v V v

Apr 2014

eunsung aka Silas

Hello me,

I'm you. I'm the older you after multiple suicide attempts, and lost in a haze of ***** and drugs. I am also you who sought and searched for some meaning and belonging, only to find hypocrisy and pain. But all that aside, I wanted to thank you for not giving up on life even though you wanted to. Finally asking for help when you did, even though a part of you didn't care anymore. Thank you for letting hope grow in you one day at a time. Thank you for letting me love you, so I can love me today. Life is pretty amazing today, and we would have missed out on this beautiful journey because we were so locked in our pain. Now, you and I can share our story of pain and suffering to help someone else. We don't have to stay in a hopeless state of mind and body. Thank you for having the courage to surrender and admit you couldn't do it alone anymore. I love you very much.

Love,

I'm You

This is a reminder to myself that I am not alone, and a love letter to myself , to my friends, and strangers yet to be friends who are struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts.

#love #suicide #hope #courage #search #surrender #thank

v V v Apr 2014

Feral Hogs

The world may end tomorrow  but  tonight will  not
you keep shifting and kicking and snorting and  if  I
could see  in  the dark I might confirm it  is you  and
not  that  thing in the attic that  I saw earlier  the one
of the three lying flat on its belly with the elongated
snout and tusks,  I know I don’t see very well  and I
need to be  fitted  for  glasses   so  I  tell  myself  that
what I see is bigger  than what you see  I  believe its
called an  “Ames  Room”  an   optical   illusion   that
makes a big person small  and a small person big its
just the  angle  of the view  so maybe  what  I  see  is
what  you see  just bigger  and in fact your view just
recently   changed when you     started   wearing
prescription  glasses  remember  the day you picked
them  up   you  backed   your  car into  another  car
another  trick  of  "angulated" vision  I  suppose  but
vision  isn’t  my  main  concern  right  now   I  mean
partially  but  more  important  I  wish  your  noises
would  cease  being   noises   and  sound  more like
breathing so I might see that you are still you  in the
creeping light of dawn and smile and close my eyes
and rest for maybe 30 minutes more before  its  time
to rise and make the coffee.

Recently published in print on April 3rd by A Kind of a Hurricane Press in their anthology, "Something's Brewing" editors A J Huffman and April Salzano, available at Amazon.com.

Apr 2014

J

The Tom Riddle Theory

Why is hellopoetry.com black and white? I've always wondered about this... why my colorful photographs are required to travel back in time. How does this effect the poetry in any way, shape, or form? But I understand the wisdom of this design now. And it sets a great metaphor for all of the people of the pen involved in this truly noble motion, this secret society for people with passion, talent, and troubled minds and souls. Hello Poetry is black and white not because it has to be monochromatic and modern, but because us poets fill these pages with enough inovativeness and color already with our words, ideas, thoughts, songs, senryus, ballads, heartbreaks, insecurities, that adding literal color to this website would be overwhelming. These soft undertones of gray, black, and white may be considered drab and depressing to some, but to us poets it represents timelessness. And this is probably why we are all here. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly publishing poems. Because we all know we are not going to live forever, and we are so entirely insignificant in the broad scheme of things and of the universe itself, that it is a bit comforting and helpful to have this coping mechanism or soft blankie to calm our fears, that this literature we write, however insignificant it may be, is absolutley permanent. And that maybe someday it will be remembered so a small bit of us may live on. Tom Riddle knew the needs and wants of man kind before anybody else realized it. Maybe he was just trying to cope with the fact that he is insignificant. These poems are all our Horcruxes so *viveamus per camenam nostram.

^^^let us live through our poetry

Apr 2014

Meenu Syriac

Questioning conscience

Its a little outlandish,
Dont you think,
To believe what you hear
And confess that is the truth?
Isn't it naive to think,
Think that the world is too nice,
That everyone's just as convincing
As your own nonchalant notion of life?
Isn't it foolish,
To fall in love
With the same broken heart
And still preach that it'll be alright?
Dont you think
Your life is much more than a period,
But it is one where you can be yourself
For the world to see
To behold
And to be?
If only you could open your eyes
To the things you thought were true.
If only you could let your mind wander
And set it free in the corn fields.
If only your ideas were a product of will power
And probably then see it fly in the wind.
Why do you hold yourself back
When you only have just this lifetime,
This short span of life to cherish?
Why do you worry about the petty things in life
When clearly you're so close to falling off the edge?
Why do you hide your dreams
So that you can be a part of some society
Aching to strip you of your individuality?
Why do you refuse to be you,
When this is the best **** person you'll ever be?

v V v Mar 2014

No Shadow in Light

I don a dark cloak most days
its been this way
ever since I can remember

and like a vampire
without a reflection
I have no shadow in light.

the brighter the day
the darker the black
cloak upon my back
clawing,
clinging so tight,
won't let go
morning noon and night
I don my dark cloak
ashamedly
but will not fight it

I have grown accustomed to
the weight

your father was different,
stronger, less susceptible to
the donning of dark cloaks,
I never met a more noble man

he fought his fight
without complaint
and in the end
I hope to think he
left this world
in peace

we stood quietly
at the head of the bed and
you stroked his hair,
we knew the time was close,
I leaned down and whispered
“I promise to take care of her”
and immediately knew
it was the right thing to say.
A small tear appeared
at the corner of his eye,
he smiled his slow half smile
and we said goodbye.

later that night
your mother phoned
to tell us he was gone

it seems we spend our days
in search of light,
trying to get to where
the heart might rest,
that illusive,
proverbial,
brightly lit
end of the tunnel

where for some
its pretty complicated,
a generation of
the guilty and the shamed
stuck between desire and fear

where the brighter the light
the heavier the load

for we who have no shadow in light

Special thanks to Sally A. Bayan for encouraging the initial topic of this poem, the analysis of the cloaks we wear.

v V v Feb 2014

For Once a Healthy Need

I needed your touch today
the day just wasn't right
and even though it wasn't right
it just felt right
to need your touch
because so many things
I have needed in my life
have mostly been
unhealthy or addictive
so needing your touch
goes to show you just
how far a man can come
when he is truly loved
and is able to truly love
in return.

Dedicated to my beautiful wife Carol on this our 7th Valentine's Day