Outcast

In the morning

I wake,

and tell myself that things will be different.

I move about,

eating, speaking, blinking sleep from my eyes.

Then I move into noise

and light–

bright, blinding light, and loud, cacophonous noises.

Through it all I am unheard.

Not heard when screaming, not seen when in the open.

In solidarity I find

myself staring into the mirror

and seeing the face that others ignore.

I don’t speak;

I don’t think;

I simply stare.

And in the pale mirror I find

the merest trace of hope–

some recognition from warm, golden sunlight

in a simple reflection.

At the Table of Dry Bones

At the table carved from driftwood

sits the skeleton Man.

Pale light flickers in his eyes sockets

a sort of manic ghost of a flame.

The time I met him he sat there,

grinning, and raised a tarnished chalice.

The bread on the table stank of blood

and the wine poured out from under his robe, staining it crimson.

Alone at the table,

except for the loaves of bread

and the smell of blood and smoke,

he stayed. Never had I seen a more pitiful Man.

“Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?”-Sylvia Plath, A Birthday Present

In short, I’m sorry for the lack of recent posts. I’m still getting used to this.

Yesterday I experienced complete and utter defeat at the hands of the villain known as Calculus. Perhaps signing up for such a difficult course permits some serious lack of foresight on my part, but hey, it’s gonna’ be my very last math class so what the heck?

On a more somber note, I have been experiencing some very vivid dreams as of late and the last one hit on a rather conscious matter. 

I know it’s not my place to meddle in other peoples’ lives because I obviously don’t know what’s best for them, still, I have a friend who’s stuck in a situation she doesn’t even seem to recognize the gravity of. Being an outsider and able to see that is…it’s terrifying! But since we’ve already had a spat, there’s really nothing I can do, no one I can go to. It’s a situation where nobody wins, and in fact the person who is being harmed and the person who is doing the harming don’t seem to realize that they are doing so. It sucks.

Life is hard right now. 

Expect lots of dark, depressing poetry.

The Minstrel

There she sits, mahogany stool

slipped underneath her.

Can it hold the weight of her head?

She smiles brightly, and picks up her instrument–

frowns as she strums each chord,

tuning them.

This ritual masks her nervous breath.

She straightens, erects herself, and

into the microphone she blows.

Can anyone feel the weight of her heart?

 

No, no.

She buried it.

Bleached it, shrank it, and wouldn’t,

couldn’t dig it up.

Her audience may sway to each metallic pluck,

tap in time with the melody,

but they cannot hear the emptiness

that stems from her crushed heart

she hides like some terrible secret.

 

Churning deep within her chest

the heart feebly moans,

its weight increases year by year,

but she carries herself upright.

She won’t disappoint the crowd,

even if it pains her.

She is too good, too great and well-known

to deal with the ugly animal she has stored away.

That bastard organ,

that shriveled mess,

that starving, starving

thing.

She will not deflate.

She will carry that tender weight,

that beaten metal heart,

until it is flattened

thin as a horse’s hair.

Ideas We Create

Shadows bleed into paper–

Light washes away tears–

Conversation opens minds,

and turns pages within the skull.

Words are etched there

in flowing black ink

that glows like a starless midnight sky,

with only the moon as a lantern.

Share A Moment

I face the rising dawn

and its palette of pinks and golds.

It colors the skies with this rouge,

and I want to share it with you.

Do you gaze out your window at it too?

The playful symphony among the clouds,

the medley of hues? Everything so bright and beautiful!

Share this moment with me.

Take my hand

and see the clouds dusted purple,

the strokes that illuminate the sun and stars

still peeking from behind the nebulous curtains,

anxious to catch a glimpse of the waking Earth.

Shall I knock on your door,

and welcome you out to the music of the birds

and the song of the sky?

I know I must share it all with you.

 

The Arcane Boy

Another school day is a mix of drudgery and excitement.

This the cause of his paranoia.

His turbulent fear that someone may be watching,

that they will see the angle at which his head is turned

and follow his gaze.

And then the whole school will be in an uproar,

if gossip spreads as gossip does, like some sort of disease.

Within weeks he will be forced to hide,

he could not stem the outpouring of his secret-

it was spit out like sparks from that one person,

that rubberneck who had to peer over the fence

and have their eyes widen as the boy hastily shut the cupboard

too late, too late.

As it is in the suburbs, if one dog barks,

soon every dog in the neighborhood will be howling their heads off.

But the boy watches himself,

he does not stare, he takes his chances when he can.

He is careful, keeping the tottering stack of china on his head.

He is cautious, keeping the cabinet locked,

causing no disturbances. He is wary;

the dogs have not started barking

yet.

Walnut of Eden (based on the painting by Vladimir Kush)

Adam and Eve

safe from the elements

inside the shell risen from dust

brought to life by a gentle breath

and held now,

away from the wind of Paradise.

Close to each other.

Not guarded from God’s eyes,

who put them there

to shelter them

until they fall and sprout,

ready to walk on the Earth.

Cradled within their shelter

they embrace.

Waiting to be released

but not wanting to let go of each other.

Whether God planned it this way or not,

they need each other.

“At this joint between two worlds and two entirely Incompatible modes of time…” -Sylvia Plath, The Ghost’s Leavetaking

What is it like to be the odd man out? To find that you and your friends do not share the same interests? Sure, you’ve been friends for a long time, but people change, or at least their interests change. Did the great poets of the past years understand this realm of thought? Didn’t writers have the best relationships with other writers?

T.S. Eliot was good friends with Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell was friends with Elizabeth Bishop, but Sylvia Plath said in an interview that she tried not to make friends with other writers because they happened to be rather narcissistic. 

But sometimes it seems that your friends make hasty generalizations about you, even though you’ve known them for so long. Maybe you’re just a person of many faces and you’ve only shown them one because you haven’t been presented with the opportunity to show them another side of you. And that is because you’re just one person in a group. What you want is outvoted by the majority.

Ah, well. These things just happen. I suppose you wouldn’t keep being friends if you didn’t have something in common. Even if that is less so than what you had in common during grade school.

On a rather disconnected side note, how do people in commercials always sound so happy? Most likely, they’re being paid well.

Please forgive my angst.

More poems are on the way!

“Something cold is in the air…”-Anne Sexton, The Fury of Sunsets

You know that feeling you get when you find out you’ve been cut off from technology?

You know, the desire to fall to your knees and scream “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Yeah, that happened to me when my laptop decided to take a poop on my day by refusing to connect to my wi-fi network at all costs, something it has been doing for the six or so months I’ve had it. First World Problems, I know. But I am thankful that I found a desktop computer, and can access some parts of the Interwebs. I’m just upset that this means no Skype, and no portability so I’ll be sitting in the library during my free time, listening to the limited selections of songs on my mobile music device (no product placement here), and avoiding eye contact with every stranger and non-stranger who passes by me (social anxiety makes interaction difficult).