Poetry I wrote you some flowers

funny how for as the breadth of my suffering
seem so very broad to me
but in writing always merely
sorrow over a woman
 
When I think of God, I think of Sadie.
The feeling is so frustratingly profound
to have a universe cascading from curled hair
of a woman whom you can not even speak to or of
and whose glory unfolded over three mere dates in five mere weeks.
I cannot articulate my disappointment in my unwranglable heart and its boundless love.
I find its yearning pitiable, its lack of control indecent, its continuous pounding an inconvenience.
 
Cantent filii mei in luce taciturnii.
Cantica iungere permittit in luce taciturnii.
Cantemus in aeternum in luce taciturnii.

Let my children sing in the light of silence.
Let their songs join the light of silence.
Let us sing forever in the light of silence.
 
sitting in the music
after making the worst mistake of your life
and wanting to make it again
and again
and again
because you don't want to quit trying

but that isn't love
and sometimes you just have to be silent
 
i've survived alone thus far
don't know if i can do it again
but it's worth trying

i think of my mother's sadness
and my father's cowardice
and how hurt has shaped me
and how i now spread hurt
like a sickness through the ages
but it does not end if i do
and it does not end if i do
it ends with love.
 
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Midnight in Muncie

I walk down Riverside
between the frat houses
by the hum and honk
of old wiring and the midnight trains.

The air is heavy with fog,
burdened by stress which it lay down
upon my lungs in an act of want
for the breath of freedom.

On campus, there are no others
(save the odd minivan chugging by)
and the resonance reveals itself,
forbidding all silence.

Here are the echoes.
Here is the frequency which rings
in harmony to everything
which happens on working days.

Here are the whispers
which rage against stillness.
Here is the blueprint and map.
Here is the recording and manuscript.

Here, the past writes present
and teaches it to be future.
 
This poem is the result of a creative experiment where single lines about a single subject are randomly selected and re-ordered. I like this one.


My Ukulele


My fingers flow idly down her neck
filled with the potential of infinite song.
She's misunderstood (but only from lack of interest
[well-cleaned, but never given the chance to dirty])
and her harmony fades bitterly to time.
 
Here's some song lyrics in your eye, might post the demo/leadsheet later

Deborah

Waking up, she walks herself to town to buy a car
Fills it up with enough gasoline to get her far (far, far)

Spending daddy's money now
she has some cash to throw around
since he's stuck deep down underground
'cause he's dead and gone

She takes some time to breathe
and find it six-feet deep inside
to carry on

Deborah
Your daddy loves you very much

He took her home and held her tight in his lovin' arms
He told her momma that he could keep her safe from all harm (harm, harm)

"it's just you and me, you see"
he'd always say so tenderly
"but family is all we need
and I got your back"

"daddy does what he does for you
and I promise you we'll see it through"
but sometimes daddy'd leave her blue
and black

Deborah
Your daddy loves you very much
Deborah
Even when it doesn't seem as such

Their house was quiet, but deep inside her head she found a world
where she could explore all those funny feels she had for girls (for girls, for girls)

but daddy read her diary
and though it pained him endlessly
he had to do what he thought was right

He told her he would want her dead
before her twisted in the head
and beat her senselessly every night

Deborah
Your daddy loves you very much
Deborah
Why do you flinch at his touch?

In all these years, she's never had the time to heal
Too many thoughts to think and too many feelings to feel
If daddy loved me, why couldn't he ever see
that I am beautiful, and as a matter of fact, this is me

but now he's dead and she'll never be free
 
the silence is absent

it’s 1 AM
my hammock swings
the wind chills
from electric fan
in basement apartment
in college town
in nowhere important
the silence is absent

my knees hurt
wound never healed
i kept running
too much pain
keeps you running
healing takes rest
rest takes time
no time then
the silence is absent

we listen patiently
in Quaker Meeting
to the silence
which teaches us
which embraces us
which empties us
and fills us
the silence is absent

i miss her
miss her too
miss her too
miss her too
miss her too
all of them
now they’re silent
now it’s noisy
the silence is absent

it’s never quiet
living with schizophrenia
silence hates you
you’re not worthy
you’re born wrong
a novel neurology
not a human
in your head
the silence is absent

no matter if
no matter when
no matter but
it’s all noise
setting you apart
in another world
nothing is real
the silence is absent

she loved you
you couldn’t hear
but she did
and she does
and it’s okay
or will be
when it stops
when it’s quiet
silence is coming
even though now
the silence is absent
 
I open an old document
in the personals folder
on the desktop

Welcome back!
Pick up from where you left off
December 22, 2021

It feels like a long time
like a month of years
of a life of silence

Welcome back!
Pick up from where you left off
right on line 55

as if it's that easy
as if there is anything past there
as if I could fix it by writing more

This one feels so different
This one feels fair
This one feels like it's my fault
and I hate it
 
There's an adventure
at the end of the world
in the kingdom of squirrels
(they'll drive you nuts
with utter lack of etiquette)

There's an adventure
where the sidewalk ends
and you have no friends
(except the ones who tag along
[with you to the last "so long"])

There's truffala trees
on Mulberry Street
and also olaf, proud and strong
and the caged bird's bitter song

There's so few words to go around
too few letters, too few sounds
but plenty of poems
(too many to know em)

There's an adventure
waiting to be written
with infinitives to boldly splitten
waiting to be read
from wise folx living and wise folx dead
 
I pop off when I read through the old posts on this thread
and find the single poems hanging out like loose threads
vibrant and colorful and beautiful in their individuality
sown into an awkward, confused sweater of banality
and edginess and needless complication of feelings
that everybody feels anyway -- just a reflection of poor dealing
with basic problems
in a basic life
(with a lot of good in it,
when you think about it).

Those loose threads are often beautiful in that way
that things can only be beautiful when seen from far away
when the personal has rotted
and you no longer mind a missing rhyme or rhyming "way" with "away"
and you can see it all with new eyes
and think that it's all really quite nice
when the words come together right
and here and now they make something new
like a loose thread of the sweetest, gentlest blue
sewn again in another sweater --
of no specific importance
just nice.
 
I woke up at 2 AM
and I did that terrible thing again
where I spent two hours hating
seething between the seconds of waiting
at the thought of the woman I love.

It’s hard to see a friend that way
to see her in dreams driven by pain
when our days together were bliss
— a college couple who never even kissed
— two siblings using the wrong names.

Now she sees me and averts her eyes
and the hollow pain is no surprise
to an old man like me who weathers through
and yet chases dreams like he never knew
that hurt could come so sweetly.
 
Ray Johnson asked
“What is Moticos?”
and it moved me
to burn down music
and gather the ashes
and paste them to my automobile

Ray Johnson asked
“What is Moticos?”
and I had no answer
and I thought I did not know
but knew that I knew
I see Moticos every day

Ray Johnson asked
“What is Moticos?”
and Nick Cornovitch responded
“You don’t put it into words.
You put it in salt water.”
and it moved me

I ask myself
“What am I?”
almost daily
and I say
“music”
though I’m not sure
what music is

I ask myself
“What is music?”
and it answers me
that it is Moticos
and I know it well
and I see it everywhere.
 
This is a wonderful piece of art currently hung on the wall of the Chicago Art Institute. I’m not a visual artist, but the words (lyrics?) seem important to me.
 

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it's harder to write poetry
when you're on anti-depressants
(because you can handle it all)
but the world is just as beautiful
and scary
and sad
(you can just handle it better)
and even though the words
don't fall in the
right place
it's just because
you're okay with where they are
and that's beautiful too
(i don't get paid to do this
and not a lot of people read this
but it helps me handle it);
i'm not sure what i need to say
so i think i don't need to say anything
and that's so much easier to live with.

now my hands shake
(it's a side effect of the drugs)
worse than before
(it's hard to type but i can still play piano)
and sentences go wherever they want
sometimes
and i wonder if i'm just trading
pain for pain
and money for ease of mind
and i wonder if this poem would be better constructed
and not so hard to read
if i were just sadder again
(and i think of all the people i write about
and what they think
[and especially what the one I called Rose would think
{and i think she would be happy
(that i'm less sad now
[which she wanted so much
{and could never accomplish}])}]).
 
I’m not sure what my name is anymore
Or what it means
But it’s nice to hear my roommates say it
When I walk in the door

Sometimes somebody uses the wrong name
and I decide I should get it changed
but I still write the whole thing out
each and every time

I decide not to think too hard
about why it makes me uncomfortable

I step away from this poem for several hours
and I found the form to change my name
and I saved it
to print on Monday
 
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.

~~
The Pasture -- Robert Frost
 
in the last moments of the night
after the meds wear off
before sleep kicks in
i long to be a part of something
so i think of you
 
I pop in this thread once in awhile

I appreciate all your poems, both optimistic and dismal, but I smile when I see them express feeling better than before.

It relieves the mind and makes the heart content.

Looking forward to more ❤️ keep going, will you?
 
lasciare suonare nel niente

I don't speak much Italian
but it's very pretty
and I like when my piano does it

google translate says it means
let it ring in the nothing
and I wish our phrase was as pretty as

lasciare suonare nel niente
 

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