Melody

Close your eyes, the music will still play

It leaves your fingers to become surreal company,

Distinguished entity to join your lonesome hands

Connected to smooth machines of mystical ability,

Who created this perfect formulation, who decided

They could bend the trees into sound that pleases,

Almost deity, the physicality of this transformation

From an obscure language across creased pages

Into human flesh that surprises itself with each

Melody emerging, the tangible portrait of identity,

I have seen the numbers, mathematical proofs,

Neuroscience explanation of the fascination simple

Notes compel within our wired heads, and yet

An essence incontrovertible, unnamable emerges

From the fluttering cocoon of my dancing bow,

Why else would I set down the phone describing

What is irrevocably lost to sit down before inanimate

Keys and play the first melody I remember, this song,

Springing from me as if cued as messenger, the act of

Creating draws me back into humanity, into a peace

Of listening, letting this fantastical creature comfort me,

Haunting ghosts of imagination, when one note vibrates

We can hear the harmonic chords, the invisible presence

Of sequences falling into place, the periodic waves

Deceiving brains into believing an excess noise, invaluable

In this world of excess noise, I find words unnecessary,

Because I can envision infinite, self realized expressions

Within this peculiar cacophony of unknown reality,

Speaking inaudible secrets of unequaled capacity, Chomsky

Would find, I think, this wordless language lies as inherent

In our nature as vocalization, the personification

Of ancient harmony, constant in inconstancy, I cannot

Fathom what you hear, but I hear compassion, silence,

A universal will to share the possibilities of this, of any melody.

If

Blurred lights flash, pulsing

The words in my head, If, If, If.

I cannot catch my breath, it’s as if

This cascade of events has rushed

Into one second, I have

Chased it, leaving my ragged

Lungs behind a step.

If I were behind a step,

I would have dallied longer

Eating ice cream in the cold,

I would have turned left when you

Suggested, I would have stopped

At some other darkened corner,

Any other wet asphalt corner.

I would have changed

Anything to not slide

There into a stunning

Array of flashing lights

And confused, broken metal,

If frayed nerves had not

Impulsively accelerated,

The twisted door

Would have been mine,

If I had been alone

I do not think the shaking

Would have stopped,

I might have drowned

In suffocating, doubtful Ifs,

A word easily falling, begging to be asked,

And yet I fear once taken

Each inconsequential, fatal choice

Cannot be remade.

Waiting for the Future

I wish to inhabit the silence between the laps of frosted waves,

Washing sorely trodden feet, the stinging abrasion of water on skin,

As I stand along the jagged edge, watching between closed eyes

The wheeling seabirds scurrying into the darkened west,

The land still shrouded in night, to which I must return my legs

Having wandered lengths of long avoidance, scrambling craggy

Rocks that rarely feel the greedy touch of human hands.  I wish

Sometimes to be these ferocious boulders, facing the fervent wind

For eons, watching fools return to aged fishing boats, not glancing

Once behind, but following the path of all rushing, fearful beasts, taking

Their past in one hand and their future in the other, gripping these ties

With unnatural strength, hoarding plans without offering a taste

Of the land in between, forgetting how to walk in an endless race.

But if you close your eyes, it almost feels as if nothing’s changed at all,

It almost feels as if I can ignore the burning feeling that we’ve been here before.

The repetitive dreams like warnings, I recall one night I thought

I’d lost a friend, so why did I never call, I never asked you if you were

Still there, the peculiar fear of the subconscious dissipating the moment

I awoke to follow the selfsame trail of yesterday, did you find yourself

In this gyre of nonsense, is that why you wanted to sleep until it tore

Your independent, smiling life apart, or was that always an illusion,

The mirage of childhood hopes like the imagined trips into the books

We shared, I only wish I called you one more time before you spun

Too far, would it change anything at all to pause and use your phone

For a conversation with more significance than petty thoughts of the instance,

I think it would make all the difference, because the long wait

For the future to begin tires us before we ever get there,

Because we live always too many steps ahead of ourselves,

So close your eyes to catch the sliver of a glimpse

Into that stasis at the seaside, changing towards nothing

More important than this second of yourself, nothing more vital

Than your life mingled with the heady scent of salt and silence,

I think the rocks tumbling over decades into the embrace

Of the churning water are far braver than you or me,

Brave enough to look forwards into their imminent

Plunge below the shoreline, yet never fearfully, forsakenly strive

For some more meaningful demise, they watch me leave their haven

With a knowing sympathy, I cannot help my humanity

I continue to return to my disheveled sanctity, to compel

My toes away from the caress of the soft spoken ocean,

Return to labors for an unknown future while ignoring the futile

Knock of the present on doors labeled Do Not Disturb, but once in a while,

Please Disturb, I am waiting only for the courage to live now

While any carefully constructed future waits for me.

Almost Nonsense

Have you yet aspired

To the task of observer

Sent to relay

Crooked correlations

Of the strange habits

We fall into, how

We propel into questions

Avoiding the only

Significant words,

Because we know the answers

Will fail to please ears

That absorb endless nonsense,

How my restless cells

Occupy with inane wonders

Out of necessity, lest I mire

In idle insanity, the sagging

Of elastic days in which

I nearly lose myself,

Trying not to wish

For a name more durable

Than this sturdy body,

Except when I cried

A week late, maybe for

You, mostly because

My breath felt insubstantial

And nobody asked.

And when the white noise

Blessed distractions cease,

I return from distant

Perches, to let my body

Weary from rest sleep

In this strange sea

Of aching incompletion

Let the acrid waves immerse

Leaving a burnt outline that

In minutes fades

This all consuming desire

For lauded accomplishment

Contradicting my firm

Belief, that all salient

Change dies within

Our own annihilating sun.

Madres

Nothing surprises more than

Faces gently swollen

By age, or tears, or both

Displaying the ironic parabola

Of a secret happiness, a shared

Joke amongst portraits of the

Dead, caught in the corners

Of twin, age spotted chins,

Partaking in the miraculous

Ritual of the pained,

The laugh that timidly

Creeps from frightened

Throats, driving the wreckage

Back from the scene of the crime,

The unquenchable chortle

That reminds your body

Of its existence, more substantial

Than any adrenaline heartbeat,

The curving line thrown

Onto shore, securing the restless

Minds of disaster, the lifeline

Of audacious, sore smiles.

Poem of the Day Video

Video Poem

If I barely pay attention to the words, I still like this poem because the way he speaks is in itself poetic.  The presentation of this poem turns it into almost a song, with accompaniment on the violin and the cadence of his words.  I do, however, also enjoy the words, occasionally too cliche, like "embers that can light fires", obviously, what else would embers do.  His pattern of words cycles up to louder, successive rhymes, creating emphasis and drawing one's attention.  Overall, I find this poem sweet, nostalgic, and mildly empowering, and the dualism of the spoken words and music provides a neat, creative experience.  I will remember the idea of background music for my own video poem, because somehow I never found it distracting, only adding to the tone of the poem.

Draft Papers

I’m told I’m now an adult

And strangely offended that my country

Has not asked me to sign

My life on a dotted line,

They demanded my father

For this bloody promise,

Pulled two grandfathers

Away from brides and into

Potential patriotic martyrdom,

But my citizenship does not extend

Apparently to this fruitless end.

I would mind the request,

I would write my name

In irrevocable, slow, and fearful

Print, and yet I mind

As much the lack of invitation

To the hopeless warrior institution,

Ordained unfit for duty

As if some corporal weakness

Maimed me, unnoticed, leaving

Reminders in the curvature

Of a body unsuited for

The bleak price that

Is asked of only

one half of one nation

With liberty for the fifty

Percent whose lives

Are worth either more

Or less, but never

The same.