All posts in poetry

these words
these words will not

• hold you close
• open you up
• brush tears away gently
• help you abandon reality

for just a little bit

i’m not trying to

• console you
• get into your pants
• make you love me
• make you forget this

this reality
quite the opposite

i don’t write of

• men in capes who save the day
• knights in armour who save the day
• witless damsels who are the day

unless the occasions calls for it of course

i don’t write of

• one-sided-facts
• happily-ever-afters
• things-without-pain

i write truths
i simply observe
and word my truths
trying anyways

i can’t help it

• that this voice is gentle
• that i don’t rhyme
• that these words are simple

that i like

• that these words are simple
• that they don’t rhyme
• that this voice is gentle

but believe me i write
that these truths are hard
trying anyways

if that’s too much to take in
to swallow, just remember that
these words
these hard words, will not
hold you up
quite the opposite
they’ll tear you down

just remember that
i’m not trying to romance you
i’m trying to slap you
or better yet, choke you
…with these words

1.

i stand by the park-bench under the tree
and with my neck craned up
i close-watch prideful birds
inhale till they swell

i watch them hop around
in their restless happiness
i watch them flock
in their jubilance

i watch them take beak to wing
and peck those bothersome things
off, once and for all
after all, what use are they?

their eyes peep something’s wrong
but, “fuck it” they tweet
you only live once
look at the weather!

2.

and as i stand
still by the park-bench under the tree
i lower my head a bit
and can’t help but think
these birds are all-right
and i don’t enjoy this enough

so i throw away my oculars
i’d made my decision
i’d join this jubilee!

3.

hey, did you know that
in the time it takes a birdwatcher
to sit on a park-bench under a tree
to lift their head in harmony
you can hear tree branches break?

dear Myself

famous poet is an oxymoron
safe sex was too, until recently

and I know there’s no such thing as safe sex
so what does that say about Me?

from You, a little more safe

.- — .- -.– .. .- -.–
.-.. ..- -.-. .. ..-. ..-. .. -.. – .- -.– .- … .- -.–
. …- .- .-. -. ..- .-.. .- -.– – — .- -.–

sometimes i think i get it

i get it

if you took the time
to notice the beauty,
the elegance,
of this earthly shrine
you’d get nothing done,
like i

i get nothing done

i stand with my mouth agape
and get absolutely nothing done

i stand and tell myself,
“i will not move until…”

“until these feet of mine
and the footsteps they leave behind
match the beauty of the sky”

i will not move till i can fly

and so,
after all these years i find
i have not moved

in hate or in kind,
in sight or in blind,
in body or in mind,
i get nothing done

i find myself confined
by my want of a spotless shrine

so yeah Mankind…
when, entwined by your daily stride,
i see you rush past masterpieces,
with soles your mother forbid at home,
i think i get it

sometimes

she says the heart must be broken.

that it must be cracked
in order for the fervent content within to flow
further,
out.

that when,
given time,
the cool air
(the outside
temperature)
hardens the exterior,
again,
that it must be cracked,
again.

that this must be done,
yes,
repeatedly,
continuously,
desperately,
and in a manner that properly respects
this force of nature;
this volcano.

he says,
“if my heart is fervent,
if it is as warm as you say,
as fiery as you say,
then it,
then i,
am underwater;
it is hard,
for fire,
for it,
for me,
here.”

she says
good!
break through this.
break because of this.
use this.
explode!
make islands.
explode!
create,
this is the only way how.
explode!
build castles,
above you,
in the sky.
make them last,
make something that lasts,
change the face of this planet.

she says,
good!
it is hard here,
and you will break here.

she says,
good.
great!
wonderful!
the heart must be broken.

when they kneel,
when they beg,
when they tug
at your pant legs,
and say,
“please, please, please,
be stable in your instability!”
you must have enough cruelty,
to say no;
to walk on.
and enough self-hatred,
to bring about your own death.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, the illness warriors get when they come home; when hardness returns to a soft place. The illness where warriors find no war to fight and yet they still do… I heard they used to call it soldier’s heart.

That’s all I know about it though, I’ve never been in the army. Or the navy. But I say I have.

See, I have this hard way of staring; it comes across wrong I guess. And with these ever-growing scars on my wrists I wouldn’t know what else to call them but casualties of war. And I can’t for the life of me walk with someone without checking behind me every so often. Stuff like that is hard for me to stop doing. Seriously! When someone sticks their hand out, my hands form fists. And in the seconds it takes me to raise my hand and shake theirs back, I’ve already waged and won a silent war, demanding they open in kindness instead of the opposite… Stuff like that is hard for me to keep doing.

So, yeah, I tell people I’ve been in the army, or the navy, or whatever.

Just so my rigid way of standing won’t raise questions. Just so my silence can go uninterrupted. Just so I can take long walks alone, deep in thought, and not seem hard and alone, but sad and alone. I would rather people think I’m sad than hard. See, I know hardness is feared, I know it’s hunted. I know it’s hunted, and that eventually it finds itself out of breath, cornered, and on the receiving end of a clenched fist wrapped around a knife. I know hardness is stabbed, repeatedly; hacked-away at, by self-proclaimed Michelangelos who channel Phobos and Deimos, gods of a dead culture. But sadness, that gets you a message of comfort, delivered through an open-palmed pat on the back. I’d rather that than the knife, I am not David.

What’s it called when warriors are born in peacetime with all the fight and paranoia left in them? Pre-traumatic stress disorder? I don’t know, I just say I’ve been in the army, or the navy, or whatever. I’d rather that than the truth.