magnetic poetry and prose
Last night I lie awake
wondering what dreams were yet to come.
You were there
enveloping me on all sides
a kind of sentient sanctuary.
I felt your lips ghost
the contours of my mouth,
our breath merging,
our thoughts as one.
–
I have been away a very long time, apologies!
I fall away drop by drop
As a statue of wax
In a gaze too explicit.
Love is not given without proof
Proof of worth, of loyalty
Of arbitrary condition.
A lifetime of proving
And so very little sustained.
What does it matter
That I am ordinary
That my poems are indelicate
And fall half-undressed
Across contrasting sheets?
What does it matter
That I forget your name
And your face, which isn’t
Half as extraordinary
As the smile it effects?
I remember your heart
As psychedelic as it is,
With such terrible affection.
Or is it affliction?
There is but so much,
Why is it I always find more?
A step taken with contused knees,
A step taken with bloodied palms
And I think at least love exists.
The garden does not
Linger as it used to
The aroma of blood
Among lilacs conspires
Against visitation.
My sanctuary is lost.
The last time I went in
I had to claw my way out.
A church was never
Intended as a home
And a prayer must never
Invalidate commitment.
*
I prowl the perimeter,
A gravekeeper of sorts
Wondering if those halls
Still echo with my sobs,
If those weathered stones
Still mark the passage of time.
Or if another God
Rattles my osseous harvests.
Sometimes beauty is a veneer
For the hopes we cherish
But do not realize.
*
My therapist suggested that I try writing poems to my abstract paintings.
I did not mean offense
It is only my fear
That thins our correspondence.
Only fear that keeps
My lips and fingers
Sealed and wringing.
If only you could understand
The telepathy between us,
The migratory nimbus,
The aerial pantomimes
Ribs closing in like corset
Starving my lungs
Their instinctual triumphs.
If a gull, I might escape isolation
With a cleverly timed squawk,
I might dive down
Into your pitted palm and discover
Some kindly sacrifice
But I suffer no such lucidity.
Every extension is sodden
Tarnished by the caricatures
I employ in rehearsal.
I admire your talent
But I do not expect that you
Would entertain long
My inadequacies.
I have engaged you
Many times, a veritable moon
My forms are numerous
All resembling the articulation
Of an eye but I am no eye,
No prophet
I haven’t the sense
Of my crises
I tear at old wounds
Until a fountain
Counterfeit and carmine
Rises from the motes
That enslave me.
I see you as above
A spectrum beyond
The blueness of heaven
I bate my breath
Waiting for you
To close my hand
In the mirror of your own
Is this what it is to love
Without question?
I knew the day would come
When you’d undress me
And find that there was nothing
But a blank canvas beneath
Like a moon indexing shadows
Hoping that her contradictions
Were all well and accounted for
Silhouettes cling
To my ankles
Like Icarus’ singed wings
The sun is repulsed
By my company and so
Seldom do we meet
That I cannot imagine
My life in her presence
Shallow graves smile
In my wake
But there are none
Who could occupy
Long these impressions
My path is without parallel
And I, being from
Another world entirely,
Can find no relation
In this one
Bare me only if to love
If the key let it loosen
These gossamer chains
I will never be a slave
Never divinity, a heart only
Forgive me now the stature
Of this exhibited flesh
The diminutive mouth
The silent throat eroding
Forgive me this exhale
Poised as a dove’s wing
For its abrupt interval
I have distanced my content
Come now or set me free
Has your arrogance deafened?
I am in no need of company
Conversation will not save me
If I want to destroy myself I will
Even paper slippers are dangerous
In the clutch of my murderous hands
*
I watch your head bobbing
As if it had been mistaken
For an apple and you gesturing wildly
In an attempt to restore it unblemished
I wonder at the contents of your throat
If you are filled only with water
And simmering exiguous anecdotes
*
I don’t believe you’ve ever spoken to me
Not as you are beneath your false face
The stories don’t even belong to you
So how could they possibly comfort me?
If I could talk away my pain
I would have done it by now
I talk quite a lot you see
Sometimes I even remove the censor
The mendacious proof of my sanity
And let my words scatter as wreckage
To hell with common sense
I am too poor to rely on pleasantries
Too poor and too tired to remember
Which way is up and which way is down
*
I am an eccentric
But I don’t, as you might imagine,
Do anything particular unusual
I have my tea the same as anyone
It’s all very civilized except that I don’t sip
No, I gulp it all down letting it burn the skin
Off my pink tongue, the one that deceives
You know the tongue I speak of
The one that is hollow at its core
The one which prophecies doom
The one that promised I’d be dead soon
It does have a flair for the dramatic
I keep it sealed in brine now, like a pickle
*
I’ve a new tongue these days
I borrowed it from an old shoe
It doesn’t recognize my voice
Lodged there behind my teeth
Jabbering on and on
About who knows what
What a useless thing it is!
But it saves me the trouble
Of making small talk
And I hear that it can be
Quite entertaining at times
*
I have no use for secrets
Secrets are just lies
Laid out in pine boxes
Corpses, these lies will
Infect me with their brain hunger
With their stumbling vacancies
I would rather be crazy
Than a Zombie
If I’m crazy at least
I can stay indoors
*
Audio (read by me)
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0dgxXJy415G
On another note I have published my first book which you can check out here
I’ve ground my heart into mortar
That these battlements would hold
“I want to be alone” is a mantra
Held fitfully between loose teeth
One could spend their entire life
Gnawing at the hominal clicks
Of a brass-coated tongue
And never hit a single note
*
We’re simply not made
For silence, for exile
I am the unsiphoned void
The potential for love
Is imminent but underpaid
Will you wrap me
As a wound
As a gift
As a lifetime
Lovingly spent
*
My veins are too heavy
To accommodate spades
Let the rogue at arm’s distance stay
Let the prince ride on
For white horses get dirty fast
Give me the artisan
The honest man with callused hands
And a smile that bridges
Earth and empyrean
Carbon Noise Poetry 