Poetry

Music notes drop with concrete feet To brick pavement crumbling underway Finding footholds that slowly dissolve Into the quicksand of time Fading away into a generation that belongs No where and to no one Being dragged downward by the music notes Cradled in your arms like anchors That you refuse to let go Clinging to as if it was life as it takes you away Gripping onto stonewalls Which crumble under the weight Of a broken string as if hell rides on its heels But there is nothing here Just a musician pulling notes from the air Like whispers from the breeze Light and free they are caught from the wind And tied to a string Spun from clouds like a child’s dreams A balloon floating away tied down by a thread That separates it from freedom By a fragile bond that quivers in the wind The anchored note roams outward With hope to stand again But is reigned in before it can drift too far Down the corridor of time For a moment it will linger there In the space before the next string is plucked And the last fades away The dying moment lingers with a sadness That is tangible in the air Suspended in a moment of being That will never come again

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

A 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

Oil 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

I 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.

The 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 ...

The 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

The 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

I 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 ...

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