Follow the crowd
Annoying as it is
Knowing what you say
Isn’t you
Nor has it ever been.
Great lies make up a world.
I wish for
Something real
Plastered smiles,
Authenticity’s eulogy
Illuminates
Necessity
Evolving Emotions: First L E T T E R S
Tag: poetry
The Poetry Snapshot: From the Rooftop, an Urban Symphony
For five minutes,
I close my eyes
and give into the prose of sound.
Motorcycles rev down 6th street
with a sense of synchronicity,
like a familial fleet.
A lasting roar of a herd on asphalt.
Tires on concrete reach a screeching halt-
a sound bite to a nearing stoplight
Racing each other yet sticking together.
A sudden splash of children in the pool
In a flash, a flicker of my eyelash,
droplets hit my skin rhythmically,
andante, andante
Its graze is cool, creating a haze so cruel.
I catch the gossip of women on a nearby balcony
A decrescendo of shared agony.
Their whispered words are rushed before thought
Hushed in fear of being listened to or caught.
A brief moment of piano
met with the forte of orchestral cheers
from Monday night football.
Empty pitchers slam the table as the crowd sprawls
Frustrated groans meet ecstatic high fives
As this game goes down in archives
Each melody is distinct,
Sharply detached, staccato notes
And creates a harmony so succinct
Before a tune is built the verse wilts;
my eyes open to the fading beats of an urban symphony.
Evolving Emotions: Thankful
The comfort in knowing
All is well
And will be well
The security felt
When a sound
Divulges its character
The overwhelming joy that
Echoes through the room
At a ridiculous story
The calm you keep
Close to the chest
Knowing your needs are met
The common conversations
That you simply
Must absorb in your mind
The familiar scent
Of a home
So loved
you get in the car
your glance rips
from familiarity
each mile
unnaturally separating
The love
The struggle
The pain
The growth
The peace
The memories you crafted fade
As the path ahead expands
You know you must
Commence
You tremble
But trek onwards
Hoping for greatness
Cautioned towards aversiveness
No easier to swallow
The tears well up
As you are reminded of what you had
Friends
Remembrances
Home
Family
Even so,
Being apart
Shows how well off
You were
And still are
They have given you this gift
To separate from the world they made
And form a new one.
The Rise of the Band Geeks, Episode 7: The Army
-
An undisclosed photo of a soldier from the Army (source unknown). From the tumultuous tides that churn and swirl in a slurry we hailed / Prowling growlers and missiles of ice / That slosh in the slush of hushed currents / In frenetic eternity.
- Readily we traversed / The pulsating subsurface and tenuous night / The venous channels and crumpled paths / Under silent symphonies and sonorous skies / Until we found you.
- A subtle force, we convened / Upon the bristled surface below the fickle water-sky / Across the ground that sops up shrill water / Or rejects it, eschews it into whiteness / Scattered across the tensile blades / erupting from matted black nuggets.
- North of the end of the shifting stew we mounted / Our tuneful armor / Our wooden round shells hollowed by erosive war / Our skins stretched so finely clumsy flesh would rend / The precious surface before which we stewed / Our moldable bodies balanced securely between our vessels and our weapons.
- Kindred warriors deluded by our stillness / Fused with our minds and our spiral limbs / Their blurred hands and cylinder knives / Rounded blades that sluice and pound / The sparse depths into oblivion / Elevated us with their hastily wrought words and / Thunderous melodies.
- Laconic, we allowed / You to swarm around us intrigued by our plush plumpness and stitched-on jubilee / To accumulate in trickles and honey droves toward our piano demeanor.
- In this soft stupor we encased you / Ensnared you in stuffed cages / Choked you gently into piles of fluff.
- Now we breathe into your accordion lungs / We snuggle within your marimba memories / We wrap our tendrils round your cymbal hearts / We feed you / We cultivate you / We drive you toward the day when the city folds in on itself and the clouded day becomes our night / We whet our spongy forms against the steel and the temptation and the war chant / We fashion your limbs into brass weapons / Your voices into roars / We disassemble you and rewire you and arrange your valves in sinister permutations / We polish you until we are not of you but are you / Until the day when the stadium submits and all of you, all of you, answer to us. We are coming– for you.
If you send an email to her
You will get there
If you send an email to her
To connect with him
You will get there
If you go to this workshop
And talk to him
Tell him about your work
Ask a good question
You will get there
If you reach out to him
After the session
You will get there
If you stay connected with them
You will get there
If you post it
You will get there
If you tell people about
Your work
You will get there
If you speak
You will get there
You will get there
You will get there
You will get
You will get
You will get
You will
Evolving Emotions: Last Glow
I saw the stars this morning
The sun had not yet climbed the shingled roofs
Nor surmounted the plumes of smoke
Produced by the slumbering city
Each a fleck of twinkling perfection
My eyes gleamed alongside them
In a vast gift
A sight to behold
These gems of the sky are deceptive
They hide their torment
The destruction that defines their state
They are dead and dying.
That which is beautiful
Is temporary
Breathe in the expanse
The comforting peace
This quiet morning
For it is not forever
Although we wish it to be
There will be a last
Air leaves the lungs
Carrying the soul in its glow
These precious stars shine
Despite their fate
Despite their circumstance
Do not grieve
Let the feeling linger
Let the light bathe you
Do not taint it with sadness
For it happened
It was wonderful
I saw the stars this morning
And it was wonderful.
