Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Lee Turpin Jan 2011
In spring I was born and I stood and watched
an arid landscape, indeed,
pale dust meeting suddenly
a single drop of water
a gray sky, as wide as those gray eyes,
the perfect storm.
Then with a rush, April showers poured over me as I stood,
and I could not bear the noise. I whispered
you cannot take this out of me, to ears that never heard.
The soft ground I had known turned to mud.

Summer came when the gray evaporated,
asserting its presence with bare heavy heat and blinding light.
I fought a weight that pushed me down,
but somehow pulled green things up from the ground towards the sky.
The hours were months from sunrise to sunset.
Sounds, from a distance, as if time was laughing,
sounds in my sleep, I struggled to follow.
Through dull numbness, slowly, it came to me
that something
was not right.

By Autumn I was no longer standing
I’d fallen to my knees
rustling red and orange leaves brushed over me like a fiery challenge to an approaching chill, only echoes
of something behind that had mattered.
Only echoes in emptiness, now.
The gray came again, settling on me as death on an old man
suitably, gracefully, I felt no fear.
Cold phantoms brushed across my cheeks and through my hair
I lifted ready eyes up to the fading light.

And it came, winter.
Cold air lifting the dullness of summer,
leaving me exposed to sharpened visions of realization.
Vivid and cool white, the touch of affectionate finger tips.
Icy breaths repeated to a slowing pulse to life
Everything quickly becoming clear and defined in the falling darkness.
and as I looked out from deepening black to that world moving away from me
I smiled, for this peace,
at last
at the end.
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
Do you remember when you sat down next to me with a smile and I told you that you must be confused?

I give more thought to my enemies
I said

You looked down your long nose at me and called me naive
before you stood up and walked away.

But I know you just wanted me to think about you.
I was told there was a thin line between love and hate, and I must say I worry too much about the people I don't like.
603 · Dec 2010
red.
Lee Turpin Dec 2010
a touch to skin
a fingerprint on blush
on memory

anxious anticipation, the space between my blood and yours
crossed with all that I know to the only thing I have ever felt
in an inch of movement

the press of your life against mine
white, adored
soft, the subtly of a sunrise
rushing into splendorous day,
your lips hot on my neck
burning that fills my hands and my legs and everything
twisting and tortured
an explosion in the dark
one star joining the night sky, falling to pieces
and melting into whispers

the pause of time locked in the space
where my skin pours into your skin becomes
our skin becomes glimmering
light
****** poetry is not my strong point
600 · Jan 2011
light from two heart cracks
Lee Turpin Jan 2011
for blue skies I will be your angel
if you will be my star, in the black night
if you promise not to fade away
love,
if you shattered I would pull every piece of you
into my arms
don't you know
I forgave you when I opened my mouth to say hello
always I forgave you


quiet now, listen
she said
someday in a long while someone will open me up and they will take this out of me. They will not take it away and they
will not try to **** it. They will not try to understand it or belittle it.

they will hold it in their hands and they will look at it, the way I have done
late every night for a thousand dark nights and a thousand gray mornings. and they will treasure it, like I do, as a part of me.
they will hold it for me and I will hold it for them and we will be
resting souls,
able at last to see the world completely.
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
I had this friend, he liked to scream
(every kind of scream)
He screamed at police cars, screamed at incoming phone calls
He screamed at the mirror, screamed for ice cream
He screamed over the sound of the vacuum, under the sound of collapsing walls

Sometimes the sound gathered crowds
(it was a truly remarkable sound, never even slightly modest, entirely desperate)
He screamed his nightmares, screamed at those pills
He screamed at his feet, he screamed at the clouds
He screamed at my hands, at the dust gathering on window sills

He screamed his laughter
(what a *****, haunting melody)
He screamed my secrets, screamed into the carpet
He screamed at the ball drop, before, during, and after
He screamed at that word, screamed at a kiss on the television set

He screamed that he wasn’t crazy
(through the crack under the door)
But they sent him away anyway
They told me he wasn’t real

I know that’s a lie because I can still hear him
is happiness the unquestionable right?
594 · Feb 2015
dispelled of the firmament
Lee Turpin Feb 2015
some drift of fog from her lips
when quivered expired on the face of the ground
fallen
after the loss of the vision
586 · Jan 2016
the heel of atlas
Lee Turpin Jan 2016
in the morning
to wake to the dissatisfaction
the kind that only sleep envelops
to stir to stir
and wander into long halls
of a million doorways
in one: a simple smile
another, painted earthenware and a child's laughter
a third: needles before euphoria and neurotransmitters
pouring out into blackness
the next: a single blank page and a sigh echoing out of eternity
the doors stretch farther than I can see
contain more than I can bear
cigarette ashes, beloved footsteps fading away, a thousand different accidents with a thousand different grief-ends, a foreign home, one white bird in a flock of black, tie dyed bed clothes, a foggy road, a scientific discovery, a one-night stand with an unforgettable face, a creaking porch screen door, lost pets, piles of bills, purple lightening, long hair, a fathers tears, a city of bare concrete and rain, a moment beside a wood stove, a lost job, a yellow poppy on a green hill, a bottle of whiskey, a tarantula behind the toilet, a convenience store on a special block's corner, ****, last messages, pill boxes, promotion, a long exam, a homeless man,
in one a wedding, in another; divorce papers
hospital rooms, persian rugs, leaking rooftops, eye contact
some doors locked with years lost
some with no turning back
oh
sometimes I can reach the very last ****, to touch for a moment
the room with death itself
but I wander still for there are many more
wander whispering prayers
no guide but a burning light, following always
the center of being
Lee Turpin Mar 2012
undone skin
knew you weren't there,
but wandered for something anyway

joy in confusion, I knew
could be the beginning
of learning joy in
learning joy

when I put it on your shoulder,
something tight in my head
got caught
and

I went to the river
wishing to death, (as it slowly unraveled,)
I'd left with you
566 · Dec 2012
gentle
Lee Turpin Dec 2012
nothing is ever born in winter
everything is conceived.
548 · Feb 2015
prayer at the blanking wall
Lee Turpin Feb 2015
one five foot seven
teardrop fountain
forgetting to exhale while
remembering to drink down fast
the bitter green elixir to stretch out
widen the space between thought and thought
to soften up and fall out through the faulty wire frame.
slip out in pieces
so carefully dissipate, recede
draw in and drop out
to ready for the blow
the comfort in addiction
Lee Turpin Oct 2018
one winter I almost did not survive
the infinitely consequential moments, all merged
indeed
into one dimensionless experience
where the pain of my entire life (embraced) was
all around me, all at once, and forever
do you know what I mean?
and I could see it all, even behind me and underneath
and I was crushed beneath it and yet,
in that endless vast untime
a winter?

even then
held it upon my palm to look down at
from far far above me
as though it were a tiny diamond
impossibly durable,
sharp,
with all the shining upon all of the surface of the oceans on the earth
and unbearable, I looked down at it,
I held it, unbearable

but it would never fall from me, and it hurt and cheered me to be beneath it
for if God had (known me) long enough
in the untime with no breadth
to lay this curse
the form of grief
down upon my head,
was it not also the most solemn blessing?

       and he is faithful, and the suffering he lays down upon you, he will not allow
to be too much, that you would die while you are alive
one time, but again,
again,
and more after that


that is the winter of indelible clarity
a hard glass memory
behind the curtain, the coldness off the window
freeze against the pane

still I feel it in my hand
heavy (unbearable) and familiar
coming down on me again

what did I do
to turn the eternal gaze
toward my face? I disintegrate in excruciation
but never turn away
Lee Turpin Aug 2015
I walk out to the bottom of the lake
whispers and snaps under my more worn feet
and high over my head huge cumulus creatures
look down on me in their reflections
as they creep by echoing the atmospheric wails
so I smile facing heaven
along the edge the wind blows an impatience into the heads of fall- budding trees
a worried crowd

I am impatient too
to open my lungs in a worldwide gasp
to be then overpowered and brought to meekness neath a wave
of the form
of all things
parents told me there was an emptiness inside me. I thought yes, I can feel it now. They said jesus would fill it. When that didn't work I heard only love can fix it. but that only grew it now i'm left aching bigger
Lee Turpin Dec 2014
oh sweet ghost
white silk sheet of sound
tiny pieces of laughter and
the softened timbre of my mountain man's voice
split into a million shining tremors
and dropped down from memory,
little blessings from the ether
through my echoed mind
making rings
in the pools at the bottom

here,
tree whispers
and
things I thought were forgotten
Lee Turpin Jan 2011
Standing in the kitchen window late afternoon heavy in the Southwest United States and he is looking at her and he is thinking and he says it out loud
You are looking so much better
And more so much more
Alive your cheeks are less like the caves and more like
The peaches in the orchard that we walked before the innocence was taken

Through the window old trees converse about the passing breeze and there is a chill in what they say for it is never for us to know.

She turns from the pane and she looks at him and she nods her head and she says
For a time, before it happened, I believed that all things passed and that was so wrong for. Nothing passes, nothing heals, and nothing fades. It is all right here in me like it were the minute before. *She quiets for a breath.

It was not until after, long after that I learned this
That this meant also that nothing dies                                  she looks straight at him now
Nothing dies she says again
Nothing dies and I see the most beauty ever to weigh on my heart
in the face of an illegitimate child disappeared in a swinging screen door or in
the time I am alone awake before anyone wakes up
Or in the neighbors along the way putting a candle in the window for Christmas.             do you understand?
I don’t know why but I live to see these things
I guess because someone must see them. When they come I am the only one that is there to see. And when they pass, they justify my place here and right now, for I am the only one that saw.
The last syllable of her sentence is uttered in a calm note and everything follows and is right,
ugly as it is,
it must be seen and every part of the story is and will be what it is.


They in this moment in this place
among a million
always passing but never passed
always they share the same air, the same words upon this page.

*He has nothing to say so she turns back to the window and its okay and he thinks that he loves her but he does not say it out loud this time.
for kali
Lee Turpin Feb 2014
bitter-rooted and a core of chaos
faceted aspects of value turned to vice
by a mind with too much earnest

bury me deeper in the ground
477 · Jan 2016
the beautiful undoing
Lee Turpin Jan 2016
I've been so close to death
weeped before dancing
in its wailing white glare
now
I don't know why
it makes people cry
462 · May 2015
to not weep
Lee Turpin May 2015
sometimes I know
sometimes
I am only
a tree
with unbreakable heart
moved only by the wind
Lee Turpin Jun 2014
the wine turns my single eye inside
and there, past bits of dark colored chaos
it finds a sad ache
one winter night
a fine silver strand ran from
where I was laying
only little inches
to you

some tattered well-worn part of me
rises from the thought
I would be there and follow the line
to where you were and pull you to me

you.

lay my head on your shoulder and hold you
hold on
until we go
we go
together into the quiet fear
to find the resolve to go on
to find the knowing and the pain and the break!
the breaking apart
but in the sweeping darkness
purest joy
a silver strand
still holding onto your hand

cause i've been thinking bout forever
b, our beards are going to be huge
449 · Jul 2010
white.
Lee Turpin Jul 2010
I wait at the window and I watch her sitting out there in the air, empty and open to the early morning.

I am motionless and I wonder if I went out there and stood looking at her if she would feel in that moment that life and death themselves were the simplest things anyone would ever know and that questions were more fulfilling than the answers. That our brokenness was our only claim to existence.
We would be aware, but untouched. One second would trip on the next and we would surface and the roar would fill our heads again.

She blinks and focuses, she sees me. She looks at me with an apology on her face, waiting for something readable on mine.

Well, I guess I always thought it would feel different in the moment when someone saved my life. I thought I would feel more than this, but all I feel is white.
440 · Apr 2015
the spirits I spoke with
Lee Turpin Apr 2015
a sharp blow
swung out by
you,
who was thought a friend

produced a small hole
at the base of my skull
behind my left ear
ringing echoes inside
and shining sparks down
the splits of the mystical dendrite forest
thicker than thieves,
illuminating
the deep and dark of me

and out of the hole
comes some stuff of wisps,
lavender colored dust
with quiet rays of glimmer flickering all through it
floating and curling in the air thick as smoke

is that stuff me?

then it settled in a fine layer on my lashes
and my alveoli
and my eyes were filled with a vision
time slowed as we moved faster
slowly closing my eyes and then

I was in the porch of my infant home
on a late afternoon when there was the first breath of relief from the heat.
but in the familiar air there was a deep stillness
unsettling as I had never known it
and I looked out into the back yard, and over the tree line there
in the distance was a towering wall of dark clouds
and wind whipped through the line of trees

I closed my eyes and when I opened
I was with my little brothers sitting on the cold tile
of the patio of our home in Costa Rica
and rain was pouring down in lines from the sky,
thick sheets running off the slats on all three sides
I got up and stepped into the rain
Mayala reached out for me and said "¡ joelle, NO !"

this time when I closed my eyes,
I opened them but there was no longer anything
and in fact there was no longer vision at all
I tried very hard to remember what vision was.

I suddenly realized
there was not much left of me.
I felt the purple mists of me going out with the wind
to become the nothing
time moved forward with grace
one step, and two
then
it was all done.
435 · Apr 2015
fate after 3 years
Lee Turpin Apr 2015
caged brain
unsteady as
two wheels in a row

"we have deep bonds
ye and me"

please
tell me how to put this all back together
so that they all face forward
and don't cry
shaken awake
by the false soul soul press
of warm dreams
please
give the truth
gently say which way
to go
away
please so
the weight, after your face
won't
anymore

now
I wish I still had that gifted pill
to ease my ache

now
I wish you hadn't crashed your bike
that night

now
you only look at me and say "undo"

well
I wish
that I could
elm
419 · Jan 2015
a nightmare on repeat
Lee Turpin Jan 2015
in the birdsong hush of dusk
slipping out from the waking world, I find you there
my dear one
my being rises
and I am so close to you and I am reaching out my hands
filled with heart,
the whole of me a blooming swell
stretching out to touch you
with all of our years,
like a tree waiting
always
longing toward the sun.

but somehow, in that scattering light,
you are too far.
and when I cry out to you
my sound dies into the night
you do not hear.
then, the dark comes,
and the dream of your nearness
rolls over into the black

in the morning,
the distance seems colder
as much as I quiver I cannot shake it.
exposed, naked, arms spread for embrace
I am so much unopened love
only, only
for you
I am a home, sad and empty.

deep at its core,
the earth aches and burns

what makes you ring with such a hollow sound
when perplexed, I turn my knuckles round
to tap some stir from you?
elm.
402 · Mar 2015
one hundred years
Lee Turpin Mar 2015
all fangs,
when i soften
as i embrace
a fatal sting
still
i cannot hold
you close enough
undying unrest. beloved wounder
370 · Nov 2014
time is slow, he said
Lee Turpin Nov 2014
ticking clocks switching
the night comes sooner each day

every lost detail
another bar from the past
another key cast to the sea.
every last kiss locked away
360 · Jan 2015
the coming dust
Lee Turpin Jan 2015
hold on to me
we only have a little while,
left in these aching human shapes
it won't be long,
my sweet sweet love
it won't be long

— The End —