Repeat

My symmetry is cyclical, for

In the circle's "O,"

Reflection gives half to another

Rounding out a whole. Sister

Of our soul, we find this precious new demi,

Reveals another side extending from the inner seam. 

Preaching

Pearls are just some oyster spit
and gems, death under pressure
Telling worth is difficult
Without a way to measure

Flowers make a crown
more full of life than any other
Somehow still we seek for gold
While true Light we will smother.

Some will think me cracked, naive,
more than a little funny,
But I hope to always value true
The things worth more than money.

Needs

I've let a different part of me grow, lately
for the past four years.
And I am glad. Grateful. Content.

But while I turned to the details of the composition
The social birds and butterflies,
The brickwork lain by others

I turned my back on the roses.

Or did I hack them down?
I remember burying my nose in their
Velvet folds, and clutching their proud thorns
Tightly to my chest.  Embracing them
For their loveliness, even though they'd never win garden prizes.
I was determined to never uproot them.
Rather, I sought to bind their briars to me.
Round my heart. Forever.

As I walked away, I felt the dragging
But somehow it was my own two feet
That carried me away.

At first I told myself they were fine on their own
for a while
But I caught glimpses from the world that lies
in the corner of my eye.

Now I turn to look at that part of me that was dying.
and I can't bear the sight.
I let it come in wisps and waves.
Once or twice it has come all-at-once
and I am staggered.  Left, sputtering, gasping for air
One or two or fifty sobs, and the world rights itself again.

Some remember to stop and smell the roses
Along their way.
But I live for and through and of the roses.
To go along the way
Without,
I suffocate, but for the tricks I force on my mind
And the casual breaths I manage to steal, clutching desperately
While no one's looking.

I am so stupid. To recognize myself, and know it, and love it
And let it go.
How could I let myself go.
How could I let myself go?

"I have gone out looking for myself. 
If I should return before I get back, 
please ask me to wait."

I always liked that clever writing. Anonymous.
But finding me is hard work.
So I think I'll be out for a while

At least I know where to start.
I'll follow the trail of colourful petals
Until I breathe roses once again. For always.

Staying Solid

Would you want white walls

            -overwhelming emotion-

Closing out all sound?

            -hear the breath of the ocean-

Are they walls if they’re soft?

            -remember pillow fights-

Sit alone in the silence.

            -awake all night.-

You were deemed unfit

            -????????-

You didn’t make the cut.

            -those ones don’t count-

Nothing has colour

-squinting makes stuff blurry-

It’s stuck inside.

            -with eyes wide open.

Joy

Let it explode!
Just let it go
Bubbling, building inside.

Spill over edges,
Share it with others
Emotions, raw and unbound.


Now change the title to "Hate."

Preoccupied

Pick pick pick
The locks in my mind
Rusty and Tarnished
Creaking and straining, chink chink chinking
Links sliding smoothly
Searching, scrabbling, dig dig digging
Flakes of dried blood under my fingernails.

Crafting Sight

Spend a day imagining two wings upon your back
Your stride becomes a flight unseen over each sidewalk crack
Feathers rustle in the breeze, tawny or maybe black
Draw them close, for in a crowd, you'll jostle someone's pack.

The sky's a deeper blue, you see, or maybe a clear white
But everything's a story now, in your unfettered sight
Each moment art divine indeed, crystalline and bright
The edges softer, somehow sharper, memorized in light

No one spots the difference, at home or school or work
It hides in thought, in eyes unfocused or a subtle smirk
The trick is that they're real, behind each shoulder see them lurk,
A secret joy, free to all with just a simple quirk

The unhinged mind swings free of all entrapment but your own
Craft your shape amusingly to please sir boredom's groan
Let reason dance with chaos now, it's easy as I've shown,
Mastery takes but a breath, for you've already flown.

Inheritance

The heir aspired to rule the realm
To wield the sword, to wear the helm.
To walk the path of fathers fore,
A king known well, writ down in lore.

From air espied, a kingdom wide
From tip to tail a year’s long ride
With worth in every hawk and boar,
Each forest green, each craggy shore.

A people vast, not without pride,
He must protect, respect, and guide
With wisdom, strength, and valour true,
Each noble, peasant, child, or shrew.

To err could cost a life or more
The throne, a chair with leaden core,
A heavy task, a heavy seat,
But one his heart was born to meet. 

Midnight Runnels

Tick Tock goes the clock
Families are sleeping
Streetlights glow on
Ice and snow and
Now the streets are weeping.

Blood, Fire, and Brimstone

Eyes close to the world forever

Turned inside, sealed in death

No welcome to this new existence

Burning blood is on the breath

Now all twists gruesomely,

Convoluted body turns its hide

Folds of skin at the core

Organs meet air, lidless eyes wide

No protection from biting sand

Rough pumice under feet

Then the screams reach your ears

Smell the flesh like cooking meat

Nerves so tender, grated, snapped

Fire ravages your veins

Demons dance and rape and lance

Stiletto fingers tearing brains

Over and again, an endless torment

Suffering eternal is hell

Pain continuing, ever creative

Deaf to all but Savagery’s knell

A Human Being

Babies are people
Small people
But they don't seem quite real
When they belong to someone else.
Connection. Communication.
Miracle and sleep-depriver
Developing to become
A whole person.

Immediate Impression

Like a picture loading slowly, (a matter of seconds).
Not bit by bit down the page
But as an unblurring of pixels; clarity.

Three swipes across a frosted pane
Layer after layer revealed
Brought to sharp focus. (the whole)

Not the slow developing of a photograph
In a dark room.
But three quick splashes of paint across canvas.

(thoughts on imagism.
Not an imagist poem.)

Milk and Ice Cream

Never ever drink milk after ice cream.
It is one of the more disgusting sensations
That taste and temp bring to the tongue.

Fresh and frothy from the fridge
Cold and clear with cake or cookies,
Somehow doesn't do the same with its close cousin.

Ice cream, sweet derivative.
Cold and creamy, with flavours unlimited
Imaginative and almost always welcome

The tongue, delighted, pleased and soothed
Is treated to this dessert. Sometimes, after
Perhaps it thirsts.

Water might do well, drawn from a well, or tap
But milk always gets chosen once
Until the memory teaches better.

Alone, both cold and clear, creamy and sweet
but not overly so.  Apart, different
Similar and related. Set apart by scale and relativity.

From its happy tricks and twisting, the tongue
Is dipped and muddled.  Milk coats its side
With lukewarm sludge, sour and thick with mubleh

The glass shows coolness, condensation
But the tongue would disagree.
Ice cream's last bite spoiled in memory

The tongue would have us cleansed.

I remember mother's milk
Love and sustenance established
Over time and time again.

Weaned perhaps a year or two
My newborn sibling takes this treat
I would like some, too?

Sure, a little in a cup - the baby returned to the breast
My memory fails again.
This sweet nurture, nectar without flower, sour.

Unstandable. The tongue rejects
What once it shrieked and clamoured for.
But I digress.

Never drink milk after ice cream.
The tongue will taste them differently
And you will be left with a sad face and a mak mlah  bleuugg.

It might be inherent, but I think it's
an impression.  I think you agree.
It's me that's different, my tongue. Both fridge and freezer preserve well.

Try putting one hand in hot water, and one in cold.
Put both in water-room-temperature and see science!
But never drink milk after ice cream.

Life

Time. Tricky, bending and warping
Something always. and Never. Someone
Made it up. Named it, defined it.

How long is a second? The brush of eyelashes on my cheek.
An hour? A yoga session in a room without a clock
A minute. A yawn - a stretch - a groan. and a Day with nothing
to show for it.

It makes sense, is Natural.  The world rotates, the shadows
Always slink around the globe. Which revolves around the sun.
Seasons cycle round and round on and on
Affecting trees and frozen frogs and people who need to
Improve the world for lack of adaptation.

It makes no sense. The numbers on a digital face, or analog.
In cement trees it is hot in the winter and cool in summer
Light, constant day or night.  Mark this passing to structure
Lives.  Busy workers busy living busy busy lives.

Early, late. On time.  Like a bridge. Can you jump off it? On
Time.  Outside of it. Over it. Under it. Other-preposition it.
Immortal, this something that doesn't exist. Never did

Where's the point? You'll find it at the tip, that sharp tapering
Extremity. Needle or hand.  I keep both hands on my face
Fearing that you'll see my body, or worse
Understand it.  Because you don't need me

You always have me, bits of sand under your skin,
Slipping through the glass.  Cinderella running out.
An illusion as real as thought. As real as life.

Don't mind me. But you do, for fear you'll miss me.
But do. Please do. Just do. Be. Don't mind me.
I'm not even really here.

A nod for convenience, that is fine.
A sundial in the garden - aesthetically pleasing.
Hello. Goodbye. Carry on

And please, Have a Good Time.

Writing

Reading is wonderful. Reading is escape
Writing is hard. Writing is work.

I can float along in some other world
Another person
With other-world rules
And other-full friends.

The pace sinks into
My pulse.
.
..
.
..I live and love and laugh
And sometimes cry or
Flinch

No, I don’t think I’ve ever actually flinched.
But I cringe over imagined embarrassment for another
Or worry.

It’s beautiful
And real.

But writing means looking inside
Examining my mind
The mind
The subject, the thesis, or plot, or detailwork. Understanding.

I have so many stories, lined up on shelves
In paper and hardcover
Tucked under my bed and stacked on the floor
One or two under the towels in a cupboard in the bathroom.
On my computer, any computer, saved to my favourites
Stories shared, unpublished, completed and uploaded.
For my entertainment.

I have so many stories, lining my mind
Replayed before bed, scenarios detailed
Ideas in doodles, thoughts as I walk in the cold morning air
Unwritten. Always unshared.
Because of the problems. Some block. The mood. The work.
I can escape when I read, when I dream, but when I write, this escape
Becomes something.

Needs to be faced. Wants to be known.
The pressure is more powerful than a mood, than a block.
It envelops and controls.
It subverts and disallows.

Perfection and necessity, where movement is impossible.

But sometimes everything clicks.
Or it’s not right right away but you write right away anyway and the block melts away.
By the end, you’ve begun, and you can go back and fix it
But not always because sometimes it gets stuck like that.
But that’s fine sometimes.

About Me

So, already you know that I like puns.  Apple-a-day and all that.  Or maybe you didn't see it.  Maybe you don't know that "pomme" is French for "apple," or maybe you do, and you actually speak French really well.  So well, in fact, that it would never occur to your mind to pronounce “pomme” with such awful English ignorance that it might sound a bit like “poem.” 

I like multiple meanings, and am fascinated with language in general – and language upon closer inspection.  Sometimes it’s a thing I think about.  Sometimes it enters discussion.  And sometimes it doesn’t enter my thoughts at all.  And often I like to be annoying and bring up technicalities like how my very thoughts are made up of a kind of language, and then there’s written language, spoken language, body language, communication at its most basic, and brought to some elevated form.  Restricting and ever-expanding. (Ooo. There’s a contradiction. I like those, too.)

Anyway, back to “About Me.”  I could have changed that title. I almost did when I knew this would be less of a profile and more of a description of this blog and my plans and intentions.  But who is “Me?”  The only me you’re likely to ever know will be the face of this blog.  Unless of course my only readers remain the few friends I choose to tell about this endeavour.  For the time being, this “Me” is the blog and author, separate and together.  There I go with silly double meanings again.  (As you know, I know some French.  Perhaps I should’ve gone with “double entendre.”)  

I plan to write a poem a day.  It’s something I think I need.  If I want to write, I need to do it.  I need to improve, and I need some further reason that helps me do it – just look at all the junk food I eat, all the procrastination I do; I have no willpower, and no focus.  So here I will post a poem a day.  An apple a day is supposed to be good for you, healthy, keeping the doctor away (then again, I don’t really want to keep The Doctor away – I love that show!).  I need to write everyday.  I should do it.  It will be good for me. Me as a writer, and as a person, and of course “Me,” the blog.  The blog is entirely dependent on my writing for life.  I stop – it dies. 

I’ll tell you right away that I’ll cheat.  I set myself no goal other than a poem a day.  Some will be ridiculously short.  Some might not look like actual poems.  Some will have been written ages ago, and brought out and posted to avoid making something new that day.  Some I might have already posted elsewhere. With all this disorder, you might not get any sense of my progress or development. Too bad.  I hope to post some good poems, to post some good writing. Some will be enjoyable, hopefully.  And some will be truly terrible, I can guarantee that.  The point is to make myself write, and share, and hopefully get some helpful comments from strangers on the internet.  

I don’t know how long I’ll manage to put up an actual poem each day.  We’ll see