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WHen pages with unpublished poems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.

Poetry Dare: Day 12

Poetry needs to be brutally honest sometimes because it's our story.  It is the one that we tell, and honesty needs to be preserved in our stories, or else the stories no long have meaning.  I think a lot.  I think far too much, and, even worse, I think I'm right.  This poem comes from a free write (more like a free speak using a voice memo recorder and a phone), and I'm half tempted not to post it because I don't know what it means. It just feels a shame when I write a poem, and I don't even understand it.  This, however, is the way that poetry works.  My hope, then, is that someone finds something useful out of reading this poem.  Just remember not to ask too many questions because I'm not even sure I have the answers.



We stood out in the parking lot
underneath stars that must have blinked a million times.
Perhaps they were trying to say good night, to
bid us adieu, wait
until we could see them again, but
we wouldn't listen.

You told me about how wrong I was
throughout that entire night. I
didn't want to believe you.
In those moments with the stars
above blinking, I felt
my soul as old as time. Older
than the stars that shine above. I felt
like my soul had seen
countless wars
through the eons and past time to
before it could form these words.

And you wanted to tell me
that people can change.

I don't
understand
how anyone
can see the signs
but still be so blind.

My mother
told me that I was her rock.
She insisted
that I was strong, sturdy, would
not be broken, possibly eroded, but
this
is what happens to all good men.
They slowly and subtly change throughout
their lives.

I feel more like water.
Trying to find my way
around any situation, pour
past any tough surface, but
I've neglected my own.

I don't understand how
you
call me beautiful and still
have an honest smile.

I don't know if I'll ever
understand
where you're coming from.

I don't even know what
the point of these words are
because the last thing I said to you was
"Words
have no meaning anymore."

And I truly wanted to believe that.

Because words can't
tell me how to feel
right now. They can't
sympathize
with the tears my eyes
are shedding; they can't
hold me tight and tell me
everything's gonna be okay.

But you can't either.

I'm afraid the words I've placed in front of us
have grown rough and solid like stones. And I
like water
have been rushing up against them
trying to get through
to the other side.

Poetry Dare: Day 11

I had always thought that questions were these things that got smaller and smaller as we got older and older kind of like playgrounds as we grow up from being small to tall, but now that I'm seeing things from such a different vantage point, I realize that the questions themselves don't ever really go away.  However, I think that our ability to accept their inability to be answered increases.  I think we, as people, start to understand how nothing is understood.  I remember crying over not getting a gameboy or something of the like.  Now I understand crying over a human not getting food, clothing, water, or sleep.  The things we care about change; our questions change with them.



Why is
I don't know
an unacceptable answer?
I own so
many I don't knows,
I don't know
what to do with them all.
What will the future hold
I
When will I know if I've found love
don't
Why does evil exist
know
how I can make sense of all these
unanswered questions, but answers
have only seemed to me
good because of their utility.
Answers become the reasons to act, but
actions are answers, so
acting
will hold me over
until I understand.