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to know the distance
an irish poem babbles
into a war

and finding no way out
becomes a girl
struck by affront

and civilized people were dread
undoing shoelaces
caught in shirts
unplayed

two days a week

and another version
of France, Waring with fate
came also

into another painting
of Lost Angels

this doesn't bring back
lost boys
Sometimes
when the world goes quiet
and I am left alone
with the soft hum inside my skull
I hear them.
Not one voice,
but a thousand.

A symphony of ghosts
wearing my tongue.
Telling me who to be.
What to fear.
What to want.
What to hate in myself.

They sound like me
but they are not me.

They are the weight of every look
I mistook for love.
Every silence
that taught me shame.
Every rule
spoken or implied
engraved in the marrow
before I ever had a choice.

They are the applause I bled for.
The warnings that made me small.
The comforts that came with a cost.

And I wonder
how do you find truth
in a mind you did not build?

What if the self
I’ve been trying to become
was never lost
only buried
beneath decades of conditioning
that spoke kindly
and caged beautifully?

They say to be aware
is to be free
but awareness is a wound.
It opens your eyes
to how little was ever yours.

We are born soft.
Open.
Wild.
And then,
bit by bit,
we are rewritten
in the handwriting of others
until we forget
we ever had a voice of our own.

So what is freedom?
Not escape.
Not rebellion.
It is the quiet revolution
of remembering
your original sound.

The soul’s first whisper
before language.
Before fear.
Before you were made
into someone else’s reflection.
I've had enough
But I won't stop
Till I'm chewing the carpet
That used to be
But times left me
In a state
Of low energy
And ennui
The urge to surge
Now seems absurd
The floor tilts up to put me
Back to bed
To wake restrained
With smoother brain
And pass go again.
When you look like Punch because Judy’s given you a battering and the audience were watching but only gave a smattering of applause which sounded as weak as this did.

At least when I am falling I know where I’m heading.

Et Tu, say what? said who?
I am
leaning into a history
with the youngster ( that’s me )
and we have a long way
to go.

These that say cheese and those that just smile.

death on the sidewalks while people walk past
and we all walk a bit faster from this waste,
this disaster,
try to cover the cracks with cement or a plaster,
the cracks remain underneath the stains
of a life that never tasted the fare.
~~~
~bye~
what right we mess with a better gone before?^

what right does it mess with our composure
one hundred and three years later?

~

“Such are the little memories of you”

these crafted words of flying feet bittersweet
knock a mother farther back upon her lowered flat heels,
recalling too, similar and same,
the resounding pattern of a gone child’s pitter-patter,
of treading, exploring long hallways and secret rooms
with comfortable, yet reckless flying abandon until,
a fateful reckoning abandons us both

this poem elocutes my charges against your Taker,
and all the little prayers of the angels sent to minister,
give no comfort like the giant memory of your
running little feet,
coming and going and gone
^ To Theodore

by George Marion McClellan, 1860

Such are the little memories of you;
They come and go, return and lie apart
From all main things of life; yet more than they,
With noiseless feet, they come and grip the heart.
Gay laughter leading quick and stormy tears,
Then smiles again and pulse of flying feet,
In breathless chase of fleeting gossamers,
Are memories so dear, so bitter-sweet.

No more are echoes of your flying feet.
Hard by, where Pike’s Peak rears its head in state,
The erstwhile rushing feet, with halting steps,
For health’s return in Denver watch and wait.
But love and memories of noiseless tread,
Where angels hovered once, all shining fair,
To tuck you in your little trundle bed,
Kneel nightly now in agony of prayer.
 Jul 2018 Nolan Bucsis
eileen
I've only ever felt euphoria
in silence
alone

And I've been waiting for the right one
to speak with a voice
filled with serenity
Lions in the wallpaper and tigers at the door
the bedroom is a jungle and
I lay here on the floor watching Saturn through the ceiling which fell into disrepair
wishing that I wasn't here but somewhere far out there.

The tube's a hypodermic injecting me with new ideas
thoughts of better situations and blanketing my fears.


Thursday is the saving's bank
where Friday soon falls due
and today will be a special day
I'm thinking just of you.

sober as a judge
I walk the plank of
judgement day

to deviate
alleviate the pain
I walk this way
and
the lions sleep
on daffodils,
the tigers
on the mats
the ceiling's back
where it belongs

and I'm almost at work


which as an afterthought
is pretty weak
and it doesn't rhyme.
 Apr 2018 Nolan Bucsis
camps
.

i want to buy these mice a home so
that their presence helps keep the table clear
i think i’ll place it in the gap between the door and the floor
in the hopes of keeping the noise out and
of having at least one of us feel
a sense of being welcome

the paper bags in my hands wouldn’t feel
heavy if they knew where they were going maybe
and hitting my head against the bed again doesn’t stop me from
showing off the letters on my chest although
i’ve been known to miss the mark

if there's a spark in her eyes it’s 'cause she stole the light from mine
but i like the cold because it makes me feel alive

my favorite part comes around
when the two trains meet and for a second
i can catch a glimpse of everyone’s place in the world
before we’re whisked away to
our respective loneliness

or maybe it’s where the streets
run narrow like those in the places where
connection, if anything, tastes a bit more genuine
it's quite polarizing but this time i’ll seek
comfort in the grey of it until it
all comes rushing back

they say home is where the heart is so this probably still isn’t it
but it will do for now

.
[new york city] | [definition of home] | [pursuit of cold]
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