Thursday, January 28, 2010

Significance

Significance

Ocean blue when you cry
Eyes that beg and plead
Whisper agony defeat
The heart I hold still bleeds


Walking backwards away from you
With a pair of hearts I hold
Throw one down, it crumples slightly
From all the hurt I told


The screams are getting quiet now
Your voice is cracked and rough
A best friends soul is all I give
You scream, it's not enough


I hear a tearing and turn from you
A soul shreds to bits behind me
Although it’s yours, you say I own it
But I told you, I'm not ready


Author Note: This one was painful to write because of the point of view I chose. I was on the receiving end of this poem and to write it from the leavers point of view was a challenge but I liked how it turned out and it is one of my more emotionally charged verses.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Selfish

Selfish


Point to the time when
You realized
I was the perfect one for you


Give me a date where
You understood
That craziness was part of my charm


Show me the place where
You saw
Me as more then a friend or crush


Tell me the first memory
You remember
Of me being your one and only


Point out


Give me


Show me


Tell me


Or I will waste...myself...


Author Note: My first love, my first husband, my first ex...all wrapped up in one person and one moment in time when I only asked for him and not for myself.

Saints of the Wicked

Saints of the Wicked


Give me sanctuary
Under the bridge of
Chaos where hellfire burns
Through the blood of
The damned


Shelter my heart
Broken and bruised
Amidst the desolate
Souls of destroyed
Men


My heart is dead
Used and abused
From the men of standing
And chastity


So give me the wicked
The twisted and depraved
For they see my dead heart
And ask me not to
Use it


Author Note: Nothing need be said about this one that isn't stated in the poem...to live it is to know it.

Happy Crazy

Happy Crazy





Take the cure for mental
Instability and flush it
Unstable and happy in
This chaos of a world
Sounds more appealing
Then stable and depressed
Repressed, and under
Duress
To proclaim sanity and live neurotically
Productivity the endless
Goal
Better to thrive
Alive and insane
With no pressure to perform
Responsibly, respectively
Giving the society all
It requires to write
Off your behavior as
Crazy, lazy
Shelving mindless droning
With labels on personality
Taking pictures with
Black and white clarity
No color variety
Make me unstable
Rip away my stale label


Author Note: Crazy is a word often used to describe me and I began to see it as less a mocking label and more of a badge of honor. To be away from the normal, doldrums of society was something I grew to search for instead of trying so desperately to fit in. I am happy with my crazy personality, my quirky sense of humor and my ability to throw "normal people" completely off their own rockers.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Hopeful Horizon

There is a point in on the distant horizon
Point of a future so far
Into time’s plodding cycle
The light does not touch upon it


I can see it sometimes
This dark promising future
In the slumber of my black and white
Silent film dreams


Blurry, pale, but intoxicating dreams
A future of happiness in the
Twilight hours of my life
People are laughing but

The faces are unfamiliar

Children are running in wide circles
Though their voices are soft and muted
I ache for this shaded future, a dream

To inspire emotional decision

Please save this dream for me
Distant horizon, stubborn time
Let my heart follow the longing

Of a dim path

Time has not sped up or slowed
The point in the horizon seems so far
Out of my grasping reach

Sinking into the pale unseen potential

Don’t stop time; don’t leave me without a dream
Blurry, pale, gray, shadowed, but mine
My future
 
A point on the distant horizon

Author Note: This is one of my more hopeful poems and even so, there is still a feeling of sadness. Happy poems are really not my thing, I think pain is so much more interesting then joy. There are so many moments that pass us by, that take a part of us without our knowing it.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

On Honesty and Other Myths

On Honesty and Other Myths

Is this the last stand of a dying breed,
Useless code for a vanished creed?
Betray those worthless pounds of flesh
I’ll plant my lyric seed,


In the garden of random thought.
Escape the restlessness I fought,
Tongue and fists no avail.
Now see the carnage I’ve not wrought.


Wisps of mind and body bled,
To keep the scary monsters fed.
Dusk and dawn both breaking now,
Another chain of doubt to shred.


Must I stagger this useless breathing,
And welcome you, the heart of dreaming?
Beseech me now to spare your life,
Or give up all the rights to screaming.


Author Note: I used a different format for this poem and it seemed to flow nicely. I usually do free writes but I really liked the ebb and flow of this rhyming structure. The poem is my way of saying that in all life there are lies, we can't seem to help ourselves and yet we speak so venomously against it. Truth is a goal that humanity will never reach.

Wretched Brave

Wretched Brave

Yellow beams of sunlight drifting
Crossing patterns on my lawn
Rising from the sea stone glass
Towards the breaking dawn

Frosted gleams for laser beams
A shimmered burning in my heart
I walked into my garden bed
And the world frozen, fell apart

Shout it out, the pains
not yours to bear
Scream through it, they'll never
Show they care


The stunted growth of human seeds
Sunlight kills them all around me
Metal trees with ocean steam
Murky death revealed setting free

Birds and dogs, the cats and mice
Burning to escape inside
Slam shut the door to pushing freedom
The eject button on reality's ride

Shout it out the pains
not yours to bear
Scream through it, they'll never
Show they care


Author Note: This one was written as a song but since I have no idea how to write music for it...the idea quickly died. I think it still works well as just a poem and its one of the few that I always come back to with new ideas on how to word certain phrases.

Mistakes

Mistakes


Across outward suffering
Lives within a capsule
Righteous overload
Breaching inside
Stars where agony draws
Red from blue blood
And doesn't give back
The pain
Killer smile to hide to
Grimace

Author Note:I wrote this one as a challenge. I wrote one poem and then cut out the lines and rearranged them into another poem. I liked the second one way more than the first one so its the one I kept. Its a good tool if you think your poems may be too literal. (David Bowie used to write his songs in the same manner.)
Anna
Anna sat inside her locked room
With no windows, a single door
The air was heavy and warm
But she had no care for comfort

Anna sat upon her bed
And stared at her speckled ceiling
She wanted to understand why she lived
Inside the small sealed box

Anna sat, Anna stared

Anna died, with her eyes still
Fixed on the ceiling
No one will find their meaning for life
If they do not live at all
Author Note: Being frustrated with life is something we all experience but most of us complain without action. I wrote this poem to remind myself that as much as we look for the answers, we often do not realize that it takes action to make change.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Living in Stasis

Living in Stasis

The pale light of day's beginning
Streams beckoning through velvet
Curtains of rich red
A soft ivory colored blanket
Tangles about my legs
I rise, stumbling into another
morning

Black tea and warm oatmeal
Sit in front of my chair
I am watching a small child pulling
an empty sled across the frozen parking lot
My oatmeal is growing cold, my mind
Drifts on subtle waves of
Pondering

The air is crisp and cool, I
Walk to my waiting car, drive to work
The radio is playing static melodies and shifting riffs
I roll past bare trees and piles of gray snow
My own voice joins to break the monotony
Add my optimism to a beautiful
Rendition of life
Changing

Author Note: A description of a morning so full of possibilities that became wasted through the daily grind of living. Whatever I decide to do, taking time to enjoy a morning is more important than racing to fulfill the doldrums of life.

Rock Star

Rock Star

Chance less through scruples end
Contrived of mediocre allowance
Head above in enchanting metaphor
Not knowing what words I seek
To dispel the rumors of irresponsible
Litany
Changing melodies to suit my masses
Conforming under duress
Lowly heroes never rising, to simplify their
Rotten meaning
Run away from me, too far to hear my
Screaming

Author Note: Not one for mincing words, this was written in response to someone who changed who they were to suit those around them. It was a painful thing to watch.

Fortress

Fortress

Should I tell you the whole of me
The sadness, saneness, and strength
Within my weathered fortress

A small cage becomes a comfort
Leaving each time to find heartbreaking pain
Stay inside my shifting fortress

Simple words like poisoned darts
Flash into my walls and empty rooms
The slow crumbling fortress

Ringing crystal chandeliers lie
Broken by the singing cruel emotions
Stay inside my broken fortress

The walls have fallen to stumbling
Rubble, around my shaken, stubborn form
To die inside my fortress

Author Note: Time to build up the walls around my heart and yet they are never in place for long. I always open myself up for more pain but I find that it also opens me up to more happiness and love. My fortress will always crumble but I will never find the time to mourn it as I am too busy living.

Twist

Twist

Late blooming pansies outside my
window
They twist with the breeze, so
Casual in it's existence
I twist with them, a lazy current that
never
Understands the destination, but is
Glad to ride the journey
Soft petals and dripping leaves
Shudder as the breeze stops and
All that is left is stale air
A stale odor from a room never opened
Fills my apartment for you can't
See light and warmth in a place
The smell is everything
My apartment is dead though I do not
mourn
It was never alive enough for
Me to call home
The pansies have a home
The breeze is at home everywhere
I am still twisting

Author Note: Is it the nature of humans to never be satisfied with where they are? I find myself so often reaching for the next goal, the next move, the next big thing in my life instead of taking the time to understand that there is perfection to be found in the very moment I am in.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Bleeding Heart

Bleeding Heart

Stubborn looks peering through
Tainted glass
No expression of face
Anger is only given
To the outside world
A little heart crushed in reality
Without a chance to imagine
Or laugh with nonsense reason
There can be no alternative
Fate or environment, the debate
Rage on. A little heart
With so much to lose
Wild one day, lose itself
Shriveled, bare, happy memories
Are so few
Smothered beneath the blanket
Of acquisition, mistrust
Hide and seek with a monster
No chance to win the game
Turning to hide from the smirking
Monster in the mirror
Weakness is death from
Yourself
Kids can be cruel
The world can be cruel
A little heart knows better
Now, doesn’t laugh
Doesn’t play
Studies the world
But must not react with it

Author Note: I noticed early on that many of my poems were dark or dealt with depressing ideals. I don't see myself as a depressed person; perhaps because I bleed it all into my poetry and don't let it reach my normal every day interactions. This poem deals with my childhood where I had to grow up very quickly and put aside child like tendencies for religious fervor.

Clucking Blossom, Fairbanks Alaska

Clucking Blossom, Fairbanks Alaska

Red hair spilling like wine
Four sets of feet entangled
Limbs shaking, shuffling toes
A big blue ball rolls and bounces under children’s
Watchful exuberance
Mortal combat and peace talks
Intermingle
Pirates and hippies
Radicals and hula-hoops
A blanket party to promote
Opposite views
Shelve the hate to embrace the
Beauty of gathered humanity
Swilling wine from blue bottles
Accidental curses and breaking
Microphones
Silence so loud the crickets are
Heard across a cracked highway
Rhythm given freely to dust
Filled air
Crazy relative
Twitching bugs off bare shoulders
Sweat, smoke and dust filters
Through my nostrils
Swirling colors on chests, arms and legs
Open friendliness spread
Over opposition
Melting honey
Author Notes: I was sitting in the grass at our annual Clucking Blossom festival and I couldn't stop thinking about the eclectic people that I live with. I love the honest and loving people of my city and most of all, the outrageous outpouring of support for artists, muscians, and craftsmen. There is something so comforting about the sun on my back, the music drifting through the air nd the knowledge that even if they are strangers right now, I love them as they love me and we won't be strangers for long.