The Implications of the Color Green

You were right about the color green.

It’s the shade of wonderful things; life, growth, and our eyes.

All other colors make their blushing debut from a green bud.

Even the bold hues of a vanishing sky were first seen in a patient bulb

And beating reds are better known for death than the healing they carried.

Tumbling down a trail of leaves like the slightest drop of dew

I find that every branch leads to a poised end.

This mountainside,

Where clouds gather like pools of water

Has seen more storms than oceans can hold

Yet no drop has gleamed the same reflected scene

Or traced the same map to the soil.

Gravity’s tow pushes in all directions.

Running together for just a moment

Makes all the difference in the ways we travel

And where the good green things will grow. 

The Tale of Ismay

Testament is given as critical faces scan the wooden room.

No one questions, it is in fact too late.

Who can blame him for his selfish impulse to live?

He is haunted enough it seems.

The shrieks of the drowning roll around in his ears

And his eyes force the sound down the throats of those he passes.

He is still standing, but his shoulders bend to the pavement.

Composure regained, papers take the time to call him “coward”

And courageous men in ties with Windsor knots sip tea in sunrooms

Appointing blame with boneless fingers.

But J. Bruce Ismay testified. Nothing more should be required.

We are eager for reproach rather than truth.

We scold and snarl to be justified, when we ought to be haunted.

Who stands as a hero in the paths he has never walked?

When woven moments cross our days, wear gentle ears and open eyes.

The dust on my shoes is not from your trail, but my own. 

Eraser

Quiet heart, what’s left to say?

You’ve been summed up, nothing remains to disclose.

Candid intentions fall, grace is called upon too frequently.

The Keeper of Time wears a knowing nod and grease stained fingers,

The only artist to have never reached for an eraser.

But I am captivated by word documents, floods, and fire

Which take back words and leave no traces.

Who can make straight lines through tainted eyes?

Listlessly, I crumple up another potential piece

Never to question what it may have been.

Each page will bring progress, something learned, something changed.

I can only hope to make something worthwhile before the paper runs out.

Congruency

I’ve used the phrase “I can’t” so many times

It has carved a ridge in my throat: a feat all other phrases must scale to reach my lips.

Thank God for Grandma, her scissors and whiteout. If only the rest were so simple.

I beg you to forgive me, my surrender to gravity.

I’m better now, teaching new words to glide from my tongue

Increasingly refusing to change my shoes to match the carpet.

This fault line will scar my horizon, but landmarks keep us oriented in unfamiliar places.

Grey Masquerade

In the still of snowfall, lovely shades of grey beckon me into the trees.

They reason, “The air is calm the ashes are yet warm from their journey behind the clouds.”

Indeed, the ground is softened by them, dimensions blurred together.

I admire the obscured familiar landscape, as if it were an old friend in costume.

Unable to resist the tempting glisten of frost bitten pine needles,

I layer myself into the pages of trees. Snow anxiously covers my tracks.

The thirsty wind guzzles the color from my cheeks and eyes.

I too, am made indescript.

Each snowflake whispers its name to me as it flutters to the ground in a cloak of commonality.

I murmur my own name into the swallowing silence. 

Borrowed Shampoo

I wake to the pull of your blinking eyes

From behind your soft, tousled, and troubled hair.

You are right; I don’t belong here either.

We have an echoed conversation

My last words tumble from my mouth, a helpless “I don’t know.”

Maybe you didn’t hear the despair in my voice

Because we’ll let another month slip by before we speak again.

I feign sleep until the draft carries you out of the room.

Once you have gone, I take a careful shower

But I put on the same dirty clothes I wore yesterday

Like how the baptized still stumble around in marrow frames.

With the unique pain of abandoned friendship and cold wet hair

I limp into the blinding newborn snow. 

Gills

Don’t be frightened by my fits of inspiration,

The dark currents of thought that pull me under.

I’ve been living here,

The slits in my throat send me faithful bursts of air.

It hurts to breathe this way, but I’m not drowning.

My seaweed eyes follow the dance of sunlight on the water’s surface

Obscured by reeds and algae.

I will feel the warmth of sunlight again,

But the gills may never close.

The Final Warning

Don’t gaze into the vastness of my eyes, you won’t make it out.

Like a child you extend your hand to the tantalizing glow of the stove,

Don’t follow me.

For both of our sakes, don’t look at me.

Your affection offends me, and mine is not to be found.

Drop the razorblade and count your fingers.

As it is told, beauty deceives with untold rigor.

Pay me nothing but my due wage of spite for my merciless work.

Leave me cold and thrashing in the waters you cannot wade.

We’ll both see silence soon enough either way. 

Ready, Set, Wait

We both have our running shoes on

Our sights are locked, our muscles spring loaded,

But be careful not to start before the sound of the gun.

Between us we already have too many penalties.

Take heart, the present is nearly past.

These aching days of waiting

Will creep out of our memories, silver strands in our hair

And we’ll hold the moments of destination between our palms.

Until our clock starts, take a deep breath.

Ready, set, wait.

Hands

Your hands move

Like they are underwater:

Wrists first, fingers follow.

The motion leaves bubbles in the air.

I can see through your skin

To the work of your heart in your veins.

Translucent skin is easily torn.

Patches of blood rest in your nail beds.

You are careful with your fingerprints,

And you let each one catch its breath against me.

I’ll hold these hands until the skin sighs its last.

Rest here Clever, you are mine.

Curtain Call

Scripts dangle over our heads as we dance circles inside circles

The stage, a dusty ribcage of moth ridden cloth and cracking planks.

Blood velvet curtains layer over the heart, stifling the beat

meant to conduct the rhythmless motion of circles and strangers.

The audience has disappeared in the blinding light

If they were ever seated at all.

Am I the only one dizzy on stage?

Have mercy, close the curtain. 

Contrast

From here I could let the weight pull me down

Walk with swift digging feet until a headstone met my temple.

Life will take me before I could ever take my life

For that there is no discussion.

Contrast of cobwebs and sunlight

Cause the silent lines we’ve drawn to glisten.

These woven worlds are fragile,

But that knowledge has never halted a storm.

With bracing eyes I watch the foaming clouds on an unsettled horizon.

Epistolary Novel

Dear Sir,

I regret to inform you that the loose bound letters you sent

Have too many exclamation points to have been written by me.

Perhaps you can find that author in the stagnant room with you

Between the evaporating pencil marks and cyclical conversations.

Don’t let another utterance of the missing pages pass your lips.

They are unnecessary; the end of the novel speaks for itself.

From one starving bard to another,

I advise you don’t get your hopes up at the publishing office this time.

The Taste of Still Saliva

I had no one to share the haunting yellow moon with

So I am saving it under my tongue until we speak again.

Each shard of my heart mimics my misplaced laughter and fury.

An oddity of madness, I turn mothers’ eyes to sorrow.

Like thick caramel, I have but to savor the promise of the finite.

Postcautionary Steps

If the ice beneath my feet

Successfully stole the role of friction

Like you have taken the reliance of time

My skull would crack at the seams.

Should I wake up

I won’t remember the reasons.

If I slumber yet

Crisp lab coats would gather anxiously

To dissect, determine, discover.

When the veins in my brain

Have been properly catalogued Dear

The scalpels and clipboards will move to my heart

And the other side of yours.

For this reason alone, I step lightly.

Headphones

I walk alone these days.

I take my duty seriously

As the only one who sees the crisp of the day.

I cross the train tracks

Where a man had died just yesterday.

They say he had headphones in

Hindsight is a bitch.

I smile to myself

Because no one knows where I am

Only you would know where to look.

Goodbye doesn’t stand a chance

Despite the plans they’ve woven.

Are they fastening chains or safety nets?

I step out with one headphone in.

Passing a Funeral

I felt embarrassed,

Because as I walked

I ran my hands along a tree branch

Admiring the pattern that tiny mouths had made in the leaves

Like a mist on a cool day.

And a family gathered across the fence

To bury a loved one that had passed.

I thought back to a boy

I had known once

Who died some Summer

When we were fourteen.

I kept silent

Because he had bullied me

And I never learned to turn the other cheek.

What could either of us have known about life and death

Without feeling the sting of either?

And I am walking home

Passing a funeral

Walking on.

Photograph

A blurry figure stands

In the past, in the bottom left corner.

And the field is glowing

With dried grass, dusty footprints

And the smell of fire just before the spark.

Beyond the field is a blur of lurking green trees

Combined to make a Washington Peak

Suffocated by clouds.

I cannot see before nor behind.

All I have is this photograph,

The frozen present of the past. 

Lost and Found

I turn left when my destination is right

To feel the thrill of being

Where I am not scheduled

Where no one would think to find me.

I turn around because I remember that you’re not here.

The next wrong turn I make is unintentional

The sting reminds me that lost and found

Aren’t my decisions anymore.

Cursed with being where I am not

And not wanting to be where I am

My eyes slide around the room

Never to settle on the gaze of an acquaintance.

This may be the breaking point. 

Only Eyes

My heart shatters

And the pieces run across the floor.

You can gather them

Clench them in your fists

Until they reach the bones in your fingers.

You can come to me

But I swear,

I’m nothing but eyes

And deceptive smiles

That I learn from watching

the sun each night.

For what of a day

Merits the closing curtain

Of colors and beauty?

Regardless.

Life happens on the horizon

And I’m lost in the middle.

Rita's Car

Rita’s car

Didn’t expect me

And like the taco man

Didn’t know how to react

To the tears from a thirty two

Minute phone call.

Goodbye could never be sufficient.

Reluctantly

I let your messages

Trickle out of my inbox.

The rattling radio plays “Just the Way You Are.”

I can’t help but feel that

Love songs have a new voice

A different sound.

I think

I want to be an artist.

Have my name in the paper

Towards the back

Where only you would find it.

Or an author

So you could read and understand

Every comma

Because I never told you

That Sage knocked the bumper

Off of the car

That I learned a new song

On the guitar.

For now

It has to be enough

To know you are wondering

And the string

Cannot be tampered with.

Heart Flurries

Regretfully

Two tongues can only catch

So many snowflakes.

Your tongue tastes sweeter

But is just as difficult to attain.

We spin in the flurries

Looking back

The snowmelt reminds us

Of the places we’ve been.

A memory sends a tear down my cheek.

It freezes before you can wipe it away

A stinging reminder

That the only footprints here

Are mine.

Come Naturally

Tears evade me

Instead, secrets cover my eyes

Like layers of snow that hide

The lines on the street.

You could navigate regardless

“It comes naturally” you’d say

Like how the wind knows

When to howl

Or wait in silence.

The bustling café

Familiar faces

Attractive Spanish men

Spinning memories from their tongues

Can’t pull my eyes

From watching myself sink

With every snowflake.

I pack my thoughts and things

Set out into the storm

Alone.

Unbelonging

Bold stencil letters read

ROLLE A.C.

And inform us that this trashcan

Belongs here.

It is tended to

A clean bag taught against its lip.

It niches into the corner

I am niched beside it.

Niched on my left hand

Is a ring that reminds you

I belong to someone else.

Next to me,

Your boots don’t belong to your feet

And your unbelonging fills your head

Dripping from your eyes and tongue.

I would take it if I could

The sting and the uncertainty.

But the uncertainty

Is the hardest part

So we wait

For time to erode it.

Contextual Implications

Alone

Nearly sounds better

Than the pull between

Hands, eyes, generations.

The lines I know

Have washed away in the sour rain.

Condemned by contextual implications

I wander from blocks of sidewalk

To vines that cut my feet.

Looking away

Doesn’t stop the bleeding.

The circles I’m running

Are wearing the patterns off the walls.

I fear they were right

All along.

Resist

The light from the moon

Flirts with the clouds

As they slide by.

How could it resist?

Fog from our breath

Tickles our faces like scarves

As we sing to the street.

Freezing feet send us

To the neglected elevator.

The pressure of our voices

Causes a slow rise and fall.

I’d hate to smother the sound

But how could I resist?

Spider Web Mustache

A spider web mustache

Clings to my face.

I didn’t see it coming

Didn’t see it coming.

Now I grasp for what

I can’t see

And regret the progress

I’ve undone.

Panic

My heartbeat chokes me

Sirens howl in my ears.

Where are you?

I panic

Pace

Force a breath.

The sky glares

Orange

With embers of regret.

Panic

Pace

Breath

Check the door.

Where are you?

The dog hides

Watches.

You aren’t home

I am not okay.

About You

If I wrote about you

I would say something about belonging

About wandering through trees recovering from fire

Where none of the branches could support you.

Tell the story of the corners of your eyes

The secret held there.

Mention the way a stream cuts at a bank.

Note the chord of missing

That reverberated in your throat.

Admit that I might understand

And nothing can be done.

Sand, Nets, Salt, Sky, Turn, Breath

Dead-white trees lay matted in the sand

Laying in wait, as nets

To capture the life of the salt

And sky.

The line between the sea and ground turns

And changes with every breath.

The sailor steadies his breath

Squints to see the grey sand.

His wrist turns

With strength to secure the spoil of the nets

Silver scales that mimic the sky

And the weight and smell of salt.

His hands are white and hard as salt

His thoughts short as breaths.

He knows the hard grey of the sky

The weight of the sand

The fray of the nets

The way the ocean threatens and turns.

The boat and sea take turns

Sending blows of water and salt.

Urgency glances from the need of the nets

To the endless necessity of breath.

Hazel eyes speckled like sand

Bargain with the tremulous sky.

The sailor knows the fume of the sky.

He turns

But finds no companion in the sand.

Images pierce his memory like salt

Stiffens a breath.

He finds himself knotted in nets.

Waves crash over him and restrain him like nets.

He loses sight of the sky

Loses prospect of breath.

He thrashes and turns

Till he is overwhelmed by the grey salt

And forced to return to the sand.

The sailor lies against the sand, caught in its glistening nets

Where the salt of the earth meets the salt of the sky

And waves and water turn to vapor and breath.

Literacy

My thoughts drip from the walls

Puddle on the floor

With nothing to hold them

No names to define them.

Pink fingers stroke

Metal and leather

Books with titles

Grown over with time.

Boxes of words I’ve never read.

Tonight

Stars stretch far beyond

The capacity of my eyes and thought.

The arc of my back matches the form of the car

My shoulder blades quiet the window.

Sharp shadows of a familiar tree line

Tuck me into my bed of here and now.

The air in my lungs feels fresh and uncertain

Yet my thoughts grow numb at its presence. 

Dismal Dismissal

It’s another nice day

That may be crushed under my heavy musing.

You are an allegory for every impossible story

Because I can’t stop the wind.

But I could almost imagine a still tree

A struggling seed

I would never tell you.

Besides

Sometimes I imagine that you already know

See it in my averted eyes

Make cellophane of my best kept secret.

Can poetry be so vague?

No one else has given it so much thought

And I am a fool for doing so.

Subsidence

Your fingers fight your veins

And you shake,

Scare me to death

And leave.

Neither of us can stand to look at me

I am not honest with anyone

all of their words condemn me

Echo through my mind

“you could have been”.

Could have been

To say it all started with a lie

That flashed between you and me.

I knew better.

Thick clouds of heat cover my eyes

Water beats at my back

I know I will not sleep tonight.

Wenn nicht anders angegeben...

Unless noted otherwise, the purpose of this blog is to give my poetry a place to breathe. Comments are welcome, I will respond to any questions as well. They are posted roughly chronologically. <3