"decorum" poems
Static, memories
Emanating, separating
The postcard- perfect
Still life speaks
From its storied past.
Invisible, to drift
Among
The florid aphorisms,
Ending in
Deleterious debris,
Aftermath of
The inevitable.
Empty room, echo hollow
Tabula rasa -
Carpet clean, quite candid in it's
Return to callow.
Consciousness athirst,
Absorbing phenomena
Effervesce, inquisitive
Ideas foment,
Sealed inside a question.
The what -
Against the narrow
Scarcity,
And fatigue of should.
A tender malleable
Youth,
Betrayed, under
An assumed decorum -
Residue of truth,
Flattened emotion
Privations of a self
Unheard;
Misplaced affirmation,
Buried pathologies
In architecture
Fear manifests symbolic.
Harboring apathy
The lunacy of pious
Pedigree,
Import contagion,
Fetters of benignity
Doubt and indecision
Into ******
Cognizance,
Fallow spirits
Seep fumes of decay,
Credulity bleeds a human stain.
Social edifice, inoculated
Heirs of neurosis;
Palpable, sensual pain
And transience, though
Tacit - remain,
Our haunted history,
The blind hyperbole,
Maudlin
Forbearance, this haven,
A portrait
Of immaculate condition,
Nurtured with precision
Under sterling pretense.
Provincial domicile -
House beautiful,
Savage irony -
Unseen treasure
Innocence unabridged,
Faces, tiny creations;
Compliant vessels
Wounded,
While modernism murmurs
Its promise.
Brave New World,
In a late model sedan,
Domestic ranch on a
Corner lot,
Suburban natives,
Silence means security.
The misunderstood
Speak louder -
Consumerism beneath
Unvarnished ambition,
Never could
Repair the brokenness within...
© 2011 & 2018 W. S. Warner
Oct 20, 2011
Oct 20, 2011 at 5:38 PM UTC
What's my worth?
Am I worth a second glance?
Till present, from birth
Am I deserving of chance?
What's my value?
Am I worth time spent?
What did I do?
Did I squander the life lent?
What are my virtues?
Do they even shine through?
Do I put them to good use?
Or useless like a pair less shoe?
What defines me?
Is it the words that write?
Or work I do diligently?
Could it be my punches in a fight?
What have I done?
Take your time to think
Did I do it with a loaded gun?
Must've done something; must've missed the link
What am I good for?
Important work or menial labour
Could have I done more?
Achieved alone or together
Do I think differently?
Indulge in fairytale notions
Is it sheer folly?
To believe in magic potions
Am I just silly?
Do I dream too much?
Accept reality
Am I capable of such?
Do I shirk what I carry?
Should I have said no?
Did I delay and tarry?
Have I nothing to show?
Am I wrong to feel?
Is it foolish to want?
When it all is real
Now bearing the brunt
Do I wear you weary?
With my endless stupor
Why can't I bury?
Before we expire
Why do I wallow?
Wading through eye puddles
Should I just burrow?
Deep into these riddles
Why do I falter?
Why can't I heal and rise?
Why do I break and shatter?
How do I stop my eyes?
What is this dense forest?
Must everything be obscure?
Can I not be honest?
Can I not be insecure?
Could I be any more random?
Asking as they come to mind
Have I compromised my decorum?
Have I been blind?
Should I delve even deeper?
May I go on and ask?
Am I worthy of an answer?
Or should I just don my mask?
Gargantuan was my crime
Thick was its girth
Absolution this time?
Of it am I worth?
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
Stuck to the wall
with a pirate cringe, positivity illegal as sin
good vibes that almost hurt
like a wife-beater's undershirt
Tough to clean, hard to keep
even when the ground is getting steep
going up
They say it doesn't slam, gives you chance
it lays the land ahead
But I find the blue skies like to turn scarlet
and slip faithless from my wake
It's all me, all me
driving a stake through every chance I get
At regaining decorum--
which is hard to keep, tough to clean
after a massacre, a true disaster
The lawful bickers
of a girl curling in disgust because...
Because positivity feels counter-productive
Not to mention a little too...
Seductive.
These words are brought to you by a petty fit,
not a frolick, nor even
a moment of in-betweenness--
A damned-darling particulate fire
going up
I'm a lost soul, fingers cold
Stuck to the wall and let out a pirate cringe--
why don't you--
satisfy me with positivity legal as sin
Give me those good vibes, make them hurt
like a lover's wife's lacy undershirt
Nice and clean, hard to keep
especially when you're in. Too. Deep.
But you're only going up.
From. Here.
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 10:27 PM UTC
Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.
Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.
A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.
Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.
So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.
8k
Day by day I fritter away
Observing decorum as best I may
Meet me as you meet — reserved somebody
Leave me as you leave — dull nobody
Dreary, weary, listless, spiritless
A resting spirit clamours to emerge
Unguided, wild, free and seeking
Boldly defying reserved somebody
But how, just how do I unleash this defiant spirit
For it is to cross all conceivable limits
Oh but a mask, of course a mask!
The perfect accessory for this task!
Careless of propriety
Boastful of daring
Acting against my will
Or in tandem with it?
This mask — just now I can't discern
Ponder I do with great concern
Does it shield my identity
Or render truth to it?
So now just what fun in masks
One may ponderously ask
Masks, bring to life fantasy
Fantasy, a realm of our reality
Reality, wherein lies multiplicity
Multiplicity, within each individuality
Oct 23, 2018
Oct 23, 2018 at 11:04 AM UTC
For 21 days I saw changes wrought
by the freedom of 22 years
Secrets of razor wire straight and taut
Speak of those who continue to fear
I saw nature’s beauty in land and face
As black heel continues to rise
Via school, ambition they prep for the race
Even as secretly despised
What’s changed in Soweto? I did not live
But photos and newsreels survive
Pictures of shanties bulldozed to give
Whites room to extend their hives
Now malls; monuments to white retail
Built on Mandiba’s words
Polished chrome and marble hail
“Happy” workers in a black-faced world
Monuments ringed with vendors tribal
Carved goods for sale and cheap
The rands they make do not rival
What multi-nationals’ continue to reap
Happiness is shallow until sundown
When the curtain of decorum lifts
Showing reality’s new shanty-town
Where space and plumbing are gifts
I wonder if He would be okay
Seeing his people so used
As pawns for labor with little say
As black is seldom excused
The young know the time is now
As old hatred’s in shallow graves
To be unearthed by book and plow
Keeping dreams from stunting and fade
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC
Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break.
Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?
6.7k
A bridge from colloquial to courtly fare
A span where idealism and fantasy pair
A railway to the existential realm; celestial lair
A conduit through which rational discourse can flare
Deep medium to: forage, inculcate, and inform
Broad brush to paint rare beauty; sculpt surrealistic form
Incisive scalpel to surgically alter the societal norm
Delicate utensil to educate on civility and decorum
A literary ***** a prosaic construct
A mechanism our syntax to deconstruct
An analytical tool; an observational viaduct
Introspective milieu to reduct; extrovertive sphere to reconstruct
A semantical edifice that aspiring wit, lofty orations implore
An experimental structure gramatical anomalies to explore
A thematic repository in which concrete ideas, abstract notions to
pour
A vernacular cathedral butressed by an idiomatic core
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC
Over staffed and under fed
Spanish waiters
rush around with
waistcoats of wisdom
wearing black shoes
of sordid shift-work soles.
They greet and speak to every new
tourist, and regular, as if a
brother, sister, mother, second-cousin-twice-removed
stepmother, yet really they are:
the ephemeral fodder of the
cheap, low-cost-airline,
the flash and it’s gone spine of most cities
on the map,
the ‘Sorry, I left it in a Barcelona Café, could I get it back on insurance?’
baseball cap, that most sightseer marionettes wear, back to front,
the standing in line, waiting to complain,
tourists that know nothing of decorum.
So the Spanish waiter served me my coffee
and whispered in my ear,
‘Disfrutar de su día senor’,
that was,
'Enjoy your day Sir’.
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 11:00 AM UTC
Just because the color of my skin
I somehow never fit in
With all of those girls
The ones with the pale skin and springy curls
Whose eyes are brilliant shades of the rainbow
Unlike my natural hair
Eyes dark brown, and skin unfair
I can sit in the mirror and stare
Wondering why people like me aren't on the magazines
That I read
Or on the commercials I see on T.V.
Thinking some days that I'm not pretty
Because I'm not like them
Those girls who I see everyday
Who will never know the way it feels
To be a black girl
Have people say
You're pretty for a dark girl
Like my skin tone affects my beauty
How I am suppose to look
I'd date you if you weren't black
So when did being attractive become a matter of race?
When did I not become enough
All due to the color of my face?
But they don't understand
The one that hurts the most
Worse of all
Worse of all
Is
YOU DON'T ACT LIKE A BLACK GIRL
Oh
Excuse me for having class
Not shaking my ***
Having decorum
And speaking my mind; politely
My mother raised me right
To act right
Showing me that life would
be tough for girls like me
Girls who didn't fit into the stereotypes of our race
Girls who dressed modestly
Talked properly
Girls who didn't fight
Girls who acted white
But I always thought I was just acting right
But no one ever saw
That I was just being me
Because you see
I may be a black girl
But a black girl isn't all I'll ever be
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 9:11 AM UTC
Disclaimer: I did this as a creative rewrite for one of my university lit courses, and all the inspiration and quotes belong to Robert Browning the original writer of "My Last Duchess"
HIS LAST DUCHESS
ARRIVEDERCI
_“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.”_ (I’m not)
Alas! Me, “a wonder.” He calls.
Now wretchedly refined and pasteurized.
To be consumed, now, for genteel eyes.
Pity! Should you ever see me roll mine.
Behind those curtains, you might have been surprised
To see my countenance whimpering
At you Sir; and seething, at _Him._
Must you not be fooled by that sickly decorum
Upon which his manly pride resides.
The Duke—what rich talent in envy he has,
And of pithy idiosyncrasies! Pardon me now
As I speak of his infamies: Is it not,
Too preposterous of a Duke, to sulk
And take offense, over a blush?
(As if the blush was his to wield and shun.)
Am I not allowed to flush _at all?_
And must I be ashamed of being swooned
By the casual offers of life’s grandiosities?
Each and every, dropping of the daylight,
Ripen cherries in May and chivalrous gentlemen,
my dear white mule; must I then weep
at them all, only to prove my fancy for him.
And when does gracious gratitude itself
become in vain: a finite honour—
deemed excessive elsewhere?
Never had he plucked me out, for censure,
Before he gave commands, I knew he did
To pluck the smile out of my face.
Utterly clueless—he thought I was
To find myself throttled, for immodesty.
A wife, an appendage to a Duke,
Loosely felled, to stroke a green-eyed ego.
My fault it seems, is a mere generosity
Of affection: falsely opined, if not
Misread, to fare a defect of temperament,
A chronic malady, doth be cured by death.
To cement the farce he will, soon, bring you
Downstairs to meet a friend. (a fiend)
A prized possession: Neptune, taming a sea-horse.
His hubris incarnate, cast in bronze.
But you must know the truth, for the sea-horse
Did not perish for naught, she is freed from him
At last.
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 3:26 PM UTC
Father is a verb.
- Let me explain:
Father's Day; and
Father Christmas
have tried to convince us,
but don't be fooled:
You can, may or will father,
depending on your mood.
For father is a verb.
It only works in the transitive;
you can't father alone,
only in relationship.
It doesn't resent hospital trips,
and offers wrap-around comfort
when a partnership splits.
It's touch-line volume
drowns out all rivals.
And belly laughs come standard
with jokes on recycle.
[insert joke here]
Yes, father is a verb.
It's something we each do,
despite the hour,
it drives right on through
the night when life’s gone sour.
It'll hammer ten finger nails
to get the job done.
It will dance, heedless of decorum
forgetting reputation.
It turns manliness
into awesome-men-ness,
It tempers strength
with a dose of gentleness, yes
father is a verb.
Be sure, whoever you are,
it works in the singular:
I can father;
You can father
(I'm not talking *** here;
that takes a partner.)
But also,
- it works in the plural -
we can father;
and they can father,
because, you see, in this village
it's an joint activity:
we father (and we mother)
collaboratively.
It works best in the present tense,
happening now, not "LATER!".
It can be said in a gentle voice
or something - even - quieter;
sometimes active:
directive, protecting;
but often responsive:
just sitting, listening;
...holding, and, hugging;
it responds to need, you see,
but works best proactively,
works great
sacrificially.
For example,
though it cost him dearly,
God Fathers us
and through us daily.
And one day, suit pressed,
He'll proudly walk
with the bride of Christ.
And as Father of the bride,
He'll host the party and blow the price;
(- BIGGEST - bar-bill - EVER)
And we'll be sure to save at least one dance
for Father.
Oh yes, you heard,
Father is a verb.
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 2:32 PM UTC
It is nothing,
a mordant of the soul,
an elixir, a panacea, a placebo
for my lesions, there in the thistle, grows
our drastic garden of red posies and hyacinths,
such little things, on the verge,
lilting as the decorum begins to bobble
and slump sideways, and murmur,
on Mondays I can swallow the octave
of your absence, tendrils and all,
red quince limbs parting from the deluge
and in its wake, the wreckage
of black pumpkins and purple corn, hanging
pendulum at our door,
the Autumn lights summon a lavish song to harvest,
thirty seven colours in the brocade you gift me,
tangled and heavy the years upon my bones
begin to spur and flower
into cunning disruptions,
and stratify upon my body like rinds of ricepaper,
vellum for another wish
in the complacent burial of mango flesh,
listen,
as my song liquefies,
drowns you, inundates
each alveoli, and our love
in the swallowing gush, perched,
begins to shudder,
devoured by its symmetry,
stem cells all akimbo
in the shallow pitch of days
bound in a nostrum of wine and liquorice
it is nothing, really,
a mordant for the soul, a tulle filament
twitching in a raincoat of lightning....
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 4:35 PM UTC
You were no Eve of Russian literature
like Pushkin’s precious Tatyana.
You were no young, innocent, provincial girl
seduced by cynical Onegin, that bon vivant
corrupted by modern European values.
You were no mysterious Russian soul
brimful of essential purity and self-sacrifice -
with a love of pain and pure disdain of happiness.
Tatyana resisted all temptation, refusing
to take flight, rejecting the man she loved.
She was too good to be true; but you, Anna
what a pickle you got yourself in, choosing ****** sin.
You could share an affair with dashing Vronsky
elope with him and leave behind your husband
abandon your beloved son, Alexei.
But these were not the dreadful choices
sealing your tragic fate, my dear Anna.
It was those ****** feelings you chased
all based on the sin of selfishness.
You fed on romance, passion and desire.
Your hot-hunger was insatiable, a fire
rip-roaring through restraint and all decorum
You sweated and panted wild for ******
They say you’re a ‘drama queen’; heartless and mean
a woman undone by excess, always longing to undress
nakedly making grand errors of judgement.
By ignoring Tatyana’s fine example, you certainly forgot
there will always be those who tot up the ledger.
Your blood debt was owing, it had to be paid.
You saw the light at the end of the tunnel -
cool down, Anna, let the raw feelings subside
be watchful, wary and ever-ready to step aside
let the moments of menace and gloom drain –
it might just be an oncoming train is due.
© M.L.Emmett 2016
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 21, 2016 at 6:14 AM UTC
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
3.6k
My bathroom,
the bedroom,
my living room and
the kitchen are all
spying on me daily,
seen my nakedness,
more than enough
to describe every
bit of me,
records my every
moment and daily visits,
day and night.
I'm not ashamed to display
my nakedness even
**** without decorum.
My bathroom mirror is the
first to see the show of
my new dance steps,
and i allowed it to see and
record the secret of my life.
So shamelessly I displayed
my secret acts in my bedroom,
doing all sorts of stuff,
things my mouth cannot
freely talk about.
In there in the closet
of my beloved bedroom
I committed all sorts of
crimes that even you will
be ashamed to watch if
you know what I mean.
In the privacy of my bedroom
no holes barred.
What do I say about my kitchen.
I became an alchemist
and a herbalist taught,
groomed and approve
by my mother.
On the cauldron as
a herbalist I mixed up
all kinds of herbs and spices
and come up with my alchemical concoction to help entertain
my family and friends and also
to feed and condition my body.
My living room now turned
into a theatre where I became
an actor to everyone who cared
to watch me display my prowess.
All these I do in quietness of
my small enclave where
my bathroom and Kitchen,
the bedroom and living room
witnessed and spy on my follies.
Did I tell you about Palomar the parrot and Kelly the German Shepard.
They can tell you my story if you
asked them.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 3:29 PM UTC
...Short partings do best, though: time wears out affections,
The absent love fades, a new one takes its place.
With Menelaus away, Helen's disinclination for sleeping
Alone led her into her guest's
Warm bed at night. Were you crazy, Menelaus?
Why go off leaving your wife
With a stranger in the house? Do you trust doves to falcons,
Full sheepfolds to mountain wolves?
Here Helen's not at fault, the adulterer's blameless -
He did no more than you, or any man else,
Would do yourself. By providing place and occasion
You precipitated the act. What else did she do
But act on your clear advice? Husband gone; this stylish stranger
Here on the spot; too scared to sleep alone -
Oh, Helen wins my acquittal, the blame's her husband's:
All she did was take advantage of a man's
Human complaisance. And yet, more savage than the tawny
Boar in his rage, as he tosses the maddened dogs
On lightening tusks, or a lioness suckling her unweaned
Cubs, or the tiny adder crushed
By some careless foot, is a woman's wrath, when some rival
Is caught in the bed she shares. Her feelings show
On her face. Decorum's flung to the wind, a maenadic
Frenzy grips her, she rushes headlong off
After fire and steel... .
3.4k
Just an equation,
A Simple theorem.
A little misbehaviour,
Outside the decorum.
.
I add and provide,
Hoping we never divide.
At the geometry, I stare
Just a mindfuck of a square.
.
A slight cross multiplication,
To bond upon this attraction.
To help develop the postulates.
Of your mere subtraction.
.
I integrate & derive,
It's the formulae I'm deprived
Of. The questions always lead to me and you.
I always end up in my four sided cube.
- Aks, in math classes.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 4:38 AM UTC
Discernment of facts escape a blind eye
Incalculable deceit fell upon naive assumptions of decorum
Virtues so easily replaced by a blanket of colorful chattel
Now, countless blankets dance about, as ghosts
on a paved route chosen with intent of endless future passage
And now, to escape the realm of falsities
every eventide is exchanged for repose and closed eyes
Pleasure, promises, and poetry she gave
only to have something to take away
In vengeance of a caustic past
Aphrodite unleashed artful malevolence into a fallen heart
Oh, how so much exists
where there is nothing
Emptiness can be full of such desire
And oh, the bitter taste of sweet words
from the unrestrained lips of a liar
An offering cloaked with savory fruit in cordial hands
Swearing to give it all in the big apple
and then seducing to her roots in the yard
Absorbing a soul
Only to create a martyr of forlorn cause
An abomination can appear so sweet
when emptiness needs filling
A demon from below,
delightful,
before killing
Nostalgia, a trail of footsteps in the mud
Like a fingerprint with an unquestionable owner
Arduous wails reaching the extents of one's universe
as a pawn and patriarch share reflection in the stagnant tide
knowledge of good and evil, once a desire, now a curse
yet, finally held
Gratefully numb with inescapable acceptance
Scott Mitchell
09 Dec 2012
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 12:18 PM UTC
Oblivious is the man who claims decorum of extrapolated omnipotence.
The man who has ossified rationalism into an inexplorable ruse.
An attempt to transmogrify inchoate minds, characteristic of apparitions.
Providing illusion as the answer to an obsequious concrescence of naive followers.
Oblivious are the men who follow this decorum.
Their leader keens to their needs.
Jun 27, 2013
Jun 27, 2013 at 1:09 PM UTC
Fickle
Done in mentioned light...
Through and due the common, the still
Notice of compliment, a comment of right
None
The more we save, from the proof of simplicity
Story's and a sulking tree, the seldom of fun in the sun
Turned to universality, with the eyes of anarchy
Amend
Sour and refined, refrain from the beauty of compel?
The pout of another gift and the choice of feeling's substance
Over the quiet since, that has become ours to weal...
Things
And the duty of a desire in worthing heaven, the hell of unity
Given me, and the role of synchronicity a resolve, to sweeten
Time is a daring host, to assure even the tiniest of needs, vicinity
Arduous
Threshold in the lime, the boding of every else, in the book
Staid and remembering decorum, like a hell is every cause
When we are the understanding home, to a willing look...
Force
Are we a stir of responsibility in the arms of voice, or its cope?
Timid as we are, the calling of it all, is a wisdom's source?
Look hard for a nature? when you can have a friend for it's love...
Caring
True to mellower stares, the throe of uncanny light
Made from the none, are we to survive a decision, so faring
The response of decency, that a swim with the devil, is also right...
Liberty
Loan the call, to me for a universe's song
Trust is a walking might of the deed, asking the seldom, evil's
Is it me, or the shade in a wishes stir, the tout we held all along?
Oct 10, 2022
Oct 10, 2022 at 4:45 PM UTC
Pressing buttons,
Hitting switches,
Flashing lights,
Strobing sounds,
"Decorum! Decorum!" she cries,
No use. They are all within His spell.
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
The decorum of fire...
-- Pablo Neruda
We learned the decorum of fire,
the flame's curious symmetry,
the blue heat at the center of the thighs,
the flickering red of the hips,
& the tallow gold of the *******
lit from within
by the lantern in the ribs.
You tear yourself out of me
like a branch that longs to be grafted
onto a fruit tree,
peach & pear
crossed with each other,
fig & banana served on one plate,
the leaf & the luminous snail
that clings to it.
We learned that the tearing
could be a joining,
that the fire's flickering
could be a kindling,
that the old decorum of love--
to die into the poem,
leaving the lover lonely with her pen--
was all an ancient lie.
So we banished the evil eye:
you have to be unhappy to create;
you have to let love die before it writes;
you have to lose the joy to have the poem--
& we re-wrote our lives with fire.
See this manuscript covered
with flesh-colored words?
It was written in invisible ink
& held up to our flame.
The words darkened on the page
as we sank into each other.
We are ink & blood
& all things that make stains.
We turn each other golden as we turn,
browning each other's skins like suns.
Hold me up to the light;
you will see poems.
Hold me in the dark;
you will see light.
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Let's talk about this jazz club
that lives in my cellphone
in 1950 something with Chet Baker
back from the dead.
Let's toast to random notes taking flight
into the city in the middle of nothing nights we've known or been familiar with.
Let's shake hands cordially with the unfamiliar as in "deal", or "peace be with you" as if in church, tipping hats at that stranger passing by at the crosswalk some late evening in spring alongside dandelions sprouting forth from the pavement. Let's read between breaks of beats Kerouac must have hit in 1950 something San Francisco in yelps into the moonlit stages of the balcony of his boxcar boxcar boxcar gone by in a mad blur with whatever graffiti'd message of hope it bore on its sides. Let's hitch into the unknowingly infinite by way of the pen's mighty point. Let's unlearn the way syllable by syllable and demolish languaged signs like hurricane force candor blowing down fact-ory made terms and political decorum as smoke from the pages of their corporate handbook joins the Chet Baker solo note pilgrmage into the holy skyline. Let's move side by side unspoken as those jazz notes he forgot to play. Let's fill in those blanks with uninformed confidence beyond our abilities and grasp the unsayable names of our dreams remmebered. Let's see in seconds passing like bums inebriated with the holy moments gone too soon. Let's talk about nothing but this sacred second at hand on this clock unseen pointing overhead to the face of the moon gone full and hungry for attention. Let this happen only now. Only then will we talk about where it's going.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 12:44 AM UTC