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Kevin Gish Nov 2012
Give me leave to lay my brow, ever burdened with strain and stress,
Upon your pale, pinkish breast.
You, tenderly streaked with wisps of scarlet nimbus,
Are to my heart as a blank page is to my mind; a quiet refuge, never thinking to rebuke,
To whom I do release the torment of my falsely pained soul.
Your gentle features tempt my wandering eye,
Straightening the drifting passage of my heavy feet.
As an itinerant with sudden purpose, my steps become lighter; I urge on my weary limbs.
With such alacrity I pursue your heavenly beauty: eternally sought, for it is eternally distant.
Cut off in my ethereal chase by the limiting margent of a spiteful pond,
I espy that which you, enticing, have kindly led me to.
A pale, lovely form, alone in the company of Nature’s subjects,
With whom I believe I shall spend the final hours of the expiring day,
Noticing my gaze, stands to greet me as you withdraw under night’s comforting sheet.
Kevin Gish Jun 2012
What is it that makes pain so real?
Is it the soft tap, tapping on the edge of your skull,
Footsteps, or the ringing of bells?
Stings, Bites, Aches, and Burns,
I would not trade You for the World.
For with each laboring step I take,
I feel in every way healed.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
A wind chime carefully spreads its stillness over you.

Half-awake, not knowing what sleep is, your mind collapses into the
Mythical canopy of Dream.

You find you are chasing yourself, prodded by hazy remembrance towards Neatly-apportioned morsels of time past.
Kevin Gish Jun 2012
There’s  a man I know of,
On the corner of Swinton.
He walks as no man walks,
In a circular path.
On and on and on and on and
He is gone.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
A thunderstorm now blossoms, stealing the sheen from a lambent sky.
Selfish clouds harvest light, storing it away for security,
An aetherial currency long-forgotten.

But she remembers, hiding amid grey flannel bedsheets.
She remembers all: the birth of the ground as it fell from the trees,
The death of the moss that hoped for more.
She remembers the haunting shriek of the pterodactyl, circling into Oblivion.

In her room on the moon, with doors of ancient bone and holy song,
Locked away from the great hereafter, she hears the whisper of a promise meant for a whole world and falls asleep.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
Fear is youth, youth is perpetual.
Perpetuity is the pleasant melancholy awash on the scarlet portrait hanging in every motel room.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
Alone wasn't a word until the door was closed; each sound in this place
Spells your doom.
The soul has places to go, you know.
It's feverish to fill, to take the essence of "I" and scatter it every which way.

Once you fall, and you will fall:

O, then see how the soul works!
Your charm is a sea-gooseberry, your love seeps into the fog,
Your smile is now the Sun.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
I killed an insect once,
Crushed it with a rock.

I had to; its fate was already decided:

This insect had too few legs; they bent away
From its body as it struggled proudly towards
Nothing and indeed found nothing.

Pity took shape and brought an end to its odyssey:
Yielding to the rock, it accepted that it had just come across its noblest hope for a way out.

Fear took hold of me;  my own rock was sure to come
Soon enough.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
I met a man with a Y for a hand.
Addressed him timidly, "which war?"
An earnest reply: "the second."

He then went on.

His words were water, gently flooding my mind.

'O pliant paper sea, kindly permit those words to flow from me and into Thee!' For I fear I may drown, held under too long by the rapids I have become.
This is my stranger, the moments he shared:

'Father gone, too young to forgive.

The neighbor boy's '41 Buick leaves dust on his new bicycle.

Upon a cinder track, Father's fleeing footsteps spur him on,
For his is a sadness only speed can overcome.

I know not by what good grace he 'scaped savage Okinawa, with her Endless line of bayonets, but I do know this:

That cinder track, in devotion absolute, forgot its form, stretching from an Imperfect oval to a path at once straight and serpentine, leading you from foxhole to foxhole, past ambush and anguish.

No victory lap here; just heavy iron tread snapping shoots of bamboo spread for a finish line.

Silence and silence alone greets him as he collapses post-race, leaving three fingers to Okinawa and departing post-haste.'

I had all but succumbed to his tale, each new sentence a towering breaker Pummeling me into the darkness of my aquatic consciousness.
I reached out, finding a precious grasp extracting me from jealous eddies and Lonely currents.

Though our handshake held seven where ten should rightly go, it was yet more complete than any I have known.
Kevin Gish Jun 2012
shock.
the night air gives me a slap in the face as i meet it.
walking, running, making my way past bodies in the street.
i've come to an establishment.
this place gives me chills; i dont believe in the posters, the blaring collection of atoms showing me what could be called un partido de football.

one, two, three shots.
cold beer and a cigarette.
im on my way, weaving, bobbing.
its a boxing match with the oncoming vehicles.

im hit; the alcohol has entered my veins.
it overwhelms my senses... why shouldn't i love it all?
night sky, tell me i'm fine.
unlock your secrets; i've earned it.
haven't i?

giving you a glance... scared to move.
i'lll fall for anyone wearing floral and tights.

im gripping this bench, losing blood.
cause i cant trust gravity; what is there to trust?
this city will **** me.
each lit second takes a moment from my life.
im digusted... one more drag and never again.
it falls to the ground, burning in anger.

what a hypocrite!
my conscience screams as i reach for the lighter.

safe?
don't tease me.
the music i bring along prods me; i must go on.
i jump at every noise...
could it be my end?
such violence in the tread of your feet,
i dont trust a single move.

where's the street?
please, please, speak my language.
no. why ask?
i'll give you a bit of death... you shouldn't ask.

finally home to my love, if only you knew.

sweet, sweet, night air.
Kevin Gish Jun 2012
Jewels of the sky, you are
Blanketed by great silent clouds.
You abound in the vast open Space,
Twinkling, so inviting to my trembling
Soul.
I want to float endlessly with you
My brothers and celestial sisters.
I want to know how to reach your
Warmth, your kind light.
But here I remain, as much a part
Of you as I am a part of the Earth,
With her soft, loving looks.
What has Man done to deserve
Such a comfortable prison?
For just as I yearn to join the
Company of Stars,
I know I belong in the loamy
Expanses of my dearest Gaia.
Bless these eyes, they give me
Your light, reflected
Kevin Gish Jun 2012
noblesse oblige, he tears his heart out for the green-eyed princess.

i am a caged lion on this balcony,
staring at the dark sky which gives me nothing but quiet yearning.
Kevin Gish Jun 2012
Night’s cloak envelops me.
I am lowered, thought by thought, hanging
Over the dreadful, terrifying abyss.
There reside the nightmares,
Crouching in the filth and mire.
There is the unyielding horror of
Grotesque, inhuman shapes.
Morphing faces, skin like liquid, shifting,
Growing, all attacking, no escape.
Please help please help please.
I repeat my voiceless supplication.
Voices fill the air, in whom can I put my faith?
No one has truth. How did this happen?
How… how did this happen?
I’m transfixed in an endless moment,
Trapped in the simple,
Terrifying despair of life,
The infinite loop of Time.
The secret is out.
I  float above all that is,
Completing the circuit of emptiness.
Weak with knowledge, I am told to let go.
I must: where I am, pain has made its home.
But soft. There is a way, I will be whole, I cannot rest,
I feel the light, it shines over all that I have seen,
Turning monsters to shadows.
Day has come.
Kevin Gish Jun 2014
yellow memory is absentminded ecstasy
Kevin Gish Oct 2015
the old man edges along, his palms crushing the backs of chairs searching for something like home.

i despise him in this moment: i loathe his paunch protruding shamelessly into private spaces, his shoes- lumps of plastic fastened carelessly with velcro.

i sniff arrogantly at this fountain of filth, catching an unmistakable stench: it is death, draped over those shoulders- a ghastly garment leering at all around him.

but

— The End —