Poems or WTF

Because again feels so like yesterday
déjà vu, synchronicity, and providence
take to the stage like weary veterans
fearful of forgetting who they are
pretending to be; their lines
written in pencil
on props without names.

I can say anything and never know
if I’ve affected the right motivation,
or if I’m stepping on someone’s cue,
living a life meant for another,
an unwitting usurper
encouraged by kin and country
to do all I can
to be what I can be;
scrap the script when necessary.

I keep moving the X on my map
putting distance between
myself and the past,
with each rising and setting of the sun
every phase of the temperamental moon,
knowing I am no one
of consequence on this stage; that the stars
I wished upon as a child
wouldn’t miss me.

I wonder as I watch you from behind the curtain;
is the audience as vulnerable as the actor?
Are those polished smiles that wax and wane,
on the pretty faces of the costumed and cultured
good enough to impress or fool the neighbors?

Or are they as naked and contrary as I feel?
Unwilling to read their lines as written.
Always trying to find another way
to say the same thing.

“Find me.”

The stars wouldn’t miss me
but I would miss you.

Everything we shared died
the winter I packed your things.
Except, of course, the cat
who I always thought
you lacked affection for.

(It’s not something I do often but I actually giggled when I read this.)

Yes, I have been a dirty little whore

Here
where this sliver of self-respect
slips beneath my soft skin
a poisonous reminder of
everything else

and I keep waking up
wondering why I feel so damn alone
would continue (ignoring shame)
to bend backward over my
keyboard privileges

for
friendship

eager to do anything for kindred
and extra love I should not feel

makes me wonder which of us
is pushing
and in what direction

this growing chasm is unbearable
seems to magnify my frailty and mock my trust

because I have become someone

another pornographic soul mate

I cannot respect

so why should he

which is why he doesn’t.

by lily blake

I write, erase what I have written, write (it) again,
Nothing is (ever) said, recorded,  exposed, released,  relieved.

This I, that (should) walk(s), talk(s), houses (is house(d)), believes
 in feeling (carries hate, scatters words)
   wishes, dreams, creates, destroys;
 she (I)
would disappear (vanish)
 prays for an erasure (a philosophical death)

to devour what I (she) am (is)
 (but mostly) to kill what I am not.

Nothing is me in this light.

Here, the “I” (pretending I am somewhere/someone)

decorated in skin, wounds, pains  (common enough to tire of)
have handed over (given, out of nothing more than an exhaustion too unbearable to
   believe in keeping)
 all that could be me

(have no destiny, am not destined to be) anything “ after all, she’s dead because I would
       not give (save) her life.

 The word runs from me
  indifferent “to being what I am“ have been
(a) continuous surrender
  a painful sigh (a deep obliterating silence)
which, in our hour, speaks not, even to itself.

I believe I’m damned?
 Foolish questions lingering in the shadow of a self I have not become
(will not become) as there is nothing to be

in this light.

Vanity, youth and arrogance
Write in my place
 my unhappy palace

(a woman passing might look upon my life with envy)

And, even with her shadow near me, I know I go (am gone)
 from her, this self, all the others

trapped in poems I am too afraid to write.

So this is what I have.

This. 

(Insignificant, insufficient, unworthy of the eye that wanders over it)

Only my own,
 unburdening (disbelief)

crude (re)workings of the already written to conspire with

only me in this palace (this (non) home) 

of which my time is limited by my understanding

  of

this child
these small hands

Seeking out those places within me already lost

I wait on love.

I couldn’t sleep, and when I slept
I dreamt of you.

The Ferris wheel ticket taker with crepe paper hands
her eyes as soft as your skin
and our fingers laced like shoe strings
in our shared carriage
that lifted us high above
everything we couldn’t master together.

Your dark eyes, and the way you looked at me
as I was waking up,
or the way I clung to you in my dream
my arms around your waist, face against the stomach
I kissed the summer before I left you.

I feel hollow, and slow, and I remember everything
I said to you that made you cry.

You are so lovely, always, in my dreams
as you were when I kissed you at the top of the Ferris wheel
and told you a joke that made you toss your head back,
laughing, the sun painting your face in a golden light
that made me want to promise you impossible things.

I find you now, when I fall asleep feeling sad,
when I’m not looking for you
as if you’ve come offering shelter, like you did when you found me
sitting on a barroom chair pretending I was old enough
and you whispered in my ear, and I was lost again, but yours.

It’s cold,
this space and possible loss.
When only yesterday or today
your name
filled every aspect of winter
with warmth.

You made new feel newer.
And I was not so silent
all the time,
but noisy.

How complicating cold is,
when your voice does not reach me.
This silence,
a place so like
winter
and reasons I do not understand.

Singer of songs
I am listening.

Your migratory imagination
is summer on my skin.

I’m going to make a nest inside your treehouse
beneath the waxing moon.
And I’m not coming down
until you come back.

I’ll leave you alone
and let you go about your business
of setting and rising, making waves
dissident distance, and stupid stars
without wishing for anything
for myself or you
if you’ll let me sleep one uninterrupted hour
without the ghost in me.

Shadow is never a suspect
but always a witness,
and I’m tired of telling the same
old stories.

Let me close my eyes
over hours wasted hiding under metaphor
or some old man’s song.
With so many words to choose from
you’d think I’d use my own after a while.

Let me sleep
without the ghost in me
and I’ll go make peace
with everyone you ever disappointed.

(1998)

time dissolves

wayfarers, drunk on distance
sleep near the road

the lonely roam

coupling like salted snails

passages and streets signs
replace memory

holding only that which they
can carry on their backs

here

transitory steps are washed away

forgotten

the miles ahead, the road behind

burning to navigate open spaces

without map, compass or
thought to destination

time divides equally

friendly faces
pass unrecognized

born alone
the road: a bed, blanket, and home

under moonlight

they sleep close like shiny spoons

at dawn
without recompense

their paths separate
like water lilies

the journey is more alive than the traveler

time ignores all pain

sea salt kisses
swept under traffic lights

let the wind take them

here, reworking fire

visions are born
as children

their feet

soft and ready
for the road.

there’s a woman here
if you look closely
beneath the muse
made of flesh and bone
salt and sinew

who will keep smiling
because she understands
why you’re leaving
so much unspoken
and nothing promised

what’s not seen
while you are waking up
next to her bright light
are her small hands
and quiet wish

that tomorrow
when she opens her eyes
and finds you’ve gone
she’s not left alone
with what you could not carry
or would not keep

Technorati Tags: poetry

The following poem was one I wrote shortly after the death of Johnny Cash. There’s no real story behind it, other than the need to clarify who “Johnny” and “Leonard” are for those who don’t know me very well.

I claim them as my own;
not as cousin, brother, father, grandfather or great,
lover or husband,
or otherwise part of that euphemistically shallow
brotherhood of man.

They have left and are leaving me.
I prepare my body for a crash,
cover my head and face with my arms and hands.
 - Soon
I will have everything possible of all that promise.
Too soon, everything else, possible or not, will be too late.

I am glad we never met, though they were destined to be mine.
Two old men, however wise and inspired,
still thrill to the whirl of a girl.
A horny prophet can weaken the message;
a starry-eyed girl caught a coin flip between curiosity and irritation.

Brilliant men find ways to make a naked woman essential to any lesson.

Johnny is gone and Leonard is dying.
My father has given up his children.

The old keep getting older and I am catching up.
Given how well worn the path, aging should not be so isolating.

I am no longer a child;
born and left alone to navigate the world without the necessary skills.
I could almost hate for that kind of indifference.

Dreams are slowly replacing memories.
My father is no longer easily recognizable; a shadow
who owns the voice, the face
and I struggle with choices he has made for us.
It makes little difference the how or why of it.

My dreams need to be my own again.
The old man and his paramour should take a hike,
haunt some other soul.
Why they linger now brings up images of crow scenting carrion.

Johnny is gone and Leonard is dying.
I do not recognize my own father. The truth is no longer comforting.

They have left and are leaving me.
Someone whispers, “Let them go.”

We all believe in our father’s gods for a while.

I may not believe in you anymore
but I still believe in the music.

(In this lonely place)
I hold onto my singers of songs,
memories of my old man and his phantoms of divinity;
as old men gather to recreate creation,
talk big as if they’ve seen it,
weep openly for having no words to describe it.

Their need for gods is why we need music
(and maybe the how or why of it.)