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don-joaquin-sheltonPoems
On my way up the stairs carrying a cardboard box of old books, bad poems and overdue bills heavy in my hands, not thinking between steps, moving, on my way up the stairs remembering slowly, not thinking that on my way up the stairs i carry coat hangers, cockroaches, an ex-wife, a hot plate, werewolves, toys and old landladies. three years now on my way up the stairs eight or  nine rooms in three years one month in a closet three weeks in a '49 Plymouth and god, nothing in here is so immediate as what pain is. there's much less to move than remember. on my way up the stairs is the same as now is 19 ways to forget this is climbing and could have come two rooms back in time. on my way up the stairs carrying a few letters, two pair of shoes, an armful of clothes and what happens is swift, irrevocable, between steps, not thinking, in suddenly like a snapshot falling from the pages of a book, a memory, i see it on my way up the stairs, the brilliance of finding on my way up the stairs a thing lost, a memory flashing and fading and fading is a picture of a picture of my daughter forgotten in a closet ago on my way up the stairs i keep falling from these pages captured and posing, in this yellow faded place on my way up, etc.
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Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 8:06 PM UTC
On my way up the stairs
On my way up the stairs carrying a cardboard box of old books, bad poems and overdue bills heavy in my hands, not thinking between steps, moving, on my way up the stairs remembering slowly, not thinking that on my way up the stairs i carry coat hangers, cockroaches, an ex-wife, a hot plate, werewolves, toys and old landladies. three years now on my way up the stairs eight or  nine rooms in three years one month in a closet three weeks in a '49 Plymouth and god, nothing in here is so immediate as what pain is. there's much less to move than remember. on my way up the stairs is the same as now is 19 ways to forget this is climbing and could have come two rooms back in time. on my way up the stairs carrying a few letters, two pair of shoes, an armful of clothes and what happens is swift, irrevocable, between steps, not thinking, in suddenly like a snapshot falling from the pages of a book, a memory, i see it on my way up the stairs, the brilliance of finding on my way up the stairs a thing lost, a memory flashing and fading and fading is a picture of a picture of my daughter forgotten in a closet ago on my way up the stairs i keep falling from these pages captured and posing, in this yellow faded place on my way up, etc.
to be read aloud in the cadence of climbing stairs
Written by
don-joaquin-shelton
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 8:06 PM UTC
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