Poetry Dare Day 18: Rivers

Rivers flow form a source,
with gravity, water has the weight
of earth and the stories of mountains, no wonder we
have so many terms to refer to the way
rivers talk. Maybe
they have so much to say
because water claims
too many lives, may-
be water talks because life sprang
first from the depths, and that's why
water
has so many stories to tell
about life's infancy like
a grandmother with more memories
than photos, more love than hugs, more
discipline than hair.
Next time you're by water
with movement enough to be confused
as speech, take a moment and listen to stories
about the mistakes you've made as adolescence
crept underneath your skin 'cause
water doesn't forget; it
flows and changes form, leaves
dirt like memories deposited on
windshields sometimes so thick it
is difficult to
see memories have this way
of staying in your brain
and exchanging shapes
as they move from grey of mind to red
of vocal chords in images and words, but
if they aren't shared, they
have this way of freezing
movement, after all, keeps heat up, so speak
like the water does when it babbles, speak
the secrets you hear from raving rapids, and
listen for how to flow into adulthood with the
power of water to
wash past, clean
future and keep
seeking the advice of earth
found speaking at river's side and
lapping tide.


Poems go in completely new directions sometimes - I mean that the way we begin to write a poem is not necessarily indicative of the way a poem will turn out. We never know where a poem will end up. Rivers seem to be like this. Except that they all end up somewhere at least.

Poetry Dare Day 17: Misconceptions

Misconception: life should be easy.
Truth: life is only easy for those
who aren't living; life
runs on survival – it tests you
until you want to clench your fists, strike
hard enough to break, but
the open hand will always be stronger because
it can build, hold, love, and hope.

Misconception: Black belt means you are higher up
on the Chuck Norris ass-kicking scale.
Truth: Black belt means master of basics and takes
about eight years to complete. The basis of basics
mastery is rooted in the strength of your legs to
stand tall without fault – sure, flying is nice,
but ground doesn't give for those with focus
enough to stand. Hand to hand takes a backseat
to respect, discipline, honor, and integrity, but
only those who've studied fighting can attest
to why it ought be avoided.

Misconception: children should learn at a distance
in order to avoid pain
Truth: People, not just children, should experiment in the thick
of it. Making mistakes will not one knowledge
so long as he or she is given a chance to reflect
upon the experiential evidence gathered up in mistake's wake.
Exception: People need not be exposed to violence directly
in order to understand its effects first hand
Some lessons are not worth learning – innocence
need not be traded so that a person can learn that
not all men are to be trusted – hands
only form to fists when children are taught violence early,
and hands will always be strong open because they
are used to hold rather than smash bones
like innocence.

Misconception: Hatred hastens change along with
threats of death and force
Truth: Newton's third law prohibits this
from achieving truth – every action will be met
with an equal reaction – force and threats
at the behest of gunpoint or sword are
met with unbreakable resilience, and
all that is made of matter
will one day decay – swords rust into dust,
only words
can withstand time as both are endless and
only need a mind to conceive them in order to activate.
Exception: Words are at the whim of people with
too much time on their hands – meaning gets
driven out like erosion breaks down mountains
so words which once stood for something,
with too much misuse, get ground to dust –
this is how progressive, conservative, democrat,
republican, pro-life, choice, gun, rights, American
can come to hold less breath than a whisper and
why no one listens when these words enter conversations:
the only sound aloud is the crumbling quake of shaky earth

Misconception: Poetry is a power possessed by a select few.
Truth: Poetry is a process through which one's heart
is carved from chest, penned to paper, and
put back in again. It is the conversion of
the private to the public, a story-teller's tool
to make the esoteric understood. Anyone
who has made oxygen into energy and exhaled CO2
has the makings of poetry in their veins simply
because they have changed the world – anyone
who has loved or lost, felt sleepless lat at night,
woken with more energy than miles, less
breath than sweat, or the same shirt
on too many different days knows the exhilaration
of expression. Poetry is truth.

Poetry Dare Day 16: Pages Ripped Out

I would wretch
if I could.
Pages were ripped out. I
live my life through paper, there
is a divine sadness in books missing
their internal organs, there
memories torn, and I wonder
if dementia is time acting
like a child to rip the
thoughts that didn't revolve around it
out of the minds of selfish humans who thought
the space in their minds
to be property they truly owned,
not simply renting, but this
is not true.
I wonder how it feels to retell
a story to its author.
Do the eyes light up like
it's being heard for the first time?
WHen pages with unpublished poems
are lost, those words can't be
strung together exactly as they once were.
If life is poetry, then memories are stanzas, and I
can't imagine losing so many lines
for a poem
that can never be replaced.

Poetry Dare Day 15: Hands Crossed

She
has her hands crossed
across her chest as though
trying to keep her heart in or
trying to keep
his words out. She
wants hime to find words
worth asking; she wants
him to find stories
worth telling. He
keeps his cheeks puffed from
Chex Mix and Pepsi, commercials
about Doritos, football, and
scant stories about past
Monopoly games, Battleship; there's
not a lot of surface tension – she's
talking to him about the connections
he may have make between these games
and his mistakes – he's
been momentarily saved from orange
jump suits due to age, but time
will not run counter-clockwise, so
she wants to ensure he's running right.
People give multiple chances, but
the clock's hands only seem to tighten.
Noose-like, time runs taut, so she needs to teach
so that her lessons don't become past tense.

A Wild Update Appears

I haven't updated my blog in far, far too long. With good reason, however. I have been at work for what feels like non-stop. Fear not, though, for I have been keeping up with the poetry (as much as possible) and have a ton of things which I will be posting up over the next few weeks. I hope that the reading material gives you something to think about over this lovely spring break. Or perhaps a lovely break from the current spring we've been having?

Good luck, and have fun writing!

Poetry Dare Day 14: About Love II

I think I've felt love before, at
least I know I've spoken the word
as though the concept could become mine
like I had Adam's power coursing through my lungs.
But love isn't something I can name; it's
too potent, too big, too out of range, and
it can't be held like breath; we
can only keep it moving with
inhales and exhales. When I lost it,
my breath stopped. Love has left
me bloody and bruised – it can be
a tangled mess of past regrets like
scars on skin and tears over again –
unfinished sentences with words never said; it
is wondering and missed connections, beats
missing their rhythm and hopes sans
requite – ends minus means for expression, and
loneliness follows far too nicely love's contour; it
is afar and afraid, fearfully frenetic,
functioning, fickle fictions; its friction
burns when it's wielded too quickly, and love
causes forest fires in tree-tall dreams, these
have been the things I've connected with love, so
I don't know if my experiences are indicative of
reality, but I hope they aren't because
I don't want being afraid to say "I love you"
the way the world is wound around itself; I'm
more terrified of finding
I'm right, so show me
how love functions; teach
my hands to be gentle, my
tongue to be truthful, my
limbs to find grace, my
eyes to hod beauty; I'm
asking you for help because
I want to find grace in faith
and cease wasting these precious pulses; it's
repulsive, and
I want a change, and
if love is like breath, then
love can't be held, but
it is the reason we can function, it
is the reason to be because
although changed
it is given and
taken equally.

Poetry Dare Day 13: About Love I

"Write," she said,
"about love be-
cause I'm
not sure you've been shown
what it looks like alone, away
from a beautiful face or
a lover's embrace, and
love may be felt in the body, but
it does not dwell there. Blood
corrupts what it touches, so love
can never truly live
here, embodied by
beating heart, taut flesh; it
visits those places like
presidents visit war zones,
sudden floods, disaster relief, and
Red Cross quarantines. Love
is a battlefield for our bodies, but
it's respite for your mind – the
only food to feed the soul. Can
you do that? Can
you take your pencil, dip it in skin
then paint the image left on paper again?" "I
I will try," I replied.