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Bryan Dahl Jul 2014
Her name,
passing over your lips
like the cosmonaut's smile
at first sight of the Earth.

Since birth, she has been
swimming the stars, but still
never goes beyond dipping her toes
when the shoreline hisses withdraw.

As her earth gives
my sea his home, I wonder-

Would she let me
take her hand, gently,
walk her out a bit deeper.

Would she hold me, fiercely,
lift up from the wet sand,
her bare feet, trust the sea, trusting me.

While earth, sea, and stars all hold each other dearly,
however distant they may be,
Her deepest fears all devoured
by a pack of wild ladybugs.
Bryan Dahl Feb 2014
I’ve always felt it’s a copout
To say there just aren’t words-
The words are never too far away,
But don’t they take their sweet time
Coming home.
If words could talk they’d often say-
Don’t wait up.

I’d like to think I have many friends in words,
But then I remember every time **** went down,
And ****! they skipped town.
I wonder where they are now,
Since my friend,
(insert here your beautiful name)...

I knew him well enough to know
There just aren’t words right now.

He just-
Killed himself.
He did- just **** himself- didn’t he.
Quietly excused himself from this life,
Committed to his side of paradise.

Keep repeating any set of words-
Eventually they’ll mean nothing.

I can’t say, of all the brilliant minds I’ve met,
Any words to do justice to his.
Because my words, whenever they decide to come around,
Will only layer so much saccharine frosting
On the fun fact that he just knew
Everything there was to know about everything.

I can say, I had, a friend
Who was on Jeopardy,
Who always managed to make me realize
How little I knew about everything,
And make me smile the whole time.
What more could you ask for?

Goddamit, you ******* brilliant coward *******.
I’m writing a poem about the fallacy of words
Instead of talking with you.
Because I knew you drank,
I knew you raged and resigned so many nights.
But didn’t I have my head further up my ***
The more I knew you were suffering.

I could never remember a friend
Getting me thrown out of a club in Prague,
Wandering with me through snow-covered Krakow
Searching for Schindler’s factory-
None of it- with more endearment now.

But, right now, I don’t care to remember
Any such endearing moments.
Because you took off and all the good words followed.
So to you, my dear friend, with all my love and regrets-
Here’s a drink, rage, and resignation,
Should you want it that way.
Bryan Dahl Nov 2013
Tonight would not bridge
Two ordinary days.
Her idea would ignite
His imagination and mould
From the raw clay a vision
Through the churning heavens.
The ballet crafting their bodies
Scene through scene,
She whispers,
He listens,
They lay, as spoons often do.
A last glance over
The flowers and the candle,
Out the window through
The rain, wind, and thunder
Lighting their creation’s sight.

Chasing her through the forest,
She lets him, almost catch her.
Dancing themselves into vines
In a canopy hidden from the wind’s
Muffled thunder.
There, in their haven lush,
Ensnaring so deeply, too soon.
And away he turns himself to stone.
Twisting too tight around
The indifferent mountainous statue,
She snaps herself
And by the time he’s felt it,
Soft enough to turn and see-
See another statue’s backside,
Cold clay remolding into stone.
He stretches himself thin to reach,
Her sepulchral touch lays him out.
She sits, straddles, stares him down,
The lightning cracks behind her eyes,
Splitting her stone heart
Clean through flame,
Incinerating their quiet canopy,

Rising into the storm.
Chasing her through the fire,
She lets him, fan the flames.
Two dancers' violent rhythm
Raging with every touch, until
A tear, or two,
Undo the flames,
Dropping with the rain all in everything,
They fall, fall, fall
Flooding down the mountain
Rushing through the cracks
Left behind in the stone,
Flowing together a river
Through the trees, out to sea.
As two make one body their own,
The currents churning through.

A spiral sparks the children’s learning,
The whirlpool to the maelstrom
Surging their liquid body up
The column that would
This time reach the storm.
The lightning cracks behind their smiles-
Their love undoes gravity’s condensation.
Drifting,
Through the clouds,
Stars,
In each other’s arms,
The ballet crafting their bodies,

They lay, as spoons often do.
Bryan Dahl Sep 2013
You understand what suits you,
Choosing from tailors present or past,
Preferring not the uniform.
Whose robes to **** this trip?
Adding their layers to the shadow below.

Fashion a style, accordingly-
Another fearless, determined Oxford man
In a pink suit.

Style a fashion, apathetically-
A filthy, disheveled codger, trudging
From one unmanageable apartment to another,
Writing music in his mind, never hearing it,
Changing the world forever.

Or,
Owning only a pair of each-
Black shoes, tights, and tops,
And seventeen brightly colored scarves,
Wear your heart on your sleeve.
The most priceless accessory for spending
Retirement in Somalia with the children.

Being choosy in dress and shadows,
Remember seasons None too original,
Choose fear or love.
Suit yourself.
Bryan Dahl Aug 2013
Five senses technically
A common physicality.
Distant sight and sound
Wave never mind themselves for now,
Faintest scent and mildest taste
Remembered anyhow, until
A touch so intimate
Can make all time and space, stand, still.
So the intimate will.

Only after my teacher’s words had touched me,
Did I love, love to write.
At once the masterpieces shook me,
The piano taught my hands to play.
What tastes and fragrances seduced and nourished
Every nerve, but not
Before I learned to feel
Their intimacy deserved.

These senses know your beauty
Knows no common physicality,
I need to know that beauty now
With every sense's hands.
Here, your intricacies rival poetry or piano-

How the color of your lips will
Pair the taste of your skin,
The depth of your sighs
Should I caress your back and feet,
The tone of your laughter
Should I tickle you instead-
Vengeful and defiant, or
A sense of pure joy-
With all time and space holding still,
So the intimate will.
Bryan Dahl Feb 2013
Not the trip to Asia,
Not the new car,
Not the Pink Floyd anthology.
I was the last to know which gift
One day would mean the world to me.
Initially,
I hated it.
Refused and wasted it.
For eight years my gift remained
A most abhorrent ball and chain,
And I’d be ******- a silly boy-
To think a wiser way.
But alone this gift can know
The soft, hidden heart of its most
Ungrateful recipient.

These gifts we give our children,
To help them find their hearts,
Could save the world before our eyes
If we had enough to spread
Around from the start.
I pray more kids could spend
Eight years hating their most precious gift…
Hating the mother's deaf determination,
the teacher's patient smile.
Hating their refusal to stop giving.
Because now, when I sit down
At a piano
Playing with this heart I found,
People slow down,
Stop.
And listen.
And when I’m done sometimes
They say
That kid’s got a real gift.
Bryan Dahl Jan 2013
It feels ingenuine
presumptuous,
I can call myself a
writer, painter, pianist, singer
but when I create something
and want to share it with the world
I have to give it away.
It belongs to You now-
and it's your place to decide
whether or not
you are moved
compelled
offended
or not.

And if you are
oh criticus prudentibus
You've made it- art.
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