot be tricked or avoided
With bare feet she continues forward, pulling the cowl of a dust storm close
To hide her face from eyes that can see all and know all
How long she wonders, how much longer can this game continue
For even now she grows weary, even now her soul
Just as the soles of her feet grow bloodied and bruised
From a fight she knows she cannot win
Yet she continues to fight because it is simply who she is
She is determination and does not know what it means to give up
So she doesn’t
Posted in Poetry |
Poetry
Thursday, April 21st, 2011I was trying to describe you to someone
But they couldn’t understand
They think you’re odd and strange at times
But I think you’re as close to perfect as god would allow
They don’t understand how I can love you
Because the melancholy print you leave behind
Is like a bruise a scar that has marred my mind
They tell me it is one sided
But they could never understand
I do not need to hear your words
Echoing off the back of my skull
I do not need to feel the touch of your fingers when I feel alone
There is a name for our love
And it is called
Poetry
The beat to the dance we have in our hearts
As each line is stamped into our minds
A beat is skipped but it never stops
This tug of war between our hearts
The feeling we get as the words rush forth
There is no spoken word to be found
That can capture this love and hold it down
We have a love that does not need to spoken
Does not need to be felt or else it will be broken
This symmetry, this geometry is the only thing
That god ever intended for me
So how can they understand this love we have
This odd relationship between a pen and a hand
You whisper to me as I sleep at night
I write to you with my heart in my pen
Though we will never meet in person
I will chase your shadow until the day I die
You are my muse, my inspiration
The light in the sky
I do not expect understanding or even recognition
I just need to feel the presence of your shadow
As long as I know this candle still burns
There will always be a note waiting in the morning
For your expected return
Creeper Photo: Two Worlds
Friday, February 18th, 2011
There is another world at my fingertips
So solid and real yet non-existent
No matter how far you dig
The opposing hands seem
Just beyond reach
A drowning sibling
Too far for contact
With this other world
At times you see each other
In the glimpse of a shadow
Out of the corner o your eye
In the slight reflection
Of a dirty decaying mirror
Hiding in the corner
Of an old attic room
Immersed in a dark pool of water
With the shimmering image
Of this world
There one moment
But lost in the disturbances
Of the world we find ourselves in now
You wait for these fleeting meetings
Between you and your other self
Whom you never knew
Except for those evanescent glances
Into a ghostly world
Were two were almost one
Posted in Candid Photography, Photos, Poetry |
Clatter of the Unknown
Monday, January 31st, 2011Teeter me tower
Settle down annoying clatter
Find me the fire
Between your clamorous banter
There is silence to be had
If only it could be found
Drop the dice
Only to loose the die
Pitter patter little rain drop
Who knew you could
Make such a ruckus
Who knew the dove
Would best the crow
That the dog would never
Have his day
Clitter clatter of the tatters
Left behind by the shreds
Of all that never was
But will always be
Find the answer
Without the question
Seek a sunset during sunrise
And what will you find?
A frame without a photo
And a world without meaning
Filled to the brim
Of a glass not quite full
But never empty
Jump to reach the sun
When the stars stand in the way
Find me reason
Without rhyme
Find the end of this poem
In the next line
Posted in Poetry |