A clock is ticking
in my living room —
I never even noticed
that it makes noise —
my mind is ticking,
my heart is ticking.
Everything quiet
is audible at 3 a.m.
mind
Stitches & seams
I need to get over the hard times of my past. They’ve left scars, but scars are just memories.
Well lit
A school library is the brightest beacon of youthful hope.
A public library is the brightest beacon of community hope.
A local library is the brightest beacon of global hope.
Umber
there are only so many poems one can write
about umber tree roots and the glowing moon
before the psyche starts crying out to be heard
the suffering of the world isn’t poetic
but it is essential to poetry
Fixate
lobotomy by sparrow beak
brain pecked full of dread
brimful society syrupy sweet
carelessness killing us dead
memoryvines creeping through
sockets of wasteland dreams
a humming vibration of stasis
stuck lid on boiling progress
jammed gears of regression—
a spinning orbiting rotation
would be movement at least
incessant click click click
of the going nowhere echoes
like fading robotic heartbeats
a constant why? why? why?
the most important question
that never even mattered
answerless, unanswerable
speedbumps of psychological
queries emerging like stones
in the body — stuck motion
mind eternally trying, failing
to write its story, click clack
bones, ligaments, thoughts
stutter sputter twitch to death
choking on ink overflowing
poems destined for somewhere
turned inward flooding nowhere
release my brain to infancy
for it is smothered with age
Cracked
her head was cracked —
not tragically, just poetically
it’s how the poems got in —
and out
02:00
two in the morning
mind humming from the inside out
thinking about how much I think
blackout poetry created from Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls, 2001
Selves
A philosopher lives in your mind,
a lover in your heart,
an alchemist in your soul.
Spring’s sure well-done over, at 100°
Poetic words flow much better in pleasant climes—
Springtime and autumn, more friendly for rhymes
Winter’s good too, we self-reflect well in cold times
But blazing summer melts words & numbs minds!
Revenant
O! how many ghosts in a wound of war.
Awake & alone
Night is filled with our loudest fears and a silent courage.
My heart sees all the better
my eyes can’t see as well anymore
but my heart sees all the better
my ears have begun to fail me
but I hear the quiet budding of success
I move more slowly now
but have learned to be still with myself
my aching body is stiff and sore
but my spirit has never felt so fine
my memory is slipping
but I’ve got a firm grip on what it is to live
my head is going gray
but I have found all my true colors
I get out of bed earlier
but still have plenty of dreams
I live more softly
but don’t back down from doing hard things
my teeth are getting artificially replaced
but my soul is real and all my own
my bones are brittle
but my resolve is strong
I no longer bounce back
but continue to look forward
I tell the same stories over and again
but become a new me every day
I’m nearer to the end
yet I have only just begun
The Wharf of Dreams
Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:
Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light
Flashes a signal fire across the night;
Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keep
Their way without a star upon the deep;
And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,
Come cries of incommunicable news,
While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white
Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,
Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,
Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,
Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,
Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,
And bales of fantasy from No-Man’s Land.
—Edwin Markham, “The Wharf of Dreams,” The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems, 1899