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242 · Feb 2020
I Don't Know You
Nate Hoffman Feb 2020
I don't really know you.
The sparse details scattered across
Days unremembered yet unforgotten
Are but small glimpses to a life
Beyond my knowledge.

The true nature of your heart lies
Between the sunrise atop bumper crops
And the sky that holds it illusionary,
Yet the orange glow shines through my window
Every morning since our meeting.

Eastward drifts my soul,
Beckoned regardless of wakefulness;
Foreign things kept in choice vocabulary
Run away to from the moon
To only be considered there of--

Do I know you...?

I know how you went about your day when you
Woke up with a weight in your belly,
Groggy eyes squinted in sorrow and sleeplessness;
A tired mind running on hamster wheels with
Thoughts organized in bedhead disapproval,
Feigning extraterrestrial happiness
With bookwork and a cup of coffee,
Topped off with a bad taste in your mouth
And a blunt headache that didn't go away-

I know the monotonous capital of existence,
The placemat of our truths walked upon
Without a sole by the hustle imposed;
Drudgery felt like clockwork in the digital a.m
Shining neon "Go! Go! Go!" and you go,
"go. go. go..."

As I have gone...
As we have gone together...
As we'll have come before and since,
In shared moments of stasis every morning
We rise-

I will not forget how you greeted the day,
Not to yourself or your love or your household
But to myself and blessed others in those morning hours,
Knowledgeable and fierce,
Optimistically aware of every day past and upcoming,
Guiding the times as if set to sculpture

-Arisen is the phoenix at dawn,
Flamed feathers spawn the day
As we greet the nighttime gone;
I don't know you,

Not really, anyway.
176 · Dec 2018
Laughing
Nate Hoffman Dec 2018
In the backseat of two-door cars,
Cackling at the fog,
Admiring frosted trees;
The bizarre glories of the world
Lay before in stone-cold vibrations.

Go back Jack, do it again,
Watch the wheels turn round and round
To goodwill tidings on clear cut highways,
Circumventing the haze of the suburbs
In odors of gasoline and burnt wheels.

Potholes bounce under foot,
E.D billboards taunting men
On voyage to shopping malls.
Days off and lay offs,
Getting the light and stopped on red,
Gazing at the sun to let the comfort in
To infinity and be-be-beyond.

Lofty goals atop cascading mountains,
Lined with jagged rocks,
Going to **** in mighty avalanches.
Calling back to the fall back of worry,
Our troubled souls running against the wind
As we mountain-goat up cliffs
Looking pitiful bathed in
The northern lights.

Oh how the heavens opened up,
How coastline of rocky ridges
Exploded in mental ecstasy,
Perceived through sagging eyes
Damp with the excess of life.

We're back, Jack, doing it again,
Travelling down well-worn roads where
You and I, He and she and they,
And ancient enclaves of ancestors
Journeyed through joy and sorrow
And the millions of pixels of grey area in between.

We've walked, run, and drove,
Talking madly to ourselves
In the tired eyes of those who want
To do the same and with them we continue.
We live in ourselves,
In candy-coated falsehoods of our own design,
Happy with good reason and lovingness.
And at it all, in the scope of our truth,
We laugh.
I was asked to write a poem about time, so this one is abstractly about time

— The End —