"a canvas, which reflects
sunlight in rays unseen
before submitting itself to a life of color"
Razelle McCarrick
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From memory she painted me,
Tho we had never met.
She painted my biography
On an easel of paper, brushes of pencil,
Exposed, bereft, inexorably delighted
At being dissolved in words that were not mine.
My annotated notes herein ascribed
To her revelations of my secreted stories,
Were written as I gazed upon the multi-blues of
California's beaches, neckline decorated with
Strands of white pearled beaches
Opposite contusions, bruises of
Orange terra cotta roofs, a burnt coral,
Colors that demanded attention, preservation,
Salutations, all hail the penetrating gaze of
Razelle, betrayer and savior.
His moniker was a borrowed line,
Still crazy after all these years,
How could this unknown girl of twenty two
Clear capture, undress me in the poetry of her canvas,
The instant and constant self-examination,
The rapture when transcending the fears
Instilled from birth of how I ought to be,
Which sixty two years on, the wrestling never ends.
Color me flesh nude,
Color me blue bottled,
Red ripped asunder,
The sweetness ascribed to my love poetry,
A subtraction of the bitterness of a failed life.
Colorist of my seams, my woven words,
I am white now, my canvas completed,
Waiting another poet to write over it,
And chaining new words to what was writ.
N.M.L.
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Razelle McCarrick · Sep 21, 2010
Biography of a Man
Someone wrote a biography of a man. Said he liked to write poetry and spend time in nature. But there are many things its readers will never know about. The streams of thought, the analysis, confusion, the Sadness, sprinkles of joy, the Transcension. A strange man he was..sweetly strange, but strangely bitter. At odds with the halves of himself..or perhaps thirds. But who will know? Someone wrote a biography of a man, but didn't say he was crazy. Or that he had a sharp mathematical mind and tried to add up the components of life to find it wasn't an equation in the first place. It was omitted that he was not merely a man, but of some other kind, often missing his home and his people, though he didn't know who they were. They didn't say when he became deaf, that he still played his favorite songs because he could feel them all the same and see them in colors. And no one knew that he refused to write in pen, but pencil only because one day his work would be rubbed away by the sands of time, just like his body. Someone wrote a biography of a man, but there was no account of what he did on a beautiful day, like the time he sat by a stream pondering his life and rewrote the biography of a man.
I was reminded of you this past weekend
I drove by your old place
Where you first let me see you naked
Yet I only stared at your face
And that just made you feel more timid
I saw it as I was driving to Spoonriver
Just to the left of the Guthrie
It was for Mother's Day lunch,
Yet it was her who payed for me
She said that she wanted this moment to be happy
Instead of something that might cripple me
She said to just hold on to all my money
Because it finally looks like I've stability
I think that what she meant to say
Was that everything's going to be okay
Instead of awkwardly denying May
... I mean me
On the way to drop my mom off
I drove back past your old place
The one up over in Nordeast
Where we would buy volcano drinks
At the tiki bar of Psycho Suzi
We would walk the mile from your living room
Beneath the quiet winds of spring
And hand in hand with our pre-game buzz
Was a disregard for everything
Almost exactly a year before today
I was in a fist fight there
The bartender said, "At least it was for your girl"
and that they didn't even care
I think that what he meant to say
Was it might be time to call it a day
Instead he gave more drinks to you and May
... I mean me
The rest of that night had been a breeze
We walked back to your old place
A crooked grin,
Attained from gin,
Was sprawled across your face
We found our way inside
We found our way into your bed
Like shedding pedals, you undressed yourself
And took the flowers from your head
It took you all night just to say
That you had never felt that way
And that you thought you were in love with May
... I mean me
This past Mothers Day I was reminded of last Mothers Day.
Her insecurity left her to the bone
She thought when will i ever be known
I don't know what to do
He searched for what he needed in all wrong things
drugs, gangs, and parties
and he took his life alone
Know your never alone
there's more to life
i'll take your hand
don't use the knife
because whether you know it or not
you are truly loved
When i said hello
He said goodbye
When i thought i could trust
that trust was a lie
Why do I do this to myself?
Why do I search for these things?
When I know what it does to me
when i know that it's cheat
I'n going to trust in someone greater
someone better
someone who won't let me down
Jesus, christ my true crown
The basement of my mind.
Cluttered with shit storms and broken promises,
Withered alongside reminiscent daydreams of passed past nightmares.
I stare...
Into the internal dwellings of my deepest catacomb.
Unable to process what resides in my literal unconscious dungeon.
It's everything i've attempted to hide.
To die.
To let dwindle between cobwebs and dust bunnies.
My breath falls short.
Sifting through the residue of forgotten treasures and material shackles.
They bond me.
Surround me.
Overwhelm me...
The unresolved burdens have taken residency within my hindered chakras.
My chest is heavy.
The weight distribution of disappointment is sharper than expected.
It eats away at me.
An elusive daily ritual.
Tucked away it remains far from common thought patterns.
Waves of emotion.
The tides roll in.
Upon their migration my muddled secrets and hidden betrayals are uncovered.
Discovered.
The look in your eyes when they fall upon my frailty.
My internal stack of unfiltered, unregistered, and unassured disheveled boxes.
Full of disheveled useless things.
Covered in a thick layer of problems i'm incapable of handling alone.
Alone.
It sits unaltered and ever growing.
The piles.
The filth.
The remnants of what should have been happiness.
It all falls into misplaced sediments.
I'm a mess.
It's showing.
I'm naked.
This hell.
This murky chamber of unwanted mementos from failed attempts and lost friendships
This dreadful, endless room.
Oh, to live in a home without a storm shelter.
Without room to store unnecessary baggage and all the unclaimed items in my mind.
To find solace in meager living.
All this weight fitting into a backpack.
To minimize my insanity into a carry on.
To leave.
To go.
To be light enough to feel the light.
To escape this cellar.
To live.
To release my self from my own idealogical prison.
To penetrate the bars of fear.
To dig myself out from all the things I never want to speak of.
To be free.
Ahhh, to be free.
To breathe fresh air over molded dust clouds and stale particles.
To touch without needing to rinse my soul clean.
To re-stack, rotate, and Tetris these piles of insecurities.
To break habits
that i've reinterpreted from childhood addictions and failed father figures.
To be better than what i've become.
To set fire to this sham of a lifestyle.
To be reborn in the ashes of this outgrown armor.
To let go.
To make you proud.
To find pride in myself.
To not be embarrassed by my place settings and mismatched knick knacks.
To allow souls into my temple without them stumbling into my isolated lunacy.
To welcome love.
To love.
To love even the darkest crevasses of my being...
I need to renew my license to live.
Overdue and out of line,
My past self has expired.
One step at a time, breathe.
One box at a time, breathe.
One thought at a time, inhale.
One lust at a time, exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Breathe.
Repeat.
Awaken.
Accept.
Grow.
Repeat.
People call me heartless
But never wonder why
Even though I'm smiling
I really want to cry
People call me heartless
They cannot understand
When I look back to the past
It's footprints on the sand
Memories washed away
With the flowing of the tide
I want you to greet me again
With arms open wide
People call me heartless
They can never comprehend
When I was there with you
I thought it'd never end
But as was sure enough
You went, left me behind
I wish I had gone with you
If fate had been so kind
People call me heartless
I remember what I heard you say
"I'm off to join the army,
We'll meet again some day"
I waited every day for you
Until I got the letter
I knew it was for worse
But hoped it was for better
I opened up the envelope
And read what was there wrote
The words 'your lover is deceased'
My breath caught in my throat
I remembered what you said
On that summer night
You told me that we'd meet again
But you had to take your flight
People call me heartless
And maybe it is true
I no longer have a heart
For it belonged to you
I put the gun up to my head
In my eye formed a tear
I used my voice to comfort me
"I'll see you soon my dear"
I pulled the trigger quickly
Said one last goodbye
Thought about deaths impact
The people that would cry
But the world doesn't matter
The only thing I want to see
Is for me to be with you
And you to be with me
Everything was black
Then came a blinding light
My life flashed before my eyes
What a breathtaking sight
People call me heartless
But they don't understand
I couldn't let you walk alone
On the beach with all the sand
Now that I am with you
I can finally be content
I understand those words you said
And what they truly meant.
my brother is not a king, but a giant fool,
who would have thought 'he' of all gods get's to rule.
I have faced him with many challenges,
but what I'd like more than anything is to face him in a deul.
He let his own daughter be taken by me,
let's see what this so called ''leader'' shall do.
they watch, they wonder, they look and they see
but what those fools don't know is where to find me.
Persephone, my queen-for 6 months she stays.
my sister and that fool still wait for days and days.
dear ''Persy'', she cries, she moans, she prays,
but cry as she might, she'll stay till the end of days.
No-one shall get her, she's my prize, my queen.
I'll keep this a secret; they won't know where she's been.
My brother, the oaf, the godly fool,
will never know how to judge or for that matter, even rule.
A gentle breeze of warmth pushes pleasant,
freakishly normal, but a smack on the water
builds waves that grow older and stronger.
You feel it all soft behind your eyes.
But there is always something missing
that on more cigarette can't fix.
There is always one bird flying
who just can't find the right sticks
to stand on, to launch from, to rise and
fight the world, so he glided circles
as Lady Hurricane approached.
He flew tired, then he flew more.
I opened the door to our house in Connecticut
in the red mist after Sandy and looked up, and
watched him ramble. "The Hawk in the Hurricane."
There he was circling, as if to prove his strength.
And when those boys and girls were murdered in Newtown,
just down the road,
I thought of him
like he was a good thing.
Brave enough stand and be a bad omen.
A crucifix with wings.
Innocent boys and girls are gone now.
Turned into a show we watch on TV.
But that is natural to life in this century,
so there's policy and argument
and my eyes turn back
to my own
endless circle
with an end.
Happiness makes a subtle appearance as just a humble breath,
a deli sandwich, as sun that peaks around the old windows.
And sees me,
invites a squint,
rises,
sets,
and then comes back.
Fights
They throw words like little hand grenades
because in our house, we cannot use fists
(I feel that those would hurt less)
and he,
small boy full of rage and sound and not much else
with fists balled to tight
each wanting to strike out, to break his sister's stupid face
Searching through the catacombs of his mind he thought only of falling through a war chest
searching for some sharpened bone or anything to use
he was a skilled warrior of the shadows
with one jab he could thrust thorns through her guarded heart
the precision of a sibling sniper on his side
he had wounded her before
he almost always won
but his wretched
sister
refused to lose this time
refused to be out manipulated
She too had been training
sharpening a silver tongue
that usually served as a shield to her brother's barbs and wicked advances
but today it was a dagger
and assassin for the old king
"You never loved me," he lunged with a flourish
She parried with a cuss word and a sigh
he danced aside, and jabbed at her flank
"I'm going to jump off the cliff" he declared
she scowled
this move usually did her in, but with one glare, she kicked the sword from his hand, and rounded upon him
no fencing foil was on her, no seemly battle ax
but a dagger
and she drew in close
the killing blow
"You are only my half brother" she whispered
and he
was vanquished
The battle done, the two sunk to their knees
and sobbed
Fights
They throw words like little hand grenades
because in our house, we cannot use fists
(I feel that those would hurt less)
Uncle Bruce writes sermons and gives grace at the Christmas table
his family bowed their heads
and listened to what they thought of as
"quaint"
"old time-y"
Most of them there were atheists
or maybe Catholics
(it depended on the side of the table)
and even Uncle Bruce was not sure what he believed in, not yet, not yet
after 53 years, he wasn't sure
(he had always been a smart man)
even after debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin
and preaching for years behind the pulpit
What Uncle Bruce does know, he does
He gives us all faith
