pain – Poétique

Causal

She was never
Going to apologize
For the pain she caused
Perhaps because she
Never thought she
Caused any

You can do amazing
Somehings and die
But can you do amazing
Somethings and stay alive?

We are all hoping in someone
To feel loved or appreciated
Cared by and for and there
Is no permanence to any of this
No credence for responsibility
Hold onto the memory
Of the possibility

To be thirty again still feeling
As if that was the beginning
And life wasn’t just about
Owning your own home
But loving and growing
Meeting someone new
Not trapped in the
Life that was supposed
To save you…

I leave notes on the doors
Of people’s phones by text
Hoping that they will
Respond but the world
Is too busy trying to
Keep up with itself

I am your biggest fan
Waiting for your comeback
If I begin to love you
Will you make me wait
Like everyone else
When I reach out to you?
Not everyone does

Keep turning right
The best position is
Just out of sight

Shopping

Can you write the words
To say how absurd it is to
Have anything more materialistically
Nothing would be worth it
It’s just buying shit and holding
Ourselves up with corporeal things
This really is truly so empty with
People dying being blown up
In the streets new shoes
Just don’t matter to me like another
Relationship a deeper friendship,
Any reason to be more than this
To mean more than this
That’s what matters to me
Stuck in this Christmas tree
Consciousness waiting for a package
Or decorating our surroundings
Of course building myself inside the most
Beautiful prison, buried in concrete
I could create this to only be the
Sole magistrate of my own cage
Self inflicted I would write it all down
No, no longer in need for anything more
Than everything we already have
Start stepping away from acquiring
New things just so you can make life feel
Somehow better, make life feel good
Stop without shopping for the things
Anything we always hoped it would be
Something’s trying to suck the tenderness
Completely out of me, but I found it again
In the Earth, the roses, the grass, the trees
And the animals traveling around me
Watch them teach a stupid human
Like me, just how life could be…

Harp

Bring your evil
Bring your dark
Let me put you to sleep
With my harp
Soothe your sorrow
Pet your pain
Let my rhythm of love
Sustain you
In your slumber
In the deep
In the nightmares
Of your dreams
In the catatonic screams
Let me tell your
Heartbeat how to
Calm itself
Nothing to raise fists at
Hands resting
At your head
Through the song that
I would play
To melt the acid
Anguish of hate
Quiet your nerves
Bring your disdain
Enrage it upon me
I can swallow it away
There is no level
Of darkness
That I cannot usher out
I am your exorcist
Your noble love
Thumb across your lips
Arms up above
Cupping the demons
I can drain from
What has followed
You home now
Rest your head
Bring your evil
Bring your dark
Let me put you to sleep
With my harp

Lastly

Tired of remembering
Waiting for the sun
To come in differently
Tuning out

Tell me more about the
Way of saltwater and it’s
Stinging substances
Against the lips
Dry mouth

How fortunate you are
To have the friend
Of best live twice in your life
Although they’re gone
Optimism shines
From the top dresser drawer

Piano keys are still wet
With yesterdays tears
Still the music is good
Even to listen for
Many years after
What an experience to revisit

If I could push lavender
Colored petals into my eyes
Only to see tranquil calm
Evoke gentle light from inside
Non sequitur moment
Invite a monkey to do it for me

Grasping at the edge of the earth
The rest is left to nothing
Cracked edges
Sacred treasure of life
Valiant dance to
Dignified death

Forgotten hands that
Once held the rest of you up
Resurface to replace the parts
That are no longer supported
Maybe we are relevant

Reflector

It’s like throwing shit in a hole endlessly
To feel better about losing
Someone you love

Relearn the purpose
Spelunking for the duty
Treasure hunting for my anchor

Blood drains from the face
Toothache at the stale root
Sugar on my tongue
Someone cut my left arm off?

Midnight in the night
An inevitable glare
Of the floor staring back
Into your eyes inspecting
The color of your mind
And if you’re feeling thirsty

T’was only twice virtually
No figments of our bodies
Drifting away like kites
A rock or two to hold us down

It’s darker than usual
Really kind of horrid fragments
Playing with possibilities
Laying upside down in bed
Bamboo tapping at the window
Sounds like the dog getting up

Dried flowers in my
Great-grandmothers favorite book

Though it hurts, the everlastings still smell lovely

Du Paradis

Worst case scenario consultant
Benumbed by the current
Icy reactions to a loneliness
That sitting in the back row
Can only bring though in
All the blue hills and
There aren’t any pills that
Can erase all the pain
Or the absence that the
Tanzanian sunset would bring
To the Great Plains if
The lions look to the heavens
And see no light
No celestial pink and orange
Again the same is true
When my heart lies lifeless
On the other side of a banging
Door and the shaking core
Of empty rattling left in shivers
After what’s wasted to tear away
From me in tender cries
As the color dries on the canvas
Of my forehead painted
Like the memory
Of paradise

Picnic

My killer my lover
There is no one above you
You end all my pain
My sacrifice is our total
Enrapture like red ink
On rose petals pressed
Parchment reed paper
Spiraling out of control
Heart racing faster
No sheer equivalent to
The rush of our love
My angel my attendant
Every second on Earth
Our last breaths I would
Spend it with you
Swinging back and forth
Like a pendulum at the end
Of a telephone cord
Hello? Are you there?
In the case at the end
Of the table you will find
A key to my heart and
A bottle of wine my
Redemption lies at the
Foot if the bed and my
Tears are the salt beneath
Your feet carry me far
Carry me away a flight
To Paris or some back
Country road out of the way
La Bièvre ou
Étang de La Geneste
Not far from Versailles
I could cry, I could cry
I could cry my lover
My sister, my brother
My intentions are full and
Our story will beg to be told

Tour À Tour

Groans of pain
Days of light
Life gets easier
Wins the fight
Breathes in relief
Takes one
For the team
Aches of grey
Tears like rain
Trespassing on
My hearts terrain
Destiny is only
One more step
Away from jilting
Us into our
Greatest fate

To Give

I am a tortured soul
Like a cold sore
A cancerous mole
Walking a tightrope
Of death
And still I have so
Much life to live

I am what no one wants
I am what no one loves
Sent from up above
Glistening in a garden of
Broken glass and blood
Left over from
The steps I took to get
Closer to the core
Of myself
If it seems like I am
Pushing you away
It might just be that you
We’re never really here
Anyway

To sit next to or lie down with
A tortured soul
A burning cold sore
A cancerous mole
Walking the tightrope
Of my living death
Deceiving me
Though I still have yet-

So much breath
To breathe
So much life left
To conceive
So much more
To give