Heidi Williams


If I edit language, call me poet, a word-smith if I pro it.
But if I edit music, there's no such name, no tags of respect
just beats to collect, sometimes trash that collects.
I'm a trash collector, musical dumpster diver,
producers dump their trash
I turn their trash to treasure.
Treasure hunter, trash tuner.
There's beauty everywhere
to the eyes of see-ers, the the ears of hearers.
Seagulls see trash and turn obsessive, possessive.
And we feed the other birds, but shoo them away,
but once winter comes,
we hear seagull sounds, and we feel the beech.
We listen for summer in seagulls.
We listen for oceans in seashells,
but I can hear waves in my headphones,
and I can change the tide when the trash comes.

H.Williams

Red thoughts
slide passed filters
underneath avoid sink.
Sometimes sinking leaks through tough skin.
See red.

Maybe family roots are calling, so I'll sing back.
Maybe the "streets is watching" -- so I'll wink back.
A city, teeth-deep in tragedy that still talks back.
Detroit, I think we've got something in common, maybe I'll come back.

In the gut of the city, see spots gutted, yeah I know the feeling.
rough and tough, been through enough but there's still bigger-badders threatening.
They say they'll huff, and then they'll puff, and blow your house down again.
This just got hairy, not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.

In the aftermath of perfect disasters in a domino series,
all eyes glue on the ruins, scanning for signs of life & death amid debris,
it's prime-time on Tragedy Channel for train wreck week,
strollin' out of the dirt with a smirk...hey D ---look we're on TV.

Wearing hurt like a shirt, Detroit you're my remedy.
That heartbeat, that house drum, that low, growling energy.
Many think this city is dwindling, Detroit lights are dimming lately.
But listen for that low hum, under the pavement, feel the rumble under your Nikes.

An army survivors, are-me's telling stories in different ways.
Listen to my movement, see me be the music, throttle always open, Motor-City made.
Watch feet jittin' and go cross-eyed, 3000 RPMs in one take.
Music-macguyvers throwing backspins into air-flares, on the snow or in the rain.

Maybe family roots are calling, so I'll sing back.
Maybe the "streets is watching" -- so I'll wink back.
A city, teeth-deep in tragedy that still talks back.
In this city I see myself, we're both about to make a come-back.

H.Williams

Vitamins lost
in the hours of being still awake,
in the hours of feeling left behind.
These seconds are all memorized,
since I’d forgotten –purposely—how this feels.
But here I am, and there you are,
and what we don’t know
is in the space between
when there is space between.

HWilliams

Foot to sidewalk, cement to shoe
     step to song beats or give beats to silence.
            Step with feet tired from too much tread,
                   guess I'll walk on hands instead.
                         beat to song, gust to mast
                             sound of travel, its own song.
Foot to sidestep pitfalls or potholes,
     skip steps get applause for pratfalls.
            Step to pulse and make hearts skip beats.
                   Take bow, step outside, sidewalk to feet.
Door to frame
     button to lock
            ignition to key
                   motor noise, engine block.
Radio, radiator, radius, ulna
     cylinders under hood
            cylinders filled with soda
                   serpentine belt squeaks, fix it you should.
The car is no Chevelle,
     but Chevelle's in my speakers
            keep pace with traffic well
                   "learn to choose to breathe."
Stuck behind brake lights
     as soon as headway is made.
            Sigh as loud as music plays
                   click volume arrow upright.
Anger builds when traffic fills.
     Stomp throttle or else you'll throttle someone.
            Throw insults like a mime in summer,
                   lip service they might see in mirrors.
Can't point at points A or B
     trace stress to line that traces in between
            Between the 2 spaces where my car parks
                                      mile markers, tail-gaiters, nail biters.
Foot to sidewalk, cement to shoe
     step to song beats or give beats to silence.
            Step with feet tired from too much tread,
                   guess I'll walk on hands instead.
Foot to sidestep pitfalls or potholes,
     skip steps get applause for pratfalls.
            Step to pulse and make hearts skip beats.
                   Take bow, step outside, sidewalk to feet.

H.W.

Tornado
red as a tango
swivel
tip-toe
it can touch the piano
and still simulate the sound
cyclone of siren
the most serious of sounds
in a series of sounds.

H.Williams 2013

Who among us is this freakin' humongous?
You're human, I'm a hue-man, painting pictures for all you fungus.
You're a bug to squish then flick, like dust off the table you dis-gust us.
I'm about to blow everyone away, don't even try to duck from this gust.

They sweat from my riddles, thermometers turn red when we step in to see.
You're weak in the knees, lost in the woods for the better part of a week.
This is my forest, when trees fall everyone hears –or they read it and weep.
What's black, white and red all over? Newspapers with stories about me.

I'm news, your olds. I Redd-it before you read it, you're a day late and 2 dollars short.
In short, your stuff's a re-run. Shorten the ending or put in a cork.
We already seent it like a Tarantino beginning ending's over, sport
Sit out this inning, grin and watch me win then bomb your tree fort.

I roar around, burnin' your twigs, turn everything red, rage it all down.
Re-run your lap, re-score your sound. I returned your tape, so refund me now.
I did the work, you just sat around, and you deserve zip. So YOU pay me now.
You're human (just), stop having a cow. I'm humongous --the money better match now.

Now you're sayin' that my head's too big, too big for my britches after
I tell you I can't fit inside this box, so please stop putting up rafters.
I have nothing left, so the fear of losing has ceased to be a factor.
This isn't tooting my own horn; it's me spitting blood on my captors.

Some people's love is like a punishment.
You do something wrong almost every day, to deserve it.
You say something wrong, or leave something out...
they're put out by something everyday day.
It's
your presence.
It's your absence.
You're intelligence, or your stupidity.
For one reason or another, they're always screaming your name.

H.Williams

Shut eyes to open doors in the mind,
re-live recent moments behind closed lids,  
while they bounce off walls in the brain,
dribble thoughts through the distance when traveling.
Silence loud, like post-fight thoughts,
to echo in ears and ride with us.
Someone to miss, while they miss us,
to occupy thoughts inside airbus.
Weightless or weighed down, still aloft
like balloons from clown.
It's quiet now, though silence rebounds
I echo you, like seashell sounds.

Spine-backs of skinny hills and mountain tips
fill space for miles with no interruptions,
save for the squares of cities
and city squares, lights, and streets--
streets cornering yards, cement lines 90 degrees.
Geometric roof and pool shapes
grouped between phases of earth-states--
and interstate veins that thread and snake,
connect us all and keep awake.

Bite back sighs for the distance between A and B,
points B and A, and the pointless line between.
Balance between wingspan like a hollow-back.
Back-track, retract, align thoughts, connect dots.
Between cloud bottom and ground top,
on the path of raindrops to topography,
thoughts of you sink in topsoil, in grey matter
it all seems clear like black and white,
when it matters that you matter, and that matter
weighs on the brain, it's top-heavy...which explains
how some fall, head-over-heels for their someones,
while other just fall flat.

Weightless or weighed down, still aloft
like balloons from clown.
It's quiet now, though silence rebounds
and rings in ears like live band sounds,
that prompt your smile to stay in place,
so long as the hum still resonates.
Silence loud, like post-fight thoughts,
to echo in ears and ride with us.
Someone to miss, while they miss us,
to occupy thoughts inside the airbus.
Shut eyes will open doors in the mind,
re-live recent moments behind closed lids,  
while they bounce off walls in the brain,
dribble thoughts through the distance when traveling.

The loss of you is like a pulse,
I feel it beat somewhere everyday,
heavy on the chest, aching at the neck,
It ticks like time, but time doesn't take it away.

I drag the loss of you like a tail.
You are gone,
and the lack of you became an actual living thing,
attached, like a new part, and also the old, missing piece.
I'm detached, dangling, like a broken missing wing.
It said, "Report what's lost or stolen,"
so I wrote down 'love' followed by your name.

h.williams

In black letters and sometimes red, it says
there's time for everything,
time for love, hope, and grief...
but there's rarely time to breathe.

I love too easy, and laugh if it's funny,
but I'll hope till I'm blue in the face.
Grief and I are friends,
we each take turns crying
making holes in the walls with our fists.

Life and death, opposites attract
and reunite.
Everyone lives, everyone dies,
but we're only invited to their deaths.
Funerals find us, despite our crazed attempts to hide.
If you've been born, you already died
before you ever heard a white coat say why.

Death's my pal too, though we've not officially met.
He calls my moms now and then, leaving messages and empty threats.
He diagnosed her long before I even left the nest,
which maybe means he did the same to me
but I'm not buying that yet.

But still I get a little miffed when people
talk up their borrowed time.
It's fine for them,
but I know better than to blow hot air in mine.
I'll make it up to you,
like they say they'll make it up to me
but time's a cheater at every game,
and time cheats every time, I'm afraid.

But I'm not. Afraid, that is.

h.williams

Inside the rib cage
circles around the red, beating center
   rhyme with love, rake in blood, shove out anger,
inside the outline
of the writer who sits, sighing on paper,
  staccato finger tips drum rhythms with letters
inside the window
square, clear glass painted white by ice
  solid form of water, formally cold by nature,
inside the city
dragged to slow motion
  by snowflakes set in motion
inside the wind
that winds around building sides
  and slides across powdered roads,
inside the state,
state of panic, state of being,
  state of Michigan, state of mind.

HWilliams
12/12

We wait for the moments, but mostly, they wait for us...
to take notice. I notice. And I'm wayward in this sea search, drowning around seaweeds,
dizzy with the thought that these seeds,
over the course of these years,
soaked by my rain puddle of Alice tears
grew to an ocean, now home to schools of strengthened species
who will never ever ever have to cry,
to breathe through weakness or to bleed through pain,
instead--
We dance-- tread in slow motion sound
thread through the song
I am, we are, slave to the drown.
We weep with the waves of sound, they sweep us away, way down
then up,
a shift of weight while weightless,
we wait for the moments, but mostly, they wait for us...
to take notice
to become
to live through
to live through fully
to feel the weight of being carried
by the sound
on waves of sound
we seek to astound
all who see, all who hear
to make them see what we hear,
to make them feel
what we feel
who we are
what we can be.

I weave through this sea of weeds, is seas of sound,
and I think
I start to see me.

H.Williams

It's strange that we mark out our lives
by the decades we live through
by the mile markers we weave through
by the wins and fails we cling to.

On windy days my sails have slumped
then anchored me in storms.
Don't roof the rain, I'll stay
shake fist at sky and scream for more.

These moments that ****
will someday matter more than lists and numbers
generic facts assigned to goals that
mattered more to other people.

I'll pay, take, make more money and less,
same words apply to people.
But moments made, kept, felt in chest
mean so much more than all the labels.

H.Williams 3/13

I tried and failed, not failed to try.
Retract, step back, put face against the wall, dry eyes.
They hate, but love to list the wrong steps in a race ran right.
All my mistakes in red ink, don't get ready to be surprised
when I flip the switch, if you insist on playing games, then it's on.
You chose your weapon, then I'm picking the exact same one.
I'd really prefer a sword, but instead stuck with a pen.
So, I'll settle for writing "s"-words, though I'd rather slice someone's skin.
Now I draw the line, sign on the dotted, dot every little jot-and-tittle out
scribble till I blot you out, splat this ink out, spit this out
like a sickness, you make me wanna puke you out.
I'm ink poisonous, quarantine me or I'll take you out.
I won't use the word "ill" but still, it's in my last name, like will.I.ams.
Don't let me aim, or you'll be faceless and stutterin'
buttered me up, flipped it up, tried to fry me in the frying pan.
Famous last mistake, mistaken for your ending jam,
now watch me blow up, end this game and then take all your fans.

H.Williams 2012/2013

To beat the best one of them is to find the best one of me,
but I play against me in a game of hide-and-seek.
"Ask and it will be given. Seek, and you will find."
I've got the knocking part down pat, a well-played tune, perpetual rewind.
Knuckles to door, fist to wall, say hi to trouble, hello to the floor.
Progress K-O'd by a 1-inch punch, pull self together, push up from all-fours.
Am I running from, or chasing for? And what for?
Destination pending discovery, currently unknown, I
dodge disasters, spread out across the meantime,
lie in wait and wait for that moment...one more time.