Chisel the stones down
Breathe deep and let it all out
An air of lightness

Don't care to go down
Into the well and water
Splash'd hair covers eyes

The fall breeze leaves here
When the clock ceases ticking
Feeling nothing now

Come here again dear
Bless green the haze in the air
Spark again in me

Steampunk grind me down kind of heart
Pulsing static cling through bones that ache and groan
Coming alive again, the feeling of awake
I pull cobweb crochet hand-me-downs from eyes that even still find the light too cumbersome
Squint, pull the rusted hood back over and sleep once more
The struggle is real
Mind like a coal factory belching dust and debris
Keep shoveling, shoveling until it rages into an inferno
Only then will it not stay quiet
No found fuel has yet to ease this hunger for something...more
Lost amongst wave after wave of heat, knocking me down
Slipped grip fingers and toes gone haywire
Workers on strike

they seem to think I can heal you



they seem to think I can heal you,
but the truth is I can only be there
and when there are cracks in the ceiling
and the mountains are frozen or gently
rolling over mustard seeds, I will hold
fast to the one Mainstay and encourage
you to do so too--because I can't walk
with your legs or talk with your words
nor can I delve inside your dark waters
and know how to navigate your thoughts
that so often I won't understand--

and I won't change you because we will
be a team, a single cog rotating in a royal
body, bearing the heat and blows so that
when you are away and toiling, or burning
the sheets with newfound anger, I will
stand by and let your battles rage until
we meet on middle ground and grasp
each other's forearms in the dust, heaving.

with you, this will not be a game.  You will not
be a piece, a checker, a player. I will not move
you or take mallets to your foundation because
it will be mine too--I will not hate you because
that would be hating myself and I will not hate
myself because that would be hating you--

I will not question your love for me like I have
questioned the masses, because this love will
not be antiquated but fresh and ripe each
morning, anew with our combined inquiries
and issues of heart, barrels of quinoa to sink
our fingers into and count ceremoniously
each grain a celebration, a victory poured
over quiet nights shared between whispers
and hushed prayers

and though your initial compliments and flattery
fade away, when our first meeting has worn off--
no lit suppers but bowls of hot oatmeal on the
couch, when our voices have failed to address
the day and time has only built between our hips,
I will quietly say that                                                 I have missed you
because though we are one there will still be
wedges---doorstops, rocks and boulders and
great things that drop and slide between us
that find their way into fissures in our flawed
surface  


but

I will love you through that.

I will love you through each fight and missed
opportunity to apologize, every door closed a
little too hard, each cold dinner or syllable too
harshly spoken, when I send you
to the supermarket and you arrive with only
half of the groceries, when the world is splitting
in two and we are fleeing from city to city and I
can hardly recognize you through the grit and grime

I will love you.

i.

I shalt continueth to giveth mine
Aeipathy to mine sweetheart Jane;
Kissing her Lip's, juice running succulent
Again, again, and repeating over again.

ii.

Aerial on vapor circle's, tip-toeing,
Unworldly, ourn halo's coruscate;
Aloft sketches of cumulus imitate
Me and mine Reyna's rainbow shade.


iii.

Her Chatoyant face
And her glace shape;
Envelop's me inside
Her preternatural grace.


©Brandon Nagley
©Earl Jane Nagley/Filipino rose dedication
©Lonesome poet's poetry

He looks at her like no one in this world but her
He admires her every move
He wants to know all about her
He's in love with her

But there came his first love and everything ruined

He lost her.

I spent a good portion of the day
Writing poetry I'll never publish
Competing against people I'll never see.

The faux-socially aware
Stand on the shoulders of the confused,
My enemies have solidified over the years.

I'm a rolling stone
Never giving my contemporaries
The privilege of emotion.
Cold and uncalculating.

The only girl I tell myself I truly love
Has thrown away my notebook
In a fit of rage. I had written
Of another girl not unfamiliar.

To the Person Who Can’t Hear This,

In my room, half-clothed, wondering where the **** to go. I look out the window to see a promising sunset, supposed to remind me that I made through another day. Another day that you’re not here. Everyone tells me that I’ve gone on to a better place as if I’ve passed on to another plane of existence, no longer in the same world as you. Was leaving you supposed to set me free or did it just bury me? The bulletproof glass of being too late is where I broke my bones trying not to be the unloved undead. It will….not…shatter…But I do. The crimson, metallic liquid pouring out of my wounds taking form as all the words that you ever said. While the enveloping venom is all that you didn’t. No matter how much I scream you see nothing as this glass is a two-way mirror. All you see when you look my way is how ******* good you that you look today. You know what they say: out of sight, out of mind. But no one ever told me about being out of your world and being driven out of my mind.

Everyone thinks they know the story about Mr. Dumpty but they only know part of it
Humpty sat on wall Badu had it right when she said it is 10 ft tall
This wall was meant to keep the savages out
You see Humpty was standing on guard because his job was to protect her heart at all cost
With her help is how he got up there at all
In the back of his mind he knew there was a chance he might …splat
Pieces of a man everywhere
At least that all the others can see
His boys tried to get him back to the old **** and quickly dump this girl
But to Humpty she was the world and without her there was no planet to live on
Only meaningless lives floating in a vacuum
No one has ever witnessed Humpty in such a state
It was so bad he wouldn’t go anywhere apart from her estate
He fell in walls  now he’s trapped in her love

I'm too quiet I know,
    to you I'm a closed door.
        you're looking to see me open
you're looking for something you're supposed to listen for.

There were no nights
Greater than when
We kissed.
And things are different
You are miles away
While I wait in darkness