six words to stand on.

i've got six words in my feet
i stand on them with clay bones
behappynowthankyouplease
and say them to the beat
of my soul's flight southbound
while the winter wing chases
me down the street.

even when bones waver in the rain
the clay skeletons turn to mud
like a broken vase on the sill
my knees fall to my ankles
and even then, i wait until
the rain washes my body away.
take the last bit of clay hands
and grab those six words
like an anthem of my mind
they echo and echo and chime
songs that my dreams sing
once upon a time:
behappynowthankyouplease.

they weigh down, 

like apples on the lively bough, 

young and fresh

but wanting and quivering to go

but all the while, buoyant

like the light on the wave

crashing tight to edges of a cave

my head sinking down for a moment

water pushing on swollen lungs,

then shattering free above the glass

and breathing in those six words

dancing in the summer air. 

telescope thread.

there's this thread, this tie
between my heart and your eyes,
like a telescope, you look in:
suntanned rocks that can't win
against the tumult of the sea rocking,
and a marked hand with a gun cocking
a reddened door with the bolt locking,
that won't unseal even when
your eyes come knocking.

so you turn your key in the lock, and
it won't open up, even when it's broken up
door's quiet, but it's spoken up
and said leave me alone:
stop trying to slip in behind
the masquerade when all you'll find
is the tumult of the sea rocking
a technicolor ship into the docks.
dressed in torn sails and misdriven nails,
it'll slip under the bridge, skim the top,
if it just bends its back
and picks up the slack.

so take a bow, and bow out, my man
you have tried and taken a stand
but now is the time
when you must comprehend,
that this ship has failed
to show you the secrets of the trove.
so must you continue to rove
through the clutters of my heart
and take all this glue apart
that held together the herds of hurts?

please take away your telescope thread
and leave me laying on this ship's head.
tie a knot and hook and lay dead
the other cracked hearts that may tread
along the path of your mighty gaze.
if you cannot, cannot resist,
might i suggest something instead?
let this ship of hearts crash and sink
letting its treasure trove drown ahead
and lay to waste on the ocean's bed.

take your smile (and twist it out)

I hate that you made me hate you
close that rage in a cage
and let the fire burn out,
looking past the bars to shout.
shut down the time you said you'd
bring me ice condensation stars
just to make the smile come out.

bring the world into this room
and see the hurt bloom
and maybe you'll see all the
moments you could've set me free:
like ice glazed crystal trees
that are longing to reach the sun
before the day is done and done.

oh, and i lose control:
tugging at the strings you hold me in.
and oh, i hate that you smile;
i want to take it away for a while
tear it up and hold the scatters
while you lose everything that matters.
and oh, i hate all that you say,
want to mar the steel in your ears
with crusted rust so you can't hear
all the jeers that i can't contain.

curl my fingers into my wrist
and make a skeleton tight fist
and twist it in your heart.
take away the crying eyes
from the socket like a pocket
in your face, you don't mean it
anyways.
all the cries, i know they're fake.

so, take all the hate that i feel,
burning under confined tan peels
like kindling in the fire,
let it consume all that made
us you and me, me and you.
just end this mockery, charade before
i wilt like petals to the floor
exhausted from the hate forming
clots under my skin.

---

Wow, didn't mean to make this long. Just an emotion purge, once again. It's probably no good.

storyteller.

you write myths like oedipus
curling imagery like cigarette smoke
in between parchment lines of
tales of royalty and folk.
rather be blind and borrow,
eyes than be possessed by greed.

and you would gladly throw,

pearls and diamonds and rubies

shining like a knight's armor,

up and up into the moving sky,

and let the cloud swallow up

the worthless jewels that fly by.

for you, the sky's sun melts
the lonely wind, so that it
may see the stories spinning
from your lonely little lips
for you, the moon hides
behind the whispered prayer
so that it may over hear
the words you long to sing.
and in the dim and dirty sea,
the urchin waits patiently for thee
to flow towards the waves like silk
upon a maiden's graceful back.
these tales like jewels upon your crown
carefully adorned like the most
precious of all known wealths
when all other wealth does drown.

but you, such giving you,
you place these stories on your skin
and let the earth bury you in,
you turn into water, fire, air,
the ground beneath and over there,

feel the cling of rocks and clay

form the curves of your bones, may

grass so green grow into your eyes

and flowers spout from your lips.

and soon all the tales you tell,
are free for all in the form of
a most perfect wishing well.

hate/love and all those breaks.

Basically, we parted on mutual terms. It truly was, and now, all he wants is me back. and i can't help but think that he's not genuine. cause the only times he tries is when he's tripped up in the lies. when he's hurt me so much that i can't feel the cuts because they're just too much. and how am i supposed to forgive, if all i know of him is all the things he did to let me down? i don't know. love only goes so far; the rest is responsibility, work, courage, wisdom. you can't just rely on the love to carry you through, like you're riding through life and maintaining the minimum you need to stay afloat.

life for rent.

you rent opinions and borrow ideas and,
run from "i don't know's" when scared,
leave behind the values you once declared,
but you'll pay it back with your next paycheck.
don't risk, or it will be your bitten up neck.
sometimes i wonder at all of the lies,
you conceal your truth and find all the eyes,
too hot to handle the heat in their gaze,
rather sit out than fight through the maze.

well you're weak-hearted, as the lion says
lack the courage to find your own ways
hold to conformity and leave intuition
sink in the sea from your own inanition
molded in amber, no bright animation
take out the color to find your salvation

so you rent opinions and borrow ideas
and you pay your bills on time,
give back interest on all your loans,
as long as you don't have to make the climb.

stop this, now.

here we are asking: can we go steady?
but in reality, all we are is unsteady.
we walk in crooked, curving lines
and ticket each other with outrageous fines
in between toothy smiles, we
find our hearts chained and locked up,
man, we've really fucked up.

so, stop this now!
is there a moment when a green light
meant that we were okay?
cause i've never been able to say
that okay equaled you plus me,
because all i do now is see,
the red light flashing overhead.

oh stop this now!
maybe we thought we'd hold on
but we're sleeping, and it's slipping over
the edges of our foundation cover
a soft quilt on trembling shoulders
easing open and making skin shudder.

oh, stop this now!
we were meant to cross now,
car horn clanging, telling us to go now,
we were meant to move on past now.
you can't expect me to wait now.
no, you can't.
because i can't.

so, stop this now!


--
okay, so I don't know if this is any good. This was more to express some anger/sadness/annoyance. I didn't even really read it over, just sat down and wrote it so maybe I could focus on other things today.

note to self (or maybe others if you're listening)

First off, I would like to apologize for the angst driven poems of late. I'm sure you can understand why I have been this way if you only read just one. Secondly, I don't know why, but I am obsessed with parenthetical titles to my poems. If this annoys you, sorry. I think they sound quite lovely. However, I will try to stop to stop being so predictable. :)

With that in mind, thirdly, here are some short poems.



---
blackbird song (so this is goodbye)
---

i cradled your hand in mine and 

waited for the goodbye to go by and by

as the blackbird sings its little song

it trails off in the northern sky

oh how you used to feel like lightning static
like raging forest fires and mountain leaps
we were falling like fallen angels and devils
before they sat down to weep.


---
heartbroken melody (of a king and queen)
---

i thought i should write a "heartbreak" poem

but it's much to soon for me,

still see that smile and hear the way

you said together we'll forever be.

so instead i wrote this la-di-da tune of mine

that holds all these memories

of birds and bees and darkened mead

of a painted queen and her lonely king

and all the times they took a hand

to keep from falling apart

and of all the times they left behind all

but just each other's hearts.

here you go (there's more too)

i want you to know about me

but i'm too scared to show you these words

i could hand you this writing and

let it cut through you like swords

i don't know if you like how i write

but i offer my words to you

i hold them out and let you read

all that's left standing there so

here you go (there's more too

where that bit of muse came from)

does it hunger you, starve you, just

feed you full, and make you oh-so-numb?

or perhaps these words lay upon your cheek
like an effervescent marking of truth
a charcoal kiss upon a snow bed sigh
a marked beauty with piles of proof

it lies upon your tongue, biting like lemon
blooms and dances its taste and juice
across your senses like a culinary ballet,
and stays for days like a blackened bruise.

will you take these words and treasure them
like the wizened hairs on the old man's head
a sign of knowing and truth and thoughts,
thoughts that would've been left unsaid.

so here you go (there's more too
where that bit of truth came from)
may you know me better now that you've
taken all I had and left me quietly dumb.