Muertos

The other day, while sitting by a window
I saw your ghost walk by.

I nearly lost myself, I was so surprised
ready to come over to your side.

Can the dead hear it when I speak?
When I call out your naming in passing?

Your effigy appears to me like a medium
it states we have much left to say

I don't posses the strength to channel your image
but yet and still I await your vision, like a dream

ghosts haunt me when I sleep, and the dead speak to me in the day
If only I could, take back the day you died to me.

This Is Why

As I sit here,
My friend sending me pic after pic of her man
(who she assures me is cute),
I can't help but think
"This is why I'm still single."
I can't put my finger on it,
but I'm sure it's all connected,
like an episode of Heroes.

Reach

wish you were here now
so that I could hold you until
ther was no doubt
I love you.

So instead,
I will hold you in my mind
and hope...
...that it reaches.

Wish

I wish I could feel you,
but like grasping at clouds,
you seem so intangible right now

I wish I could hold you
until you cried it all away, and all that was left,
were the good parts

I wish I could touch you
and undo all that had been said and done
making everything anew

and if that were not enough

I might take off Sundays and write for you
so that Mondays I could see you smile.

patience, my precious, these moments are only temporary
I'll be there soon enough

if ever you should doubt, read this and know,
you deserve my love, and I wish to give it to you.

A Love Poem To No One

I don't know you, but I love you.
Like a lyric you replay the song for
Replay the song for
Replay the song for
Because you are my favorite

You're honey-brown heaven with
Eyes the color of passionate.
Articulate in their parlance.
Your expression is an orator, and I'm its captive audience.

Your moments are like a wine,
Meant to be sipped, and,
It's possible,
I adore you.

I don't know you, but I love you,
Because there is a power in conjunctions
That, given the option, we all would succumb to.
Sweet like a sentiment,
And you might taste vaguely of sugar and plum.

I don't know you, but I love your
Velvet colored eyes and satin smile
(I have yet to see)
Soft as a whisper

Or, better yet, eyes a light like a Monet sky,
And your smile a cerulean ocean, vast in its depth,
Suffice it to say, if left unchecked,
I might get carried away like so many gains of sand
Caught in a tide.
Losing myself a little bit at a time.

And someone decided "nothings" were sweet
When whispered
So I might chant them, invoke them like a voodoo priest.
(quiet as silent)
Praying that they might reach.

You move like an expression,
And that alone makes your existence artistic.
Hips sway rhythmic like ticks on a metronome,
And you wear it like a badge of honor.

You are a fire which burns without wick or oil
Self-sustaining like fusion
Subject of my most treasured delusions
And I just might concede defeat to your flame.

I don't know you, but oh, how I love you,
And if you ever should find me, please, let me know.

Standing Outside A Car On A Mid-November Night, Hoping This Moment Would Never End

I play freeze tag with words like:
"And what are you looking for out of life?" - tag!, you're it.
My questions are open-ended like a possibility.
First goodbyes aside, (insincere like obligatory apologies or apologetic commentaries)
'Nothing' can be the most interesting topic when discussed at length,
And even akward silences are golden when you bask in them like sunshine.
It's the little things that count.
Like when you say that you don't mind that I'm keeping you from whatever life exists beyond this street and this open car door.
And, for just a moment,
I can't remember what was so important about that life anyway.
All that does matter, is me, you, and a car door that I sincerely wish you might forget how to close.

Closer, Convey, Connect

That I might move closer, connect, convey to you the meaning of a moment... In your presence, seconds become entangled and woven like tapestries and memories, wrapped around me loosely in dissonant assymetry, folded several times over to keep me warm when my fire dies out... and I've noticed that, of late, I've been speak in the second person like, "Can I do for you," or "I would give to you," (comma) "I want you to feel beautiful." And have I mentioned that you might ignite me, excite my sensiblities, and cast aside my sensible civilities, passionately inspiring these thoughts that cause me to think of the future tense in metaphors like: thoughts of you will be the stars that guide sailors home to safety, how I long for that. Thank you for your moments, precious, and consider how touch is only the beginning, and that itself is only a metaphor for the touching of souls when eyes meet across a room, consumed by expectation, implications, and other such innuendo. Should you come to meet me in these places between whimsy and reality, I promise you, there will be no regret. However, For now, I only wish to move closer, convey, connect.

Edit: I had the opportunity to read this at a friend's wedding reception (which happened prior to the wedding actually). I was very fortunate to have been asked to do such a thing, and it was well received by the audience. Kinda' makes you feel a little warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it?

Angel In My Dreams

And the angel comes to visit me in my sleep
like an impulse, soft as a whisper.
I see her in the space between where my real eye and my mind's eye meets,
catching a glimpse in my peripheral, I turn to see you, but you were just a dream.
Please don't go...

It's Your Eyes

Honey, it's your eyes,
your solitary eyes which enchant me and
make me feel alone in a crowd should I
stare into them
(and I do, Lord knows I do)
to get lost in their depths
submerssed in them like an ocean of mirth
and Onyx,
staring back at me

and it's my eyes which are guided like a child
following the outline of your figure,
forming a canvas,
waiting for my imagination to stroke
your every line and detail,
committed to memory like
each curve and freckle is
essential
to how I see you
staring back at me with those
solitary, beautiful, eyes.

This is for you

This is for you,
and I stumble through delusions, following the sound of your smile,
I am intoxicated by your presence, and, for that, this is the price I pay...

Ephemeral forevers are born whenever I meet your eyes,
and sometimes, in conversation,
I like to use big words just to impress you.

You see, you are larger than life in these transient moments,
so anything I do for you, must be grand simply that it might reach,
and your smile is my motivation.

Should you be struck by a sudden sentiment, bashful perhaps,
and your eyes break gaze with mine, I can only hope
that each time they meet again is like the first time I saw you

Breathless can not describe it
that each breath might last a day
as I have nothing better to do, and no place better to be

I would linger in these moments
like memories
and get to know the you I so rarely have the opportunity to acquaint


this is Sincerly written,
(as I have never been good expressing feelings and such)
simply, this is for you.

Journey's End, Part 4

Click here for part 1

Chapter 4: Envy

He met her at a bar that night; he always met her at a bar. The her would change, and largely, the who wasn’t all that important. She was a palette, much like a painter uses. She was a rainbow of colors: eyes, lips, and hair. Red lips and brown eyes if it was raining outside. Blond hair and blue eyes if he was feeling uncreative. Dark hair and hazel eyes if he wanted something exotic. If he closed his eyes, she would dance before him, a dizzying array of combinations, but the dress was almost always the same. It was the kind of dress that said “I’m available- tonight.” That was important. Sometimes she had a name, sometimes she didn’t, and her scent was always a combination of perfume, musk, and anonymity. Journey’s soul ached every time he met her, but yet, he still couldn’t get enough.

During the day, he envisioned work as being a conveyor belt for time. It was as if, from the moment he sat down at his desk, his job ushered him through the hours on fast forward, pausing briefly for coffee breaks and mid day lunches. When he went back to his desk, someone would press the fast forward button again until 5:00 p.m. rolled around, at which point everything would stop, and Journey would be left sitting at his desk as lights went out around him, still some what bewildered by the events of the day. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his job, he didn’t really have an opinion either way, it was more that it left him feeling like something was missing, like the feeling one gets when they’re heading out the door but they suspect they’ve forgotten their keys. Journey would stand up at his desk and rummage through drawers and stacks of papers attempting to divine what he might be leaving behind, but the answer never came to him. “I’ll figure it out when I get home,” he would tell himself, but he would always forget by the time he got to his car.

If time spent at work was like life on fast forward, time spent with her was the exact opposite. Any her, really. Time slowed into a smoky spiral off the tip of a lit cigarette and collected in a pool of water that had coalesced on the ceiling. The colors of the day would blur and blend, as if he were viewing out of focus. Often he would take his hands, and smear those colors into tie dyed fantasies before blinking his eyes and clearing them. Contrary to the rhythm of his actions with her at the time, his reality slowed, until it almost stood still. He called it his event horizon, and then, on release, everything would return to normal. This ritual was his refuge, and he buried himself in it as deep as he could, but overtime, he began to notice that the rabbit hole was getting more and more shallow, and he was finding it harder and harder to hide from the outside.

The first time he met Linda, she stared at him from across the bar with desperate green eyes. He recognized those eyes though he had never actually seen them before. If he had been paying attention, he would have seen them for the mistake that they were, but perhaps that’s why he approached them. There was something about her, about the way that she didn’t feel the need to fit in, or they way that she didn’t seem to care about what anyone thought of her that intrigued him. She was at the same time both bold and self conscious. She was absolutely confident and on the verge of breaking down. She was wholly independent, and in need of rescue. She existed in his mind like a concept, like an idea that one marches for and makes signs promoting. Journey looked into her eyes and recognized something he wanted desperately: freedom.


Click here for part 5

Poetry Sketch

I find weakness becoming sometimes
and so
I wear it like a glove until
It becomes like my second nature.

I feel like I could linger in your
elevator for days,
It's your energy that ignites me,
And your scent just might wrap around me
and squeeze
until rainbows and butterflies come
spilling out of me
(and all of those other things I hate
to talk about).

I want to get away from you,
But I don't want to get away from you,
And I want nothing more to be with you.
To lay with you.
It's not even about sex,
I just want to be with you.

You are my heroine.
You are my missionary.
You are my undoing.
You beautiful delusion, you
you are my destination.


So, I'm calling this a poetry sketch. That is to say there was no real aim, I was just sketching out images with words, so it remains unrefined and half complete in the original form as I wrote it. I'll probably do more of these in the future as the mood suits me.

An interesting thing came to me as I was writing this. When I was young, a friend of my mother's once asked about my paintings, because while a lot of my drawings were super heroes, and guns, and girls with semi-big tits (I like to think I was trying to be progressive), several of my paintings were softer and of flowers and pretty things like that. And the friend made a statement about the conflict of wanting to draw flowers and pretty things and what not, but feeling like I needed to draw all the other stuff too. I responded something to the effect of there was no conflict, it's just that sometimes I want to draw the cool stuff and sometimes I want to draw the pretty stuff. I guess that still holds true right? Sometimes I just want to do the pretty stuff.

Journey's End, Part 3

Click here for part 1

Chapter 3: Threes

For Journey, college found him some relief. He took a comfort in schedules and fancied the idea of being a cog turning in some larger machine. His pass time was getting lost in crowds, and he enjoyed the anonymity of it all. On Wednesdays, his third class of the day was an intro to psychology course. He enjoyed the almost free license it assigned him to diagnose the mental state of others, all the while believing that he had an innate gift for psychoanalysis, which, had he taken the time to diagnose himself, would have clearly marked him as delusional.

He met Delilah as a part of a study group he entered by way of a friend of a friend. Soft green eyes that looked to him like sea water off the coast of a tropical island glanced at him perilously over the top of chemistry books and periodic tables. “What was the atomic weight of Lithium?” she might ask him, not really caring what the answer was; she just liked hearing his voice. At first the feeling was unfamiliar to Journey, foreign, scary. He tried to fight it for a while, but even he couldn’t ignore the first feeling he had felt in a while that didn’t feel like nothing.

The day could never be too long when they were together and the best days were spent running from the rain in March. It amused her to point out that she was a Gemini and that even the stars agreed that they should be together; it was so perfect. Journey didn’t require astrology to confirm his feelings for her, all he needed to know was that when their eyes met, he could hear lighting in the distance, and sometimes he would forget to breathe. His favorite moments were ones spent lazily on the couch playing boundaries games. Slowly, with his foot, he would creep her skirt up her leg, which normally would hang to her ankles. The game was to see how far he could get before she would stop him. He loved the way that skirt hung off her hips just below the navel it was so vibrant with color and it flowed as she walked. One of his most private of memories was when they first laid together, and he stayed awake to watch her sleep. When he looked at the clock, it read “3:03 a.m.” He thought to himself that he could die in the next thirty seconds; it was all so perfect, there was nothing else left for him to do.

They had spent three summers together when he graduated, and in that time he had never been able to say the three words she most wanted to hear. At best he might allude to an emotion, “baby, you know how I feel,” but his glancing attempts could not appease the insecurities that formed in her heart. The day he told her he had received an offer and that he would be leaving, she responded “stay with me…” There was no sentence he could speak, no grammar that he was able to command capable of expressing his desires, and again, all he could say was “baby, you know how I feel,” but she doubted.

The day Journey left, he told her he would call. He told her they would work something out, that they would speak to each other again. From June through August He picked up his phone, as if she might sense it and call him from the other end. Not knowing what to say, he just starred at it waiting. He never spoke to Delilah again.

Click here for part 4

Journey's End, Part 2

Click here for part 1

Chapter 2: Green

Journey’s father would never be mentioned as anything more than a foot note in the biography of his life. The day his father left he was wearing an ugly, spinach green sports jacket and a gray fedora hat. He looked back over his shoulder, and perhaps, for a moment, reconsidered his actions as mistaken. And maybe, if time could have been paused in that moment, things would have been different, but they weren’t, and the momentum of his actions carried him out the door. Journeys eyes met his father’s that day as he left, but his face was a shadow, a mask that revealed only his eyes and a shallow divide that even a eight year old could tell was there.

His mother searched for validation in the arms and beds of others. Sometimes Journey couldn’t even remember their names, they changed so often. It was always the same man, for all he could tell, just their faces and their names changed. For a while, Journey tried to keep up with it all, assigned an inexplicable importance to it, but eventually, it changed so fast that it all got lost in his head. Was this Timothy he spoke with or Brad? Is James the one that would bring him candy or was It Cameron? There was Rob. He flashed a smile the color of money anytime he entered a room. Oh, and Phillip seemed to be pretty nice. At least he thought that it was Phillip. Eventually he gave up and they moved like shadows across the emerald walls that lead to his mother’s room, into and out of his life, and into and out of her bed.

She never gave him more than cursory motherly advice. “Drink your milk. If you want to grow up strong, drink all your milk,” and when she embraced him he could tell she wasn’t really there. Something about the way her eyes would stare off into some distant point in a future that didn’t exist. One she longed to be in. She would pull a faded aqua blanket over her shoulder sometimes; it was so cold where she was. When he hugged her, he felt like a puppet whose strings had been pulled as if he were mimicking actions that people who felt real things might take. For years, he wished that he could be free from the weight of his mother’s sadness, selfish as it may have been. If only he could spring time forward, he would. That option barred, he played games and walked with his head turned down the way he was supposed to until he would be able to break free from it all.

On the day his father left, he was wearing an ugly green sports jacket. That much, Journey remembered. If he had ever stopped to think about, he would have realized that that was the day green stopped being his favorite color.

Click here for part 3

Journey's End, Part 1

Chapter 1: Toast

Journey knew it would be the last time he ever saw her when he woke up that morning, the sunlight brushing her face with the grace of a dancer. He knew and yet he hadn’t admitted it to himself when he leaned over and kissed her softly on the forehead, “Good morning my angel.” He knew, but not like one knows the answers on a test. It was more like something one intuits; like the implied communication when lovers touch. Over coffee and toast, his mind reconciled the fact that this childish fantasy was concluding, and that there was nothing he could do about it. It relieved him in a way. Journey wasn’t the type to express his thoughts aloud, not even to himself; instead he preferred to not contemplate them until they died of old age and loneliness. The coffee was tart that morning, but it would have to do. By the end of it all, the day tasted bitter sweet in his mouth, and smelled of nostalgia and nausea. As he left the house, he noticed that his toast had tasted… flat, and later, he would kick himself for not recognizing it as a sign.

When he returned that night to find shadows dancing on the wall like an ancient ritual, he didn’t even bother to feel hurt. He always knew that she wasn’t his by the way that she never seemed to finish his sentences. She would look at him like someone who hadn’t found her soul mate sometimes, and they would laugh away the anxiety. In all honesty, it hurt him. He expressed feelings he was incapable of vocalizing with distance, and he could tell she did the same by the way her finger tips would get cold to the touch, even though she insisted on holding him. She belonged to someone else, and he wished she were the past.

When his eyes could finally meet hers again, he saw that they were unapologetic. They spoke matter-of-factly saying, “Well, what now gummy bear?” and at the time he had no answer. There was no vocabulary in his lexicon capable of describing the feelings that rose. To be clear, he wasn’t sure that it was even an emotion that he felt, so when his hand found the trigger and squeezed, it couldn’t necessarily even be considered an act of passion; an act of rote perhaps. A pre canned response describing an interpretation of how a situation should be handled. He had merely stumbled into it by way of lack of character.

Journey knew this was the last time he would ever see her again, and for that he had taken his time that morning. He whispered to her slower than he had ever spoken to her before with words only she could hear. He talked to her in a language that made sense to both of them as if to make up for years of speaking in dialects alien to one another. In the end, he was glad that he had remembered to kiss her on the forehead that morning and to take the time to notice that her eyes were green. As he lay there, floating in a sea that felt like it might go on forever, he could see those same eyes starring back at him, and all he could think was if he had only had one more day to change things, maybe the toast wouldn’t have gone flat that morning.

Click here for part 2



This is part 1 of a six part series. I consider this to be a continuation of my experimentation with mixing poetry and prose. This is far more on the prose side, but I tried to convey a lot of information in a short space by way of some sentences with dense imagery. If you get a chance, leave a comment and let me know if you think it works. Truth be told, this entire endeavor was inspired by a game called Braid, which I think is absolutely brilliant. Each level is preceded by a set of story books which tell the story of a character named Tim. My interpretation of the story is that it uses game references as an analogy for his life. It speaks of his time with "the princess," and how he's trying to find her, but I figure that that's more of just a metaphor. Whatever the case may be, I think it's a really cool presentation for the game, and the story deals with themes of time, and mistakes, and growth. So I guess that inspiration carried over into what I was trying to do with this piece. Anyway hope you enjoyed.

When She Speaks...

He always knew it would end this way...
But he stares into the sun anyway when grasping
For that which he can not reach.
A rote rehearsed a thousand time
As thoughtful words are spoken through
Clenched teeth.
"Please let this time be the last."
And yet, every time he spreads his wings,
The sun calls to him, it's voice so sweet,
Like honey siphoned through rationales which
Make consequence look like collateral damage
at worst.
She sounds so comforting when she speaks of trust,
Which is why the deceit stings when he is burned,
And he can hear her whisper,
"Be my everything..."
And there's nothing he'd rather be.

His decent from heaven is cushioned on a bed of
Daggers, feathers, doubt, and the remnants of mirth.
He can not see clearly through these blinds, but
He knows that mirrors never lie when they speak,
And his eyes speak only monotones of gray.
Who will hear them if not him.

Beyond the horizon, the serpent never sleeps,
He finds it moves with in his dreams, repeating her every word:
"Be my everything..."
And there's nothing he'd rather be.
Deprived of respite, he never wakes,
Walking in his dreams,
And dreaming when he walks.
His burdens follow him impossibly like a shadow in the sun,
And his eyes, closed shut, start blending his night and his day
Into an incongruous effigy of perception.
"I can't be your everything," he speaks,
Not conscious when the words leave his lips,
And surprised by the sudden defiance of convention.
"The bruises brought by my indiscretion are not worth"
"The fantasy you portray, and"
"The words you say are like static on the ears"
"Of a court in jesters in their frivolity."
And he claims he can not bare the weight.
Reconciling his need to feel inadequate,
He decides the fruits he has born are not to be conceded for free.
She can no longer pay in batted eyes and serpent speak.
Like vinegar's dripping from her teeth, her words no longer taste so sweet.

But still, every time he spreads his wings,
And tries to touch what he can not reach,
Blinded by the sun, he hears her speak:
"Be my everything..."
And there's nothing he'd rather be.


SO I wrote this a while ago to play with mixing poetry and prose in the same piece. I have to say, I still like this one. Some of the metaphors are really on point, anyway, Hope you liked it.

Welcome

So, as if I didn't have enough blogs already, I'm starting another one. I know, I know, I already have a personal blog, a sketch blog, and a joint blog, why do I need another one? Well, I wanted some place to post all of my wonderful writings. Because of the length of some of my stuff, it just didn't seem right to shove it onto my normal blog, you know? So anyway, here it is. Not sure how often it will be updated. Depends on how often inspiration hits I guess. I'll also slowly be bringing over some of my old writings from my myspace blog. At least I'm letting that one stay dead, right :)