I remember
it was fog and
then it was light and
I was already falling
outside of myself
thank you
for showing me
the way back
thank you
for wonder
with it
I write poetry
everyday

something twinkles
tingles quivers
in warm hands
in stuck feet
something moves
an eyebrow or a lip
the wavelength of hope
or void
we need the world
we need each other
badly

we invent sinking
swimming & drowning
in this density
we face adversity and fear
how we can
dancers dream
with their feet
mourners dream
with rivers
haters dream
in the silence of tombs

we go outside of ourselves
to find the world
inside
there is creativity
in healing

what if everyday
is a poem
in this fluid
called life

we are the stories between the armpit
and the hand
between the whisper and the sigh
forged by galaxies of wounds
in the fragility of light
of spaces crushed
by the acceleration of time
our irises boundless
sometimes

we are the stories that tell
our soles when to stop
our bones when to sing
that put sunflowers
in our haze
cranberries in our waitings
delight in our might
skyscrappers of thought in our deeds
promises in our hands full of mud
over caskets

we are the stories of love's failure
(aren't we asking too much from love?)
of decay of pretend of parasitic laughter
of the violence of bodies without minds
without singing in the hearts
stories of fists strife and toil,
the boredom of dawn
repetition of self-deception
circles not round
triangles full of hurt
of the rigidity of one plus one
equals two
the rest is wonder

so many stories exchanging nouns, verbs
attributes just to capture
what is forever escaping alluding flowing
naturally undisturbed in the exchange of
vowels
like dark matter that escapes iself
only in dreams

was it the awe of vowels that invented the world?

incessantly on the edge
of chaos of blindness of knowing
of loss of void of grief & joy
of floating to the unknown
or pausing into certainty
hard working minds and eager souls
errect citadels of meaning
in dialogue sometimes
or as oppressive as
the denial of slippery roads
of sad guitars or
maddening violins

our shadows sit closely next to us
precisely when
we're stepping into the light

I left my cigarettes today
the same way you leave the departed
I put them in their tombs of desire
their pain had infected me enough
like an invisible netwok of mold
decomposing dreams
my own

my secret garden  
already planted
my name chosen
my path clear
in their hidden mind
I had to love them all:
and I will, always
with quiet ardor,
adoration, gratitude

my secret garden a jungle
of emptiness
denied tenderness
never spoken words of love
terrors and longings,
unrequited pain

for so long I've been
my father's mother
in my hidden soul
what has survived
of me
was poetry

no language
complex
no methaphors
no more tears
for this raw truth
the only mother
for me
was poetry
when
there was beauty
in the sky
so crushing

Upon my fleeting words
I reveal my roads.

Step by step, word by word,
line by line, a poet travels
the world.

We breathe poetry,
we eat it too.

Until our clouds are full of stars
ready to rain upon the earth
poetic storms.

©️ 2022 By Amanda Shelton

Next time what I'd do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I'd stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
      or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I'd watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I'd know more -- the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
    like a light.

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.