Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
The world is full of shade and prose
And I don’t know what to do anymore
Audre Lorde said “silence will not protect you”
But I been weaving my silences into a survivor’s quilt
Because I’m tired of surviving
And I’m cold and want to use it as my blanket
Out there in that cold *** world

The world is full of shade and prose
*** workers on boulder highway
Wanna be poets writing in spanglish
White privilege, patriarchy and all
I kinda wish I’d write songs instead of poems
You know, songs about love
But no
Cuz the world is full of shade and prose
Bus stops/stop and frisk
Judgment day enthusiasts/Holocaust deniers
I am tired of “it happened before I was born”
And “I feel guilty but I did not ask to be privileged”
And when I say: Then do something
They ask me “what?”
I reply: NO
The world is full of shade and prose

The chicken never made it across the street
There is so much deconstruction
And so little relief
We will soon end up homeless
And will have to pawn the master’s tools
Or maybe just sell them at the swapmeet
For a dollar or two

I mean who cares as long as we’re in love
If at the end
The world is full of shade and prose.
Wanted Ad Poem
1/31/2014

I've decided enough is enough.
I'm putting out an advertisement on every dating website,
It will read at the top:
Wanted

Man or Woman,
scratch that binary.
Regardless of gender or sexuality,
Seeking a person who can communicate.
Someone who chooses words wisely
and even better knows how to use them,
not to wound you, but to woo you.

Physical features need not apply
all stripes, squares, and bulges of variety are acceptable,
as long as they limit their smoking to while drinking,
I can't stand a cigarette smell on furniture in the house.
That was a simple request.

Maybe I should ask for something in greater detail.
Must appreciate new experiences,
whether of the culinary variety
or involving outdoorsy adventures.
Don't worry about being good at it,
I only know how to pitch one kind of tent after all.
Although I admit I am savvy with a spatula in the kitchen.

TV isn't a big deal, neither are books or music.
Those things tend to blend when you meet someone anyways.
But the really important one is to enjoy cuddling.
When I say cuddling I mean the Olympic sport!

Apply the golden standard,
have at least 2 of the 5:
car, apartment, job, schooling, beautiful smile.
A laugh that makes me smile is worth bonus points.
... whatever you're supposed to do with those - I have no clue.

Voila - It seems like I need to meet myself
and fall in love with what I see.
Because lately when I look in the mirror,
there's a stranger staring back at me.
Someone who I don't know or ask how he's doing.
Lately I don't even take the time to say hello.

I think this guy has a lot of potential,
but I'm scared to really let him into my life,
you see I heard he is insecure at times
and might not like me back in that kinda way.

I need to figure out a way to make him
fall deeply, madly, in love with me.

I should pamper him,
take him out to dinner just the two of us.
We don't need others' company after all.

I should take a walk with him outside
for no real reason at all..
We could even go somewhere in public,
maybe to a club or store at the mall,

I should just show him these things so he can understand
that he doesn't need others' company at all.
He is fine with just me in his life,
the best part is he'd have nobody else to please.
Nobody else to cast on him their needs.
Nobody else to keep him from being free.

It seems like all this stranger needs
is everything in my wanted ad.
It seems like all I need is me,
if I could just learn to appreciate my own company.
Ever since I could remember
I have been so intrigued and intensly curious about space, the planets,
galaxies, the moon especially, black holes, and time travel
I would be in the happiest place on Earth at the Rose Space Center in New York City
The cosmos
They're mysteriously beautiful, captivating, divine
I vividly remember being 7 and 8 years old, looking up at the stars
with my dad or even alone and thinking
"What's out there? What is space?" I would crave to know.
I would pace back and forth thinking, just thinking for hours and hours a night what it all could be.
I now see that that was just my way of experiencing curiosity for something much bigger than humans (which I understand now is the Universe)
Realizing that there is something out there no one on earth could ever explain.
An energy, "god", a being, whatever you wish to call it.
That was my 7 year old mind conceiving those thoughts for the very first time and understanding what I was actually thinking.
The conversations my dad and I would have in our backyard about space
have become my most precious and cherished moments I have with him
I get lost in thought when space arises
It is a topic that I feel very close to, connected, one with
It brings an almost nostalgic emotion to me
A deep seeded love
I currently experience this same emotion with a few other cerebral passions,
but the thought of space was my very first
The second passion is something that is very special to me due
to the long hours and days and years I've spent learning as much as I possibly could
Psychology
About 5 or 6 years ago, I realized that I was increasingly curious and infatuated
with human behavior, body language, emotion
The natural drive in me that insists to look into other's minds has
never faded, only increased
There was a critical point in my metamorposis/enlightenment where I just stopped
I stopped everything that made my existence anything but an existence
I stopped talking
I began listening
I stopped looking away
I began watching
I stopped moving
I began sitting still
I had become a true listener, observer, meditator
Watching body language and two people having a conversation is
mesmerizing to me
How they move to express a notion
How odd we truly look
I apply the things I've learned in my everyday life
I notice patterns and quirks about everyone that they most likely don't even notice
It comes very naturally to me to be able to know just a little about
a person and figure out the rest entirely on my own
And when I later find out I was right, it just makes me
feel even closer to that person
(For a very, very long time, I would conceal my thought processes and the things
I was truly passionate about because I always knew I thought very differently
than my peers
I began to believe, maybe I was just "weird"
But during the early stages of my metamorphosis/enlightenment, I realized that I am not.
I am special. I am something not everyone can be
I am something that possesses a soul so warm and spacious that it took me
17 years to grasp and connect to
My soul is as light and wispy as the finest, graceful feather getting
blown by the gentle wind on the bay
No one else can feel the way I feel
The way my soul feels when I am experiencing love, or friendship)
Now
The third, most exponential passion
Astrology
The absolute most mind-wrenchingly perfect combination of the cosmos and Psychology
It welcomes me to solve my instinctive, cerebral yearning drive to probe into someone
else's mind, soul, body and see them for exactly who they are
in their natural soul state
Astrology explains everything, absolutely everything
I ever was, am, and will be. It is so incredibly dead accurate about me that
shying away from this study would be the biggest lie to myself
I became genuinely interested and educated in Astrology during an odd time
during my metamorphosis/enlightenment, but has definitely
molded my energies into who I am today, right now at this very moment (cliché, yes I know)
and guided me toward true, deep, self love and a mind of endless possibility
The feeling I experience when I am speaking to anyone about Astrology and they
ask me all these questions about it,
being able to give them in-depth answers is the greatest
feeling in the world
I lose complete track of time and could talk over night not realizing
how long I have been talking for

It's the passions like these that make life beautiful
The passions like these make one wonder, act, and seize
the things they were destined to be here for.
I am blessed by the Universe Herself
Her love for me is so pure and prominent that I have fallen in love
with Her
Maybe this will all come together in some sort of way
that would make me think
"So this is why..."
I wonder
I love
I see
 Jan 2014 Joe Yardis
Abbigail
How I adore your nerve
when you kissed me in your closet upon sheets made of legos
and all of your childhood dreams.
How easy I am for you to draw when you play on stage the song that you wrote me,
The one that feels like rock climbing by the river,
Like naps in the summer when I drool on your chest and you don't mind,
Like kissing you until the very last minute of my curfew,
only to break it for the miracle that is your lips.
How alluring is your breath on my neck,
Your voice in my ear when you told me that you loved me
and you didn't stop smiling,
even as the years went by and I did.
How I craved, longed, begged for time to be still
the time you took me to the highest hill you could drive to,
You called it my mountain.
"At first, you look at it and it's so small,
but once you notice it, it's all you can see," you said.
How my stomach floods with waves of nostalgia and a taste
of everything I've ever had to live without,
With complete and utter spell-binded devotion at the simple familiarity
of your smell.
How addicted I am to your laugh when you're happy and
the mastered impression you do of your mom.
How weak I am to your intellect and your appreciation of literature
and real music,
Your enthusiasm for art and the "name that note" game you force upon me
as you stumble onto the classical radio station.
How in love I am with your romance that is as childish as my attachment
to my baby blankie and my mother's childhood walrus that you never ceased to insult.
Our pajama day that we decided over our prom,
When we turned on John Mayer and slow danced in your room.
Your idea of a date consisted of fake wine and me.
How incredibly warm are the coldest of nights,
On the side of your dirt road as we lie in the snow that is too cold for comfort,
yet holds us there with the fear that one day will not look the same as this one
and I would bear any amount of cold winter to keep one more moment of yours.
How I cherish the way you latch my pinky with yours when we walk
And the face you don't know you make when you play guitar.
The rooftop where you kissed me for the very first time and the string rings
we wore to remind each other we were still there.
How incredibly and unfortunately devout I am to all that I remember of you.
 Aug 2013 Joe Yardis
Jair Erazo
An Angel in disguise is what she was
So beautiful, so kind, so lovely, but never mine
Her eyes were crystal spheres that hypnotized
Love was all I had for you, no lust, no lies
Everyday I think of all we could have had,
Y**et I know It was all my fault, for not opening my mouth
Arched across the balustrade,
Silently keening
A poignant, broken elegy
Unceasing refrains and requiems;

Touch of death unveiled
Ever so gentle,
Wicked in its false lies
And beguiling sweet façade.

Crimson, staining
Seeping through the depths,
Oh how savage,
Cruelly taunting, vicious.

And yet all that we saw,
Was a halo shining bright
A bringer of of life and death
In calming repose, an angel.
Mad
Such a mad whispering wind
The breath of two lovers on the street.
The city groans and growls
From the depths of its bowels.
A beast---of infinite appetite.
It swallows up and consumes the light
Shrouds the girls in velvet night
Lures with nibbles until it bites
This city is mad.
 Aug 2013 Joe Yardis
Amanda
Distance,
It is the killer, or the saviour.
Used to get closer, or farther away.
To remember, or to forget.
Which ever you use it for,
It will always be the deciding factor.
 Aug 2013 Joe Yardis
Thomas Carew
He that loves a rosy cheek,
  Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
  Fuel to maintain his fires:
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
  Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
  Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.
Next page