Ryan Kerr: Favorites

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

Sarina

The clouds are shy when you are around,
they stop peeking around the shoulder of the sun and simply
dissolve
into particles smaller than pores, pills
that I can swallow – I am their mother, the bulk of
their weapon
pass all the greyness through word of mouth. I hurt when
everyone else is scared to,
I water everything so that the sky does not have to.
You said I should be gentle with you
so the clouds are afraid
to be awake when
you are. You do not take up too much space
but those stars in your eyes had to get there somehow, fog’s
only here in the morning because our
souls are making love –
all of the rest of the day it is up my skirt. I
am the mother to mist, but you get along better with sun.

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

Chasing the Cheshire

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

Gary Joshua Weyandt

Chasing the Cheshire

You laugh to realize your life's perfect
As you chase the Cheshire,
Watching yourself run.
Thin as glass, you dare to be the skyscraper.

Unbreakable.

Your life beside you.
Your past behind you.
It has made you stone.
Unswayed by roads.

You choose your own.

As pitch reflects off pitch,
An unending forest before you.
Fireworks thrown back towards you.
You remain unflinching,

But forever touched.

Figures with hands the size of the heavens.
They flash again, but only for an instance.
Tears held by pride,
But none less meaningful.

Wind in your hand empowering you,
As you stare at a universe of gravel.
a jungle of wispy greens,
The travel brings you back again.

Life is wonderful, I won't let it spoil.

Written Aug. 12/ 2013

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

O'Mama Kill the Demon Who Tucks Me In At Night

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

Sub Rosa

O'Mama **** the Demon Who Tucks Me In At Night

'Oh darling,
Come here and I'll make it better.'
And so you swam through the tides of trouble
To meet arms like a sunny horizon
Where you believed you were saved.
and his kiss on the cheek was too near
To baby lips.
But safety blinded your baby eyes
Oh, sweet child
Don't blame your velvet fingers
For their stillness
Nor those arms that could not
persuade the determined ones.
And your muffled sobs
Were loud and deep
As your soul would sing
That night.
Sweet baby,
the numbers are not at fault
For they do as numbers do
And grow your hair,
Wrinkle your eyes
And stretch your legs to the sky.
It is not the numbers who caused the affair,
'84 and '04
should have no relationship but DNA.
But the filth of evil
Perserveres
even beneath love and
A sweet baby's shield
You may sleep, dear child
Fear no longer waits in the darkness
In your room
After baby coo's
Goodnight.
For fear rests in a cement hell
Where he will face the fists
You know too well
And this lovely
Damaged
Baby,
Will heal.

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

In the Back Garden

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

Sub Rosa

In the Back Garden

Can
     I sleep beneath the willows in the garden
     In the shade of weeping eaves
You
     Planted deep in soft mulch
     above the hallowed canary grave?
Breathe
     Out  the eerie recollections of
     a marrow chilling orchestra
In
     the confines of
     the white wicker cage.
Song
     I cannot hear
     but I taste in the sap of the willow
As
     it sobs softly
on my heavy shoulders.
You
    spread a quilt out on the grass
    and whispered to the weeping branches
"Do
     you hear the canary  choir
     ringing through your roots?"
Oxygen
    expired from my lungs
    and I wailed a yellow-bird song.

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

i'll take my coffee with melancholia, please

Nov 2013 Ryan Kerr

speakeasied

i'll take my coffee with melancholia, please

You mixed two packets of melancholia
into your coffee today,
and I had to bite my tongue to resist
to say, "I thought you liked it black."
I watched as you daintily taste-tested
it from your spoon and was delighted
upon seeing your grimace of
disapproval (you're adorable when mad).
I took note of how
your veins pulsed underneath
your deeply tanned skin
and I longed to be the blood that
traveled through your delicate body.
If only I could map out your cardiovascular
system and find all the detours and
shortcuts to your fragile heart,
memorize the freeway that
encircled your figure and learn
when to avoid rush hour or when
to take the fast lane.
I found myself fantasizing about
the day you were conceived and
how you beat out all the other
potential embryos - that maybe,
you were chosen out of the thousands
for the sole purpose of being with me.