Elizabeth Lauren: Poems

A Good Pen

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

I like Good Pens
With nice ink
And the right feel.

I like the pens
The ones so nice
They transform my writing
And make my regular words
Come to life on the page.

When I have
A Good Pen
I will write
Just to write,
Similar to how
I will talk
Just to talk
When my voice sounds
Just right.

When I read words
Written with a Good Pen
I stare at them a moment longer
Captivated.

But when I see
Words
And only
Words
Voiceless, Breathless,
I cringe and turn away,

In search of new words.

The words of beauty and thought
With elegance and meaning
As if the writer breathed
His life into their bodies.
His children are his words
And he cradles them within
Until they spill out
On spaces within lines
On pages of books unwritten.

When I see these words
They are not always written
With a Good Pen.
Sometimes they are sketched
In a crude sort of oil
Lacking the beauty
Of a Good Pen’s stroke.

But still I read them
And I trace them with my fingers
Stained with the makeshift ink
And the salt of the soul
Because these words are
Simply more than their ink
And their fathers aren’t defined
By the quality of their pens.

A Piece of Bread

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

A Piece of Bread

To sit in a suit
Trimmed and pressed
By the hands of those
You would never get to know
And to read your papers
That don’t really make sense
And evaluate oddities
That you probably should know.

To fix yourself a drink
And give yourself a smoke
When problems arise
That can’t be solved
By your secretarial mistress
Or her typing skills.

To eye your lower men
And see their grimaced faces
Struggling to serve your powers
To feed their families
While you fatten yours
With the fruits of their labor.

To notice the holes
The dents in your wealth
And to locate your peers
And congregate for discussion
Over whose head to roll
For your own mistakes
And over whose piece of bread
Will be taken away.

To find that man
A fine yet lacking man
With a mother at home
And a family to feed
With a bill to pay
And a debt to owe
That simple young man
With a heart of gold
But a brain of lead
That weights and drags
Your own wealth down.

And to say to that man
Whose life you’ve not known:
“You’ll go without your piece of bread
And your children will know
That you won’t bring home
The things that your wife married you for
And you’ll never be whole
And never rise up
But clear your desk
And we’ll send you your check
It’s nothing personal:
It’s just business.”

To watch as he leaves
With his lead head limp
As he asks himself why
He must starve and deprive
The only things he’s loved
From their piece of bread
For his own carelessness;
His own foolish head.

To gorge yourself
On this extra bread
And to never think twice
Of that poor young man
Or the meals he won’t see
And the children he can’t feed.

And to lay your head down
On your crisp linen sheets
And the end of the day
Of crushing and burning
While your lead-headed man
Weights himself down
From a rope you weaved
When you left him without
His piece of bread.

I Am

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

I Am

I am

Words
Infinite and bright
on a computer screen
Confusion
the Stars and
the Moon
Et pages meos
Libros illiterato
Plath, Woolf
but a little more sane
Wandering silently
Barefoot and
Enamored

Am I.

I Am a System

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

I Am a System

I am a System
A collective combination
Of parts
And machinery
Crafted and molded
For the purpose of
Survival.

I am a System
Comprised of tools
Pieces and parts
Intertwining and weaving
Like the webs of a spider.

With my hands I craft;
With my lips I speak.
Trying my best to make sense of my thoughts,
Formulating my mind
Just to be okay with the things
I feel.

And I pulse
Like the beating of
The black hole’s music
And wobbles of the universe.

I am,
I will be,
And in the end,
The fears will have been snuffed out
And only I shall remain
As the collective machine
I was born
To be.

I Was

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

I Was

I was

Young
free
Unrestricted
a Lily of
the Valley
Without a care
or a fear in the world
Once content
to let my life pass
no need to compete
Blissfully
Ignorant

Was I.

My Words Are More

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

My Words Are More

The world doesn’t make
Sense. It’s not supposed to make
Sense. Things change. Time moves. It’s
Just the way it is. I guess I like to tell myself that
I’m fine with that, but I know I’m not. People drift
Off into different directions. They vanish into a world;
A twisting world of anonymity, where faces and names
Blend together. What scares me about this is that I don’t
Want to fall into this pit. Even in a place where the most
Exuberant become dull and listless with the weariness of
Reality, I would never blend into the wallpaper. I would
Always stick out. I am not just some face. I am not just
A figure of clay who can be crushed into rebirth. I am
Stoic and solid. I am the rock of my soul; the passion of
My spirit. I despise red ink, and I live in a world of naivety
And wariness. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even awake. Lost
Inside a dream. Barefoot, enamored, and hungry for words of
Life. Often, I find myself amidst a place too far from my home.
I’m small and young, but I crave freedom. I don’t know
Where I am, I don’t know where I’ve been, but I know
Where I want to be….who I want to be. I want to leave
My mark somewhere. I want the world to know that
              I was here. And so, I spend my time devoting myself to
My words.  I will utilize my hands,               my tools,
what I can to make my words                   alive and
Fighting on the page.                              An artist
Is more than                                        just a title;
We are the
Things that
Make life an
Interesting and
Mixed up place.
Artists are the stuff
Of dreams and poems,
Of mysteries and curiosities.
I am an artist. I always will be. I find
That in order to be, I must write and make
My art. And so, because I must, I shall. I will never stop
Or cease to create the things I love. I am here, and through my
Poems and my art, I always will be. My words are more than just words.

Red Ink

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

Red Ink

Once I wrote
A poem
At school.
I was
Nervous
And afraid
Of judgment from peers
So placed it on the chair
Of my third grade teacher.
The next day
Atop my desk
Sat my poem,
Face down.
And through my shaky handwriting
Were bright ink lines
Of red.
A woman whom I trusted
To guide and teach me
Had slain the innocent beauty
Of the poetry I had made.
These innocent children
I brought to life and raised
Were slaughtered
Destroyed.
Left to bleed red
On the paper,
They cried out, asking,
“Why?”
And I
Still a child,
Stammered at the question.
Why did they have to die?
I still today cannot answer.

To this very day
I never write in red ink.
When I see the color
On a creation of mine
The innocent child in me
Weeps
And mourns the loss of her children;
Her innocence, her passion.
She sees the red ink
And still wonders why
Her children died
A ****** ink-red death.

So now,
Even still a child,
But a taller one
With more hardened features,
And many more words,
I refuse to see blood on the page.
I never write
In red ink.

Something I Wish I Could Tell You

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

Something I Wish I Could Tell You

So I set off again
Thinking I could find something this time
A tangible piece
Of a God I wish I knew.
Running barefoot along
With soles scraping pavements
Marking borders of cities I had never dreamed I’d go.

And I remember that time
When I pretended you were there
And I told you my dreams
As if the world were mine.
And I spun the stars with my words and scars
And I ordered the birds,
“Teach me to sing”
From behind such slender bars.

As I hopped, skipped and jumped afar
I thought to myself “this is where we are”
I dodged those dreams that I began to fear.
And as I held my breath and my arms in a shield
I swore to some God
I thought I saw you there.

We sat in the rain and watched newspaper wilt
And puddles flooded our shoes.
And as you said
“You are strong”
I spat back
“You are wrong”
And saw another dream float down that ocean road.

I ran home that day
And rubbed my toes
Callused and broken, but there.
Took a look in my walls
And heard you call,
“Somewhere you are there.”

And you told me to go
And to chase those cars
And follow those paved walkways.
You said, “Remember to walk, but never to run
Except when the fear
Tugs back at your sleeve.
And when those nights come back
And the rain pours on
Remember to think of those dreams;
The little pieces of me you always pleaded to see.
Keep them alive for me.”

I took the words I given that night
And threw them into my books.
I stained my heart with the poem
And beat the words in my drum
While I ran beyond:
Beyond those cities and cars
To moons and stars
Beyond all the dreams
And wishful things
I dreamt I’d touch
But never believed
And took them home

To you.

The Things They Never Searched For

Elizabeth Lauren Mar 2013

The Things They Never Searched For

Children often overlook
The things they never searched for,
When ignorance blissfully blinds them
Until the day they are lost,
When reality robs them
And they stumble upon
The treasures of Pandora’s Box;
The things they never searched for.

— The End —