"amnesiac" poems
The power of music
and friendship
heals dead connections;
a well-meaning member
of a jam session
offers me a guitar.
I politely decline,
embarrassed by my disability,
and they shrug. Your choice.
The familiar curves
beneath my arm
like a woman
from my past,
my amnesiac left hand
reaches for the
muscle memory
of fifty years' practice.
After an agonizing minute,
the G chord miraculously plays,
as I played it at five,
the three big fingers alone
strong enough to hold it.
The switch to C impossible;
so I play a variation.
Doesn't sound bad with the group.
My God, I might play a D7
by the next time it comes around
in the song.
The gang is playing old standards,
Ohio State music;
three chords and a cloud of dust,
which suits my present skill(?) well.
I almost cried when a few tunes later,
we sang A Horse With No Name
to my accompaniment.
Beethoven was deaf, yet heard the Ode To Joy.
Hawking is paralyzed, and travels the universe.
I have three good fingers,
and no good excuses.
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 11:45 AM UTC
Conceal amnesiac eyes with a hood,
Maybe nights fall oddly placid.
Sleep could collapse its resistance,
Crumble sunlight into ashes.
Nightmares internally unravel,
Soldiers fought, already lost.
Invasive thoughts occurring,
Arising ice, I can't defrost.
This complexion leaves me perplexed,
Battling behind my forehead.
I can't evade this hopelessness,
I've pled, go back to bed.
Sunsets settled maniacal,
Malnourished; give me a mask.
Because all I ache for is sleep,
To possess what life I'd had-
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 1:46 PM UTC
Retailers hope to net profits with the overlapping of holiday seasons.
Thanksgiving is yet to be history; but, out comes the Christmas trimmings.
No big surprise seeing holiday reminders arriving and filling mail box,
comes with pre-season, this early blitz of commercials on tv now the net.
Early arrival of holiday brings bell ringers standing between shopper's exit,
a failure to repeat and repeat donations, brings looks of extreme displeasure.
Each and every time you enter or exit discount, drug, and many retail stores,
shoppers face not only bell ringers; but, 365 days donate at register requests.
Most can't equal billion dollar give aways by Bill and Melinda Gates' circle.
Most work extremely hard and donate but also choose to live on budgets.
I donate and have nothing against charities; but, how much should one give?
Retailers, putting shoppers on the spot, asking for donations upon check out?
Never a pinch penny when it comes to sharing when there's an "actual" need,
generosity is always a personal choice, I let guilt not be my companion in giving.
Multiple donations to canister's of amnesiac holiday bell ringers? Wont happen!
Nothing against legit charities; but, giving until you're broke, you "will" be needy.
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 8:04 AM UTC
There is some genie
in our house, curdling poisonously.
I stay in the house
with a freckled old lady;
we're roommates,
unlucky enough to meet each other as life abated.
He does not live in the attic,
like a ***** ghoul; or in some
rubbing bottle like an amnesiac.
But we call the spirit lady, because the genie is vicious.
She comes to the house and says we need to move
things
around.
Her eyes are circled by some creamy mascara
into these black, skin-tight, **** rings,
like absurdist ****** targets.
Things are moved,
the genie stays, gets more vicious.
The mongerer is blamed
for bad things:
broken pots, fights over rent,
**** on the toilet seat,
lost keys.
We call the spirit lady,
this time her fingers jingle with golden rings,
her wrists sing with wrought-iron rainbows,
and says rain will send that sucker running.
So, we build little smoke pits in our house,
and take the most important things:
bills, and alumni letters from my school,
and birthday cards for her,
and burn them until it rains.
The genie calls us falsifiers.
The spirit lady comes back,
a necklace of grimacing clams around her neck,
and knocks around dancing, dancing,
a frenzy, a wildness, a knee-knocking,
throat-throtlling, dismantingly,
limb-ecstasy,
until she poops out and,
breathing heavy,
saying finally:
"there is nothing I can do for you,
I don't think I ever could,
some things are just bad luck."
She turns,
walks away,
and one of her clams drops from her necklace,
it says made in America on the inner lip.
The genie left a few weeks later.
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 1:48 AM UTC
do you remember the siren in my throat?
the howl of her, the empty vessel?
do you think of me sometimes,
think of how often my fingers
unmade the buttons at the
collar of your longing? how I
unlaced the cement that held
your damaged pieces together
into something resembling
personhood? how you painted
me with the blood of your amnesiac
sins, how I came to be the shrine
of all your broke and all your
bent? do you ever wonder how I
look now, draped around new
frames and coaxed by honey
that drips from new fingers?
do you ever miss those nights,
the half-light of the bathtub, the
shrine of bare thighs and the
drip drip drip as you watch me
melt into something black and
shimmering on the surface maybe
like blood maybe like nothingness and do
you desperately try to take handfuls
as I slip away like sinking ocean down the drain?
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 4:22 AM UTC
There are fewer things
beautiful than ugly,
I know that stars are most
bright when they fall
from impassioned skies,
That when your skin
meets mine, I am like an
amnesiac being returned
a lifetime of memories.
I hate few things,
except, perhaps, the murky
lakes of your eyes,
The misty beaches we
explored until sunrise.
How you pressed your lips
to mine like a death wish,
that it was deplorable,
but we wanted more, more.
My body was a map
you tore apart when you
got tired of exploring it.
The ancient psalms of our
tongues cannot silence.
Ruins of ancient Rome
survive on your lips, yet
you still live, breathe.
You call yourself mortal.
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
The straw that broke the camel's back
Was auctioned off on Ebay
And bought by an amnesiac
Who liked collecting hay.
If possession is nine-tenths of the law
All I need to do now
Is buy the final straw
And then he was sectioned
And taken away.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 7:16 AM UTC
Our relationship lies in shambles
I guess I'm to blame
My mistakes have done damage
Things will never be the same
I say words I cannot take back
Ones that cut deep
I am sorry for harsh truths, selfish lies
Promises I failed to keep
I can repair some of what I broke
Not all wrongs can be made right
We put the past behind us
Doesn't mean you're alright
Just because you do not let me see you cry
Does not mean you shed no tears
Beneath your beautiful imperfection
Vision is altered by halting fears
The thought you knew is blurred
Cannot help but look at me differently
Not every single wrinkle in our relationship
Can be smoothed over with an apology
Used to have your trust and respect
You have taken both of them back
Now you stare at me with the same expression
As that of an amnesiac
Is there a road we can take to get back
To the paradise we were at before?
You say I am the only one you want
We both know you deserve more
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 11:37 AM UTC
crushed up
our love, a cloud in the air
like the death of a moth
crumpled in a child's palm,
all passion, all blood
turned to dust
in my heart an absence,
memories snatched;
little silk pieces strung like spider webs
across my chest:
amnesiac
you sob red rain
for love's lack, nothing left
except
that stabbing pain.
But in this bleary life there's billions
left to gain.
Aug 31, 2012
Aug 31, 2012 at 7:09 AM UTC
Two roads,
Both of suffering,
A travel of torment,
An alcoholic buffering,
A mental health descent.
Two roads,
Both amnesiac,
Disasters once foretold,
A twisted aphrodisiac,
A trauma to remold.
Two roads,
And no yellow wood,
The lines are blurred and gray,
And no choice is ever good,
With the forces at play.
Two roads,
And a traveler,
With sanity at stake,
The wrong choice could unravel her,
A choice she's yet to make.
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 4:31 AM UTC
Your fingertips
Heal me…
Just that soft touch to my face
When my tears stream down my face
Defining that my whole world
Had a hurricane
And that no sunny days
Are approaching
Just the rain
And the wind
And that bad vibe
But you can heal me…
Your fingertips
Have that soft touch
That mends my heart together
Without plasters but with magic
It’s touch turns my hair
Into fine wool
And my skin into soft silk
My eyes then become
Your favourite colour,
Green
And all the rags become riches
And all the tears become
Nourishing water that heals
Only because of your touch
Please heal me
With your fingertips
That lay a soft touch on my body
Just caress the scars
And let them turn to brave soldiers
On my skin that fight back
To whatever tries to hurt me
I don’t want that depression
I don’t want that hurt
I just want your soft touch
I want your fingertips to heal me
I want them to spin my heart into gold
Just like the miller’s daughter with straw
In Rumpelstiltskin
Can you do that?
My back is brutally beaten
With twigs that have thorns
And bullets always pierce
Through my body
But knives constantly stab
Through my heart
Just stabbing
And stabbing
And stabbing
I need that to stop!
My back is hurting
And my body is numbing
But my heart no longer has
Oxygenated blood in it
Will you be able to touch it?
Will you be able to put
Your hand through my chest
And just touch my heart
With your soft bare hands
That feel like cotton candy
Not because it’s healing is sweet
But because it’s healing is gentle
Fact is
That your fingertips heal
They have a soft touch
So soft that they can turn
My heart amnesiac
I need to forget,
But I only need you
And your soft touch
To help me…
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 9:10 AM UTC
There is another chapter in your story
Discover your new territory
Don’t look back, become an amnesiac
These pages are your remedy
Forget the despair and the lost prayer look elsewhere
Start with the first page and dull your rage
This new chapter will be your sage
Put the old pages to rest on sundown
And at the break of dawn you won’t have drowned
Floating in bliss with your pages as a raft
Expel your craft
Release the ink bound in chains within your fingers
Rebound for fresh ground
The sea washes away the sand
Let it wash away your mind
Time will find you a place to stand and I will have your hand
Yesterday is dead; no more tears shall be shed
Abandon that past dread
The ink is being shed
Your new chapters wont go unread
Don’t look back, but look ahead.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 9:19 AM UTC
I am usually an amnesiac
Which is why there is always
cheap stationery in my pockets
- "An inexpensive set from Faber-Castell"
I look to my scribbles when I'm lost
unless an unexpected shower
has been tasked to ruin them
- "Pages stuck together, smudged and stained"
Three monsoons have come and went
I don't carry an umbrella or run for cover anymore
I stand in the middle of the downpour, drenched
But I guess some inks are just too hard to wash away
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 8:17 AM UTC
Place your turmoil
Into a narrow, empty container,
Grab a lid and seal it shut,
Let it remain there indefinitely,
And then think nothing of it
As an amnesiac would do.
4/22/14
(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
A rose of glassblowing transparency...
air-born as the color eyes see
when closed to the sun.
Petals pressed open shatter in place...
as red silk intermingled.
The color of passion and alarm,
that an earth transpires--rose...
occasioned by that transpiration.
Put to amnesiac white wings--
aftershocks of contrast...as blood to
snow, and all its angels.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 12:17 PM UTC
I sit here in silence
trying to write
a task that will see me
far into the night.
Struggling with lyric,
wrestling with word
finding all my idea’s
absolutely absurd.
My mind a fiasco,
scrambled and locked.
Sentences stumbled.
My talent is blocked.
Though I sit concentrating,
my mind being a fighter
but there still is no tapping
on this old typewriter.
If just one idea
should reveal to me
an happier person
I know you would see.
If some lyrical phrase
would just come to my mind,
no longer amnesiac
and no longer blind.
I would wear out my fingers
typing what I desire.
Digits covered in plasters
whilst machine is on fire.
I would pick up a pencil
so I may carry on,
scribbling madly
till the lead is all gone.
But alas there is nothing
not even a grain
or anything else
floating round in my brain.
My nerves they are screeching,
my sinews in shock.
I pray never again
do I get writers block.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 4:45 PM UTC
~
*abruptly waking to discover
the sempiternal daylight of herself
in a small silent village in Brussels
the sky's a cloudless blue
and she needs the sun
like children need two parents
sunglasses conceal bedroom eyes
smiles hide like inverted *******
clothed in peekaboo milieu
a highly individual creature
in an era of the exaggerated curve
she's an amnesiac
doodle-dawdling in the altogether
wrapping herself around
mise-en-scène
it's breakfast with Mr. Svengali
then unacquainted foothills
and undergrowth
in the flaring of conjugal
light and shadow
hum
thrum
'n strum
she's got the whole wide world
in her hands
her simple slantwise silhouette
declivitous neck
inclining embonpoint
summoning him
no clock, no watch
the keeping of time
is served by rapping
her crown upon the headboard
at regular intervals
her open-tempered sighs
closing with the heaviness
of a sleepy hush
until the echoing of church bells
announce the footfalls
of tomorrow-come-looking*
~
Aug 26, 2021
Aug 26, 2021 at 3:02 PM UTC
The lines have escaped me once again,
all buttered up and sliding under furniture
like cockroaches at dawn.
I was made with a different chip.
My heart, she dances to her own music,
a song with no words- just Gregorian chanting
and an amnesiac beat; she dances lonely.
My tongue is tied to the floor of my mouth
with fresh sinew that I stole from the belly
of the cat still steaming on the damp asphalt
beneath alien streetlights, streaming
unhurriedly past a new Mercedes,
seeming to fall in chunks down my throat...
neverlanding.
Every trip, every drip, drop, knife or needle,
only leaves me more alone when my imagination
is gone again, and the elevator panels
have ceased giggling as I tell them ***** jokes
between floors two and four.
My dreaming lover lies while I stare rudely,
washing his clothes and feeding him broth.
He wretches over and again, poisoned
by the arsenic in my kiss, the lead in my bowels.
Not this lover, nor any other, could survive
the rugged terrain where I insist to live,
where the well supplies me well
with replacement tears,
yea, even blood.
The mosquitos so strong there,
despite the heat and barren broken stones,
they lick me dry as I methodically flip the light
and lift the coffeetable and ottoman in the den,
finding the nests of my soulmates
who have eaten my lines slowly,
savoring the bitterness of cheap paper.
I refill myself at the well,
swallowing the unsuspecting larvae,
while the one I love drowns facedown as I watch.
His heart stops, and mine, she quickens her step.
She can hear the tortured tongue.
Tickled with every gulp, he's giggling.
I take a step forward, over the void.
The elevator disappears as I turn the corner
into the falling crimson sun.
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:40 PM UTC
Who are these creatures?
Why do they burn so red?
I fear their nature.
They hunt me
I hide
Under wisecracks
And pointless chats
And cotton sacks made to fit this awkward shape
Who am I?
I am lost
An alien amnesiac
A wanderer in a volatile land.
Feb 17, 2012
Feb 17, 2012 at 12:55 AM UTC
I was never there
I never came to be
I am the forgotten
and that's just how it is.
Forgotten...
Like a corpse in a battlefield
I will be buried in a nameless grave
a Kamikaze without a mission
an uneventful day.
Forgotten...
I was left to the vultures
dragged by the winds of solitude
with cobwebs in my soul
a cactus without water.
Forgotten...
I have become a fragment of your imagination
my lips never had a place to stay
like a dead leaf in Autumn
a footnote.
Forgotten.
Like a patient with Alzheimer's
I live in the mind of an amnesiac
Heaven of wasted memories
How did you forgot, to forget, forgetting me?
Because...
I was always there
and I did came to be
the love of your life
no one loved you like I did.
But I am still the forgotten
and that's just how it is.
Dec 26, 2009
Dec 26, 2009 at 3:36 PM UTC
The evening opens like a peach cut in half
Nature born on the river of blue lights
and progress drifts east with a compass in hand
A fixed thought is forgotten
by the lure of secret windows offering a better view
Only momentarily, yet too long
Already half the silence and when I come back
What is this image I see?
It is not what I left in the hands of chance to take care of
The evening is a rivers' divide
and anticipation is the frail glass we hold full to the brim
of pride
Be careful and do not trip, we have counted each drop along the lines of loss
and find we cannot afford to have confessionary hearts freely bleed
This evening awaits the night
Let beauty linger under the street lamp,
interrupted by the inopportune mouth of time
We feign indifference and rely on the amnesiac mornings
to erase and make long memories out of evening's almost forgotten
promise.
The night closes in like claws hidden under the shadow of a velvet glove
Drawing blood from the surrender of the eternally damning invite
Its divine sweetness, rising from the death of laughter
The evening becomes desire's divide
No longer is what we lost, what we hope to find
With paper and pen in hand we watch and despair over time's ability
to move to the next hour
There are only so many near misses we can allow chance to make
Before the evening's fragrance begins to sour
and anticipation starts to taste like regret
and isn't that what brought us to the river's path
in the first place
Before promises of truths and glimpses into colour
fooled the hearts
and now you and I
watch the evening open like a stubborn wound
And in whose hands, shall we leave history to slip by?
and while the moon fights the night
I think I shall depart to, from where I came
But in between distances, and the river's divide
The shadow of your evening's blue cannot escape my eyes.
Oct 3, 2015
Oct 3, 2015 at 12:35 PM UTC
It is the end. I feel the fingers ****** my skin. Tight and itching, I tear the stitching, undoing years of anguish. Stuffing, full and fluffy, falls out red. Strangers stare, over there, unaware that the tare will expose me. I am ghostly, a ravished cloud, swirling in the troposphere. I am lonely wishing someone else was here. Lightening is my skin, searing, blinding, fierce, and then nothing. It hurts, a certain kind of liquid insanity, all red and furious. I would cry if I could remember how, but the paxil makes me an amnesiac. Not losing memories but forgetting how it felt to feel. My stuffing lay scattered a mad mess as if it never really mattered. I am a tiny teddy bear.
Someone screams, and I laugh. Smirking as if I am in on some joke they know nothing about. Stupid people rushing about. My arms become heavy, I am trapped. Still, I laugh because soon I will have beaten the trap. A sick black liquid is forced down my throat. I throw up charcoal, is my blood now charcoal?
Tiny, tiny strings, sing jingling, leave me laughing. I won the race. I doubled down one razor blade and bottle of pills.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 10:52 PM UTC
If given the chance would you ask for me back?
Each tear I've shed would you help me uncry?
The bad moments erased like an amnesiac
Reverse time to before you said goodbye
You'd be a better man than you were
I would be better too
Stop you from walking out the door
Would not give you a reason to
Jul 28, 2021
Jul 28, 2021 at 2:00 AM UTC
There no longer is light in once brightly lit blue eyes
The light has faded being overrun by
Rotting alone with the steam of the bath drawn
High in heat and low in self esteem
She sits wrinkling in her own decaying moods
The razored edge pressed against the bite plain palm of her left hand
The nails on her right too bitten and bruised from a nervous tick
That was earned over the formidable years of solitude
In the presence of a man, women or child
She chewed those nails untill only ****** stumps remained
To hold the blade against the skin
As she slits the frightened skin, it splits open against the cool metal
Repeatedly freezing her dead beating heart
Giving jumps to an amnesiac heart that forgot
The drums in which it beat alongside to the tune
Peeling at the edges to reveal a rotten core
Oozing with an unknown slime
The black coloured lumps of already clotted blood
From the twenty times before
She took the razor again in her hands
Again and
Again and over
Again.
Slowly and always she's been cutting off her life line
One slit of the vein at a time
Exposing the eroded mess of a body
And the tangles of a decomposing brain that is
Wishing away her life upon a dream
A dream inside the dream of a life that was not her own
The model who lives in anorexia, who cannot actually breathe
But it is what she wishes.
So her bones jut out like flags against the bathtubs silkiness
Her face is sunken, a hallowed place with no life
Her bones etched and engraved with years of fear
From the "dimples" and layers of fat that stuck to her like glue
The "flab" that was skin that hung loosely from her ribs
An aspiration that caused this illness
And set her on the course of searching for a homedial cure
Yet, she is not thin enough, so she cuts away the flesh upon her body
With salt mixing with soap
From her once bright blue eyes and
The suds within the steaming water
That lap against her skin like a cat tongue
Roughly tormenting her already devoured soul
A harsh reminder of what she could never have
So the resolution she came up was to carve away her insides
To give away her vitals to the poor children in the world
In an attempt to be rendered thin and to disappear from plain sight
But she still can't choose what stays and what fades away
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 2:27 PM UTC