I Am Not Yours
Sara Teasdale, 1884 - 1933


I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

No life has meaning

Search for meaning

Still no life

Seek life

Find the meaning

it seems came her

adrift on mellow breezes
faintly scent o' strawberries

red dawn golden lashes  in rhythms
upon a meadow painted by
Emerson words and Van Gogh splashes

so lightly afoot
so not to spoil any of nature

listening
relaying

being
her.

I would a day of hardness cry
I did a night of dark  to die
I could survive the holocaust
I would like to be a knight on horseback
I need the strength of Hercules
it seems
only to survive
in a mind of doubt and weakness
so I will dream again rebirth myself
a better man not of this earthly plan
make me anew with  strength of will enduring pain
find again the righteousness men deserve
seek again a ****** will a strength of naivette
look at the sunrise as a chance to change be what I knew
I could

there is so much night fallen under, in between, beside
the space is not enough to handle the burden of the living
the music refuse to surrender, grotesque
to givedeathsomethingtodo
each tiny thought fills the chamber of not-yet-thoughts
toomuchtobear
each idea splits into thousand others each minute
the mind is a rag, a broken doll watching this performance of power
l’elan vital
feelings ceaselessly running wild into each other,
crashing, colliding, stumbling blinded
calling their names
no redemption for light anywhere
crawling happens in all direction in the same time
until space it’s collapsing under its own weight
I slip through a dark visible hole attuned to the rhythm of hell
what an experience, the speed of blood refuses to freeze
terror is running to stand still
not enough connections
I practice some claws out of chaos
crammed with ******
the pain is unbearable all over
every inch is a battlefield
time has turned into the ghost of eternity
just a direction to flow, if only I could find
sing me a lullaby mama
so that I can make more space between my ears
lend me some grace
to ask death
to be gentle with me
only imagination breathes in
to steal some time alive
dreaming the touch of peacefulness
amid the stubbornness of heart

nospacenolight
this is how I became an expert
in pigeon’s flight
while insisting somehow
to keep my eyes inside
this is how I got some courage
to bear Yes & No in the dark
to keep writing when I die in myself
for love to find

Secret armies
Secret prisons
Secret wars
Secret orders
Secret evidence
Secret motives
Secret plans
Secret killings

Tell the truth

Bombs over Baghdad
Bombs over families
Bombs over kids
Bombs over places you don't know

Tell the truth

Terrorize a nation
Terrorize a hemisphere
Terrorize the "other"
Terrorize the culture

Tell the truth

Weddings turned into massacres
New-born celebrations a war target
Citizens chosen for assassination
"The world is a battlefield"

I often found you more addictive when i was poisioned from loneliness..

First,
You teach me to think
With my own brains
Feel out my way
With my own feet
Treat me the same
As the boys


Second,
You put me in a school
Where they teach me to read
- oh, what a world!
They teach me to look
At international
Literature
- Marge Piercy,
Maya Angelou
And the like

Next,
You show me the crimson
Powder meant for foreheads
A deeper red for blood
Spilt on beds.
A life of compromise
And adjustment


Ripping out my ideas
And opinions
Telling me they're worthless
A baby, a house,
A life of adjustment
Is all this was meant for.


Tearing my beliefs
In an equal world
An equal society
Where society rises
To meet human morality


Is this what you taught me to read for?
Sorry sirs, ladies.
I tip my hat and bow.
Sorry to disappoint.
I was meant for an equal position
And I'll take it
- by force or mutual
compromise.

Without so much as a thought
In what you have to say
What comes out of your Church Mouth
Seems to sound okay

Your loosely quoting of scripture
Not quite sure where it is at
But it's somewhere in the Bible
And of that you know as fact

As you smile with your Church Mouth
Is this really who you are
Cause what you squeeze between your teeth
Isn't always in your heart

It all but sounds so righteous
Gives impressions of a saint
But if you dig much deeper
That's something that you ain't

If all you knew you set to spew
Too soon you would be found
You can not always hide behind
What comes out of your Church Mouth

oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other