Days are heavy, thick, and physical.
objects exist and separate,
matter builds then breaks apart,
and I am trapped, in this tight skin
to do the same.

Night is transparent, loose enough
to hold you black, and white,
and body-less, boundless
connected
with unwavering hands.

I ache to keep these moments here
but all things die,
we let go.

I wake to feel the weight
of sun on eyelids,
skin on muscle,
pulse on bone;
the grinding scrape of thought
against thought.

So I lay back down,
count the drops from the leaking faucet,
until the night again.

hurt: he's
a boy

waiting. A boy waiting and
he's
hurt
between

rib and lung(wilting). He's
a boy sometimes

and(sometimes))he's
a boy)

between rib and lung(



hurting,

         .

            '

         ;


               .



      ,




                      .




            '

In our bed she lay
Tangled, sprawled, and filled with grace
Talking in her sleep
“Wind chimes sang
for your waking breath”
She whispers,
“soft and warm like fresh picked innocence
It gets so quiet these days”
The bedside photos said nothing
But they listened and remembered
a time when the sunrise seemed weightless
Now, though, in a room left deserted
she struggles
under the growing gravity
Of Dawn.

Talk to Anna

(This poem was published may 2002, shadow voices)


Anna's conversation mixes respect and mockery so that
You can’t talk to her without also knowing
Her father, who loved to read and drink,
A man who broke free without running away.

There was a talking devil in her house.
Read Socrates and shudder when you know
The defeat of a thoughtful child's intellect.

There is delight in hard practice.
Much that you can do deliberately covers up
Having known a talking devil.
You can apologize when you are sarcastic.

She adored a twenty year old man.
He had mastered being young in grooming and talking.
The skills you once wanted are known to him.
I mean that he pretended to be exciting.

She is one of us; she wants friends and love.
She falters being with people.
She knew a talking devil.
She knew a pretending devil.


            Paul Anthony Hutchinson
paulanthonyhutchinson.com
pahutchinson@icloud.com

No airbrushing there
Lines radiate from the corner of her eyes
And mouth
Mapping
A lifetime of kissing
Weeping
Speaking
She wears her state of mind proudly
On a face
Framed by a stirling mane
Atop a body well lived
No slave to narcissism
She revels in the joys
Of self discovery
For she
Who knows herself
Content
Will never lack mystery