my name is not your name
but my heart is your heart
sounds and thumps
like angry wasps
cannot overtake
this sloppy love affair
with tomorrow’s
words from yesterday
pounding on the
steel drum of
time and capturing
us again for the first time
over and over
i guess that’s the punishment
of being born to the first true love.
waiting until my knuckles turn fiery
and knowing you won’t even see.
hoping that maybe what they say
isn’t true for even a little bit
and not wanting to, but knowing
you’ll forget so who cares anyway.
and maybe something unpredictable
lives in your stomach like the rains in
april and you haven’t really figured it out yet,
but i still hope that one day you will see what
you’ve done to me.
sometimes i dream in black and white
like those old silent films that mean something to someone
and i forget that sound is a thump of the foot
and an unspoken word, too, if you let it.
it’s all in the eyes and a little in the shoulders
and maybe somewhere that means something to
someone but here and now it just means
i can’t hear myself think
i’m still here
even as you
live on the
dead lips of
a hope that
still burns bright
i’m still there
frozen in a
capsule of blame
with a watery past
and a sound
and a shadow-
thoughts still hidden
in a book that
can’t be read
i’m still everywhere
your voice can’t reach
and even though you
can’t see the thread
that holds our hearts
as one, like a force
we can’t cut loose
even if we tried-
but i can
and i grieve for you
a broken boy and a man
lost in a world
he can’t touch
you’re still here,
a person alive
but not living-
stuck, bogged, bartering
with a devil you’ve
never even seen, but
who haunts your dreams
you’re still there
hoping that monsters
aren’t real and that
people aren’t as bad as
that and good is something
pedestaled and envied
but still layers blanket
you and no one can
know unless you wake up
you’re still everywhere
in every word i say
and every word i write
and i know that this
thread can only be
because we sewed
it over and over again
a fire burns forever
in my heart and
that same devil creeps
into my innocent dreams
and i’m still here
like a soldier taking
orders, knowing his duty
and you’re still here
like a murderer returning
to the scene of the crime
-maybe we’ll finally
find each other and let
our souls rest --
I just wrote this poem sitting on the toilet. it just came to me all of sudden and i had to write it down. so it went on the back of a lowes receipt until i got to the computer. i kind of know what it means, but it is a real weird way of putting it:
as i sing the songs of trees,
they stumble to the stars
that seem like dead dog eyes in
the heat of august nights
as hope and fear intertwine like
that time the heavy hands
held my hips and lost me
in words i never knew
as my hidden heart pumps
those crazy sounds like
footsteps on the fallen floor
that fought for me
as i contemplate the continuous flow
of honey and fossil fuels like
the smoke of a cigarette
as it departs tiny hands in horror
as i fall to the ground of my coming
words burst forth like blood from
a fresh wound on a battle field
i cry out for You,
hold me now!
hold me, for only in You can i stand.
