I stared with no expression
at the white light
and wondered about black and red.
I wondered what I would do if
things went all but soft and white.
I felt I would wither,
helpless,
weak,
useless.
But
I decided to keep myself happy,
I decided I would put white silk cushions
in my heart's cave
and would invite the rain and winds
to smother me
with cool love
and keep me soft.

                                                        -s­torm-

I am crying seriously
Like ocean is crying
I am tired for injustice
A family unfairness

I am intended to leave
Somewhere very far
To my nation
To get peacefulness
On this earthy carpet

So fresh and free
Joy is spread
Calm is instilled
Heat withdraws
With drops of life
All is cleansed

Like when my
red silk dress slips off
you melted my
sadness away
now I’m naked
before your eyes

Keel rooted tree
            tacking against
westerly bluster
           crows nest vigil

i want to be able to memorize your face under the complacent sky
so much so i could paint you on a baseball field with no picture

i want to touch your beautiful soul with my shaky hands and my misplaced words
so much so you could write me a whole chapter in your lengthy life story

i want to watch your ruddy lips move as you speak on the most lovely way to me
so much so i just want to kiss you and be able to borrow your words off the face of your lips and lick them off your tongue

i love you
i love you
i love you

I plant kisses over paper airplanes
Crinkled between perishable loop
Soaring high to the another side

A starless sky wrapped in an empty dream.
I remember the days where your smile was like a fine wine I loved.
Now it's left a bad taste in my mouth.
In my heart hangs a votive wreaths
Of old withered memories.
Your voice no longer shakes the
Ocean of my sleep.
You where a lesson this comic universe wanted to teach me.
Now all I want to do is forget I ever
Loved you.

Being a good person doesn't required being perfect.

If my fate is to love you
From a distance
Then I'll burn for you
Like a star in your night sky
Bright, steady, reliable
Unwavering
Until the end of time.

Heaven rained on me,
I breathed in the petrichor,
Bathed in the downpour.

Healing leaves are now disrobed branches
on the edge of this wilderness.
Many tall Douglas Fir stand sentinel
over 100 foot tall amazing grace — the fleeting leaves
expose the beauty of the moss clad scaffolds
adorned with a lime-grey lichen lace
Nature is my refuge — solid ground to stand
in this harmony and peacefulness.


Jesse Stillwater — December 2018

Things seem to be falling apart.
Our uncle dying from throat cancer
an old friend going home after a month in the hospital
no more touching or hugging
covering most of our faces in conversation.

All of this darkness
forces change upon me.
I have to work harder at getting you
I have to see you in your eyes
find you in your words and their meaning
since I can’t see your smile or frown.

But I always got just parts of you anyway
you poets in a few words on the page
you friends and kin in your stories.

So now I have to mine you
from smaller bits
see your smile in your eyes
really listen for the pearls in your words.

All of this doesn’t FEEL like a sacred moment
but it is.

I hope, after this painful letting go,
a new me is spit up on the shore
like Jonah after his bout with darkness
in the belly of the whale.

it enters
without

resistance
everything

is accepted
in this

moment
the sky

is bursting
with color

past disappears
into dust

I blow it
away

imagining
dandelions

I am a child
a happy child

playing in
a wild field

where

bees don’t
sting and

snakes don’t
bite

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

Break my bones;
cut my throat.
Pull me open,
learn the ropes.

Breath me in;
taste the fear.
Shank my skin;
stand and cheer.

Kick my head;
let me bleed.
Unbolt my veins;
enjoy the read.

Gouge my eyes;
punch my face.
Wrap me up
in your embrace.

“choose your hugs wisely...(the hug has to spark joy.)”


the pandemical advice columns arrive
unceasingly,
mostly repetitive, causing/repairing minor league
glitches,
but stumbled on the advice above, dumbstruck,
flummoxed
and yes, by god, even that poet’s favorite,
gobsmacked,

thinking wow, great advice,

for the entirety of our remaining days!

poetontheroof

Have you ever liked someone so much you regret meeting them?

You left, I turned out right.

Serving up poetry like ***** and ginger ale
(with a ***-soaked crook and a big fat laugh),
the anti slow-soul-erosion antidote to...normality

way up ‘high’ on a ledge, overlooking the mountain range,
got my Stetson on, canteen full of ***** and ginger ale,
matches in my pocket, Chris Stapleton in my ears, and
a *** soaked blunt between my lips to get even hi-higher

a big fat laugh crosses my lips, creases my face, it’s time
to lean up against that big tree, light myself up, strategize,
how to get even higher, how to get down, how to do both
simultaneously, at the same time, without dying too slowly

the sunrise cheats, clods of plain ugly clouds covered it up,
i know it’s on account of me accumulating, stuff, bad poems,
delayed gratification of not confronting the situational, at the
cellular level, though the intersection with macro-international
clusters of men destructing their corner of the world surely
ain’t helping, but the drip into veins cools the ardor paining

the woman is edgy, debating if it’s that time, to give up, to snap
that towel across her face like a forgotten hotel wake up call request,
should-she take the truck and go visit her sister in Ashtabula for a week of *******’ and staying longer, a couple of years more,
and me muse what i recall from living alone, and how it was easier
and so much harder that the shakes begin but that don’t stop,
but adjust the *****/ginger ale ratio, and things seem fuzzier
and for that I am eternally grateful for the miracle of potato
distillation

could do much more additive, but you don’t got the patience
like I do, so, forgive in advance and here’s hoping that maybe

someday you’ll learn this craft and the  extreme patience it
requires, how to savor a word, its conjunction with the one that
comes before and after, the combinations that make a verse, a stanza
sobering beautiful that it robs your breathtaking sensors, a scar minder to, for god sakes, ****! **** that trip to trite, give us something to shout about,

exhale on the moraine morass, that’s the other side of, yup, over
the rainbow that landed on the peak, cause a peek, is just the start of a trip downwards sloping doggy on my hands and knees and yeah, i’m drunker than I care to deny so I’ll head back down, or roll down, to find out what my next adventure will take, maybe I’ll chase after her,

and fall on her neck with sorries, sorrows, and kisses, besides,
now that I’m done, the sun decides to show a couple of cracks
and that’s some kind of of sign to wrap this sonata up and try a
new fugue, letting its contrapuntal composition tune cleanse me
and
save the day, and a corner of the world, hell it could even spread
like somethings good, counter terrorism and peace on earth.

just maybe.

a trembling child
a fragile heart
"handle with care"
he was labeled from the start
growing up
the tossed him around
rough words from dry mouths
the string was tightly wound
it was filled with cracks
band-aids and fissures
more fragile than a feather
lighter than a whisper
all he wished for
was for someone kind
to take it in their hands
and give it time
time to heal
so he could love
but to everyone else
he just wasn't enough

There’s a universe inside of you,
But I’m just a little star.
Once my light is out,
There'll be none of me.

I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)

Leave me lover,
Like autumn leaves
The trees that have
Burnt for its beauty,
Blind to their
Nakedness
When all the fires
Have burnt out.

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems too *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

It’s time that I wasn’t
your possession

a coin in your wallet

a doll for you to dress up
and manipulate

into any position you like

I am restless in your collection
of figurines

I crave independence

and a voice
of my own

Nothing is wrong
when I am young
and you are beautiful
I can't wait too long
to listen to your song
when nature is wonderful.

No, maybe it's wrong
when we're unknown
and not committed
I wouldn't sing for you
Now I need to know you
and we should be committed.

Okay then alright
Give it up tonight,
Nothing has happened yet.
Yeah, you were wrong
let it go and wait a long
for a true sky light.

And over time,
My pen stopped bleeding
But my heart didn't