The thunder rumbles in sore throats

and rivers of yellow speak of high hopes

for the people who plant flowers and complain to pollen

the earth will give you too many chances to worry about sunflowers

because drizzles help

until there you are,

achey muscles and grey face ******* on Ricola

crossing a street to go to work

and how does it happen to be that the first day of rain in a month comes on the day you lose your sunshine

Well today the sun came in a bottle of Tropicana

and tomorrow I will count the losses of those who just can’t take one rainy day

I remember when we would both rest our star-crossed tresses on that mattress
When you were asleep I could never stay under long. There was something about rain on the windows and how I looked up to see water on the windowpanes, but mostly saw little plants and knick knacks you had collected, all lined up on your windowsill.
Mornings like those, you'd wake up and smoke sitting there in your underwear. And you never wore a bra. It's like they didn't exist when we were out there.
It was calming just to know that the house was filled with magic, with tea, with art and nature.
That Isabelle was always there, speaking rapid french outside your door.


I remember laying there in the middle of the night just looking at you fast asleep and thinking "I must be the luckiest girl in the world to be laying next to this gorgeous person right now. You are so remarkable." There's a lot about your mom's house that will always tug at my heartstrings, but it never would have meant anything if it weren't where I could find you.

I am the lady grey
torn from a tattered box
and hung up on your wall
I am the bracelet engraved with the exact place of your youth
and I carry it with me
I am the letter you wrote me in the hospital
I’ll only look at it when I need you
These are not things to take lightly
I am not a thing to take lightly

When the screaming finally stops,
and you are left with yourself,
you must find a way to come to peace with that.
Be afraid to be alone,
but do it anyway
This is your way of loving

If a picture's worth
a thousand words,
than the poet's opus
is to give infinite images
in just two handfuls.

Distillation of words

so
just a drop
of one
will get you
drunk.

Should a poem be measured by letter
or rather, shall we read it aloud?

rotten
I am lost in thought
a better version of myself
fallen in the cotton
bought in to the game
the books in the flame
now only the memory remains.

I see you shifting in your seat,
getting comfortable?
I see you sounding out my name,
getting uneasy?
I'll sit across from you some day
and stop apologize for breaking.

I know there's more than enough material
and the sewing kit's been drawn out, so I'll
stop all of this repeating and return to ink,
no more cheating.

It's wrong when it's right, it's like numbers
held too tight, squeezing fractions of my might
when I love too much, I bite.

vegetarian by day,
carnivorous by night.

all the apples see me bleeding
with the ink between my teeth,
ask me which one I want to drop
and before answering, shake the tree
my strength is unknown and the branches they break
like a knot in a spine, or getting cut up
                                                                ­  and left behind.
I said I tried
and I tried,
not to cry
or to fake it.
I got lost in the crowd
got too loud,
then lost sound,
lost and found, not all was lost,
but the cost still hurt and struck
me down, like lightning in the eye,
he hadn't seen me die,
turn around
I'm still alive.

dusting stars across
a galaxy
that never wanted
you in the first place.





**(c) 2014 jude rigor