Devoted
I stand devoted to the sea,
though she may never know the love,
there’s beauty in her fervency
that draws from deep to rise above.
I do what little a poet can
to cast a line into the swell;
with hopes for hooks, I haul with hands
to snag a lip or claw or shell.
I edge the tide in silent awe,
brace cold beside unwavering form,
bleed out and wash into the shore,
evaporate to join the storm.
Texas Hail
Throughout the broken night
their tears fall fast like Texas hail,
and crush the camps at city hall,
and rip the air with wails.
Four streets away from disarray,
we tightly lie awake,
and grip our bulletproof sheets, and peek
at tweets that make us shake.
Corks
I have a cupboard full of corks,
each one scarred red, with cored-out hearts,
each drilled by hand, then laid to rest –
or rather ‘tossed’,
in some feigned manner of casual
(after all, who cares?)
to the lower shelf, where nobody will find them.
And how I hope someone will.
Wait, they’d say.
What are these?
My pasture’s red
The blades of grass are tall and sharp,
curve like sabers from martian floors,
clink in the wind, spark in the night,
walk through till you’re ribbons,
bleed out till you’re slight,
feed my red pasture,
cut loose and lay,
rediscover the lover you lost on the away.
Dreams of Steel
About the second whiskey in
my guards depart on midnight trains,
and fell the station of refrain,
wherein, wherein, wherein
I start to clamber back to tracks,
where sleepers step with railed regret,
and for a moment I forget
the lack, the lack, the lack
of fastened steel that’s tried and true;
it courses in pursuit of bends
that buckle at the force you send
into, into, into
my wheels-for-feet that grip the turn,
knock loose the rusted threads and heads,
chase down the straights for those who fled;
Return! Return! Return!
Through a gap in the trees
Some nights when the air was warm and calm
we’d set up chairs, angled to the gap in the trees,
peeking at the bay, the moon, the port, the city,
from the balcony of our Jack London Square apartment;
two transplant wanderers, far from friends, family, and home,
gambling on the good nature of strangers,
and too proud of our independence to consider
that we might actually need each other.
You: packing some exotic tobacco
into an ornate, wooden pipe.
Me: making a mess of the shoulder of a BevMo cigar.
We toasted with scotch, spoke slow, traded wisdoms,
subdued the moment like blowing smoke into bee hives,
and surmised who we would marry.
What you endure
Dabble in the dark, and close
the door.
Fumbling at buttons, and fall
to floors.
Reaching out for faces;
finding more.
Breathing into spaces; bent, she braces
her core.
Clawing walls for switches, to see
the score.
Counting the stitches she must
endure.
—
It’s not often I write a disclaimer, but here it is. I did not know where this poem was going, and it is not based on any life event I’ve witnessed or been told. Sometimes the words just kinda happen. I was hesitant to post, but it made me more nervous to keep it hidden.
Stoop
It dares to be ignited.
It coils and cocks its springs.
It bares, to be united.
It toils and flocks to things
that dare to be divisive,
that coil at thoughts of flings,
that bare themselves, invited,
that toil in souls, and sing
with dares that you incited,
with coils you helped to wring,
with bare intent, requited.
With toil, you stoop to swing.
What does creativity mean to you?
A friend asked this question in an Instagram post.
This was my response.
—
Creativity is therapy,
self-discovery,
a way to reduce your thoughts like a sauce in a pan,
till all you’re left with is a concentrated, thick syrup,
preserved and bottled, but on canvases, notebooks,
and diner napkins.
The greatest effect that creativity has on my life
is not in its existence,
but in its dire absence;
my heart and mind speaks to me in riddles
that only creativity can help decipher,
so without it, I am awash with tangles and short tempers,
until at last the tantrums drive me to write, play, sing,
or simply express aloud,
my volcanic eruption of unsolidified self
careening down my cheeks, leaving scars on my face,
and grey hairs on my head.
Better that I indulge the creativity,
more for what it helps relieve,
than for what it helps provide.
Weighed down
Days pass
like throwing cardboard
in the trash
instead of the recycling.
Nights fade
like beautiful strangers
into crowds;
no name, no number.
Mornings come
like broken promises,
creeping in,
dark glasses and all.
Everything I am
Is it so much to ask
for you to bask and fawn
at what is drawn from deep,
and seek to understand
the man who made it so?
Is it so hard to know
how far the throws may fall
if none at all are caught
or sought to be retrieved
for me, for you, for us?
Is it so dire to lust
for eyes I trust to find
the truths confined in words
they heard whilst listening
to everything I am?
Nothing At All
I often dream of losing it all
to fire, flood, or fleeing,
and romanticize my deportation
back to my homeland shores,
where I’d buy a house near the Cornish sea,
in an unassuming coastal town
that’s tucked away from tourism,
and huddles boats in coves.
Maybe one day I’d paint them,
on a whim, when words are not enough
to capture how they bob about,
in no particular hurry,
with scars along their bellies
that mark of a bolder past
where they had purpose beyond their staying afloat.
Retired to the curiosity
of those who wonder where they’ve been,
what they’ve held, and what they’ve seen,
they’re anchored for eternity
in the salty chill of an English port,
whose only sweetness comes in tea
that steams in foggy windows,
lit by yellow lamps for reading,
with faces propped on chins in hands,
dreaming out across the water
to top the waves with wonder.
Cresting and collapsing,
our sacrificial offerings
are washed against the rocks and lost
so we may live without those needs,
those fantasies and fallacies,
that try to trick us out of time
that’s better spent distilling rhyme
from dreams (not fears) where kingdoms fall,
and you’re left with everything,
which is nothing at all.
Infinity
Come to me, infinity.
Bring every kind you hold.
Hand me the keys to fantasies
that sprawl as they unfold.
Run to me, infinity.
Spare not a beat or breath.
Deliver me eternity
so I will not know death.
Sing to me, infinity.
Roll music off your tongue.
Our lips have waited patiently
for infinity to come.
Ohio
Breaths caught
like lumps of bread;
hiccups hop, and jump, and spread
from throat to lungs with bated dread.
My mind turns to Ohio.
Stomachs turn
like private sorrow,
churn and burn and fear tomorrow;
for either side, it’s hard to swallow
the color of Ohio.
Drinks poured
like loaded guns,
cocked, rocked, shot, and flung.
Show me the man who says he’s won,
and I’ll show you Ohio.
Reminisce
The sugar scrub reminds me of
the sand between our toes;
thrown back to when (on wooden decks,
as summer came to close)
we set up chairs, and passed around
a light for our cigars,
puffed clouds into the balmy night,
laughed hard into the stars.
Our voices echoed out to sea,
and bounced upon the waves.
Though long thought lost, it came to be
our laughter was engraved
in sentimental memories,
brought forth by little more
than everyday simplicities
that reminisce the shore.
Inside
What is it you see
when I bare myself, torn open,
pins holding back the flesh,
heart pulsing, shuddering in electric air,
lungs shivering, exposed and rapid…
I strain to see you,
to read your expression.
I scream out for it.
What is it you see?
What is it you hear
when I pour and pull the music from my throat,
dig words out my gums from the raw, sharp root,
eyes watering, glistened with agony;
I’m desperate for it to sound like the truth…
I cover my face,
striving to zero-in on your voice.
I beg for you to tell me.
What is it you hear?
What is it you feel
when I force your hand through my chest,
ribs cracking, organs displaced,
fingers splitting through sticky blood….
I wince, twisting your knuckles to pull you deeper;
even if it kills me,
I need to know what it is you feel
inside.
The Maraschino and I
Sometimes I’ll leave it there for days,
scared to touch it, for if I do
I know how I’ll be tempted – no,
demanded by the crystal
to stuff it full of ice
lace its skin with sweetness,
and douse with golden poison…
straining into its smaller cousin –
decadent, and invitingly chilled –
a single, large cube begs to crack,
as I have,
under the spill of viscous concoction.
I raise my glass to the maraschino and I,
drowning in our sorrows.
Gravity
The sun rises, pulls up shades,
eyelids, and tilts heads to the sky,
lifts spirits, and lights the way.
Romance over its setting;
eyes clinging with sad fascination,
sentimental for dying flames and waning embers.
Follow it now,
down, down, down over the hills,
till staring, reality beneath feet,
grounded again,
seeking sun through the floor.
Gravity pulls and draws heavier truths;
forces peer through the dark,
and examine the ground.
Ponder in darkness.
All the while, it rises,
ready to raise us from beds and bad decisions,
where we’d fallen (fast) asleep.
Run to the moon
I lost a day to a curious night –
how I suffer for the play and no pause;
the food sat too heavy, and my mind’s never ready
to admit to the sleep it implores.
Some find a way to recover their might;
how they rest before dusk is an art.
Even when I’m deserving, I find it unnerving
to arrive the same day I depart.
Instead I pray to a mug (held too tight;
how it burns me awake through the palms)
to speed up the sun from a crawl to a run;
pray the moon scoops me up in her arms.