This is something for tomorrow,
for the rest of the weary,
for the early rise of steam,
from blackend hearts and creamed cup,
This is something for the leaping
and the fall down to.
This is for the sweet tooth extracted
and each granule of sugar served.
This is for hands raised in praise.
This is for hands raised in fear.
This is for the ones we wake
when we’ve been silent.
This is for vows made.
This is for my hands pressed against the mirror
for I have nothing to hold.
The lines on the
rock soothe like rain drops
on a tin roof.
Ideas are better spent, walking
weeds wail in emptied streams,
sewer salvage, sand and silt,
but this is my path between the trees.
The song gets slowly louder, broken
between the lines, and frets
forming on the forehead, all
my broken rear-view promises.
I see you back there, still
adding letters to your name.
Where my lines all go, the voice cannot take.
My breath has been taken
When I blink, the silences are filled
with periods, commas, semi-colons and . . .
This is incomplete.
I should play hopscotch with the dictionary,
One for sorrow,
Two for mirth
Three for a funeral,
Four for birth
Five for heaven
Six for hell
Seven for the devil, his own self
I feel the ink underneath the finger’s tip.
The resin that separated each ridge from paper.
I scream falling to the marble.
echoes among the stacks and shelves.
I could be home.
On Wednesday I will publish a poem based off the writing prompt of a random Wikipedia article
–
dirt in the treads
gravel crackle knocks into
the undercarriage– exhaust
even though I am unused– vapor
dream– monoxide dances
the carbon is coming home again
On Wednesday I will publish a poem based off the writing prompt of a random Wikipedia article
–
For one summer we shared the sunrises,
the light rising past the sands of the Atlantic
through the lowland and into the Piedmont Plateau.
I stayed away from the city that summer,
away from the waves of people
constantly rising through the parks.
We couldn’t have closed the distance of time:
writing here in the future
of man in the past that I didn’t know.
I tossed a notebook in the Chattahoochee River:
hardbound and green.
It was time, I was broken,
sitting on a limb reaching
for inspiration. I was
waiting. I attempted to.
I committed nothing to memory.
Next by fire. At night.
In the Blue Ridge Mountains.
This was with purpose.
A cardboard box that held.
The immaturity of lines
written on the backs.
of Six flag coupons. on whatever
scraps of paper that were at hand.
whatever visible pen handy.
The release and the weight.
of moving. I fed the flame
for hours watching the ink evaporate.
World worst open mic.
On Wednesday I will publish a poem based off the writing prompt of a random Wikipedia article
The difficulties of imagination
not from what goes beyond the page
but rather what is in the skin
and the paths of leaving.
The past is a mantra
where old memories loop and crest.
Present day presents in the curl
of a wave and the future froths
towards land.
The white board dilemma
of never being fully clear
without the alcohol.
This is how we/you dream:
pushing against the wall,
waiting on the thread count,
cotton in our ears.
I could see my hand
in the rusted numbers–
a foundation of chrome
built by finger smudges
and hastily wiped sleeves.
My hand lifts from the cradle
as I pay for the pleasures of waiting:
timber and tone,
waiting:
timber and tone.
The I and The Not I 