Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
topacio Aug 2022
It is nightly,
I shift from person
to sleeping archaeologist,  
as I shut my eyes
and fall into you.

And it is nightly
I set out to
decode the great
hieroglyphics
of your sky,  
etched out by
extraterrestrials
or maybe the great
ancient spirits,
who try to
relay simple
answers to
heavy thoughts.

It is is evident to see,
after my nightly research,
that you are simply
the dancer's ribbon,  
and the beings
yet to be written,
the ghouls in the attic,
and the poet's poem,
the union of electricity
and circumstance
colliding to
put men in
their place.

And as I fall
deeper into
the excavation
of my slumber,
I hear your whispers
dancing through my sheets,
saying: yield to me
when we one day meet,
not like the lunatic soldier,
but like the silken lover
who is reliably there
upon your awake.
topacio Jul 2022
You are the whooshing woman
       spewing out idea after idea,
            in a boardroom meeting full of men,
              who pay big bucks for your easy genius.

Your constant shhhhh,
    remains the greatest reminder  
       to stand silent,
          it is the wind of your water,
            that carries fish to a new life
              or the waiting beak of a gull.

And as your water topples to the side,
     you become nature's velvet curtains
       forever drawn to hide secrets
         never meant for human consumption,
           it is there, where you declare victory
               over the paradox that is earth.

Has anyone ever told you  
    your movement is your stillness?
      Your calculated charm of "go"
         provides anchor to the
            nebulous change of man.  
    
Sometimes I can hear
      you in airplane cabins
              and in evening traffic,
                 when I am really trying hard
                     to return to nature.

But most of all I hear you in relation,
      between two hearts beating with purpose,
          within a rapturous conversation
              about human chemistry.

I'll admit, I have tried to carry you,
    but you are too slippery when wet,
       and you are always bursting with
         significant moisture.
topacio Jul 2022
"Women have the extraordinary privilege  
of fighting for their rights together one day,
just to tear each other down the next day."

You have held your
signs up about my rights,
and then mocked me
in front of good
looking men,

Your fights are
laden with
convenience you
publicly display
in your calendars.

And so I ask:
Where did your
phenomenal
woman go?

Sometimes, I think
she is hiding
behind your
own protest signs,
your shouts I
thought were
for courts,
and reserved
for cause,
are perhaps
your yodeling
practice sessions,
without a
guided leash.

Your light is
artificial,
so it seems,
for when the moths  
come flocking
to your glow,  
as easy bait,
and they often do,
you fancy
yourself the sun.

You use seesaws
as balancing beams,
rocking up and down
on your convictions
until your formed rocks
turn into mere pebbles,
turn into sand.

Sometimes you
like to ****** your
phenomenal onto me
and say "look look,"
as if you are
a mountain,
but you are
still a hill.

And just like
balloons
and with
the certainty
of rubber
still you rise,
But still,
like dust,
you fall
without the
security of knots,
still you rise
still you fall.

Because no one
can be two places
at once,
and so I sit here
as you
perpetually
leave me
wondering
after every
womanly uproar,

Where did your
phenomenal woman go?
You can rise or
you can fall,
but you can't do both.
topacio Jul 2022
I've never been to The Grand Canyon.

In fact, as far as canyons go,
I've only been to two or three.

And each time I slide into that mineral womb,
I am wrangled into a new identity.

I've become a waffling man
stumbling headfirst into his first love,

A child staring into the
smoky barrels of adulthood,

A castaway stranded at sea,
the center of a tornado,

A speck of dust on a speck of sand,
a decorative ring on a gentle hand,

And a dog lost in the woods
who has lost his urge to howl.

At this point, I have resigned
myself to fervently avoid you.

Seeing that smaller forms
can ****** me into a tailspin of identity,

I don't care to know what your grandness will reveal.
I think I might dare to give you my life,

before you decide to shoot me into the
dizzying preamble of my next form.

So for now, I'll make do with carrying your spirit,
as long as we are in agreement that you carry mine.
topacio Jul 2022
Maybe the only
vocabulary we have
to describe death
is silence and a
bow of our head,
braiding our fingers
over our books after
each word has been read,
gazing ahead and
knowing that we
are just an alphabet
of letters never meant
to spell out any words.
topacio Jul 2022
I saw the pen
eyeing the page,

the paints
eyeing the canvas,

and the piano
glancing towards space,

and I said to them all:
hold your fire, dear soldiers!
Why ascend into haphazard excellence,
when you are so brilliant
in your mediocrity?
topacio Jul 2022
I wonder when Ferlinghetti
spoke of ballerinas in Central Park,
how much coffee he chugged
before feeling the electric
buzz of descriptions
coarse through his pen.

I imagine Mary Oliver
sitting seaside in a cabin,
with shells lining her desk
and her chamomile tea
whispering soft haikus
for her to relay to the world.

Rilke traveling through
Swiss mountains on a train
with a leather briefcase
filled with handwritten letters
and wisdoms borrowed from
his heartbreaks.

Did they write with me in mind?
With other poets in tow?
Their great loves on their sleeves,
melting into their prose.
Who did you write your poems for?

Did they know that a young girl
in California would be sleeping
with their names on books at night,
in replace of a lover?

I bet Hemingway would've like that.
Next page