I carry the clothes on my body–
a plain t-shirt and sweater leggings–
attempting to stay warm and keep cool.
I carry my backpack,
my heavy, heavy backpack,
to carry the things I can’t carry in my arms…
my books, pencils, papers, and keys.
In my arms I sometimes carry more books,
sometimes a cup of chai, and sometimes, nothing. Sometimes
I wish I carried a little bit more time;
then I could carry the things I’ve left behind.

I carry all the parts of me simultaneously, and I am full now.
I carry my eyes, for without them, my path would be blurred,
and I would be ignorant.
I carry my ears to hear music and dissonance and
I carry a heart to feel the soundwaves and make sense of them.
I carry my nose to hold the sweetness of a flower in my lungs,
and skin to caress their soft petals,
without plucking them.
When I carry nothing, I sleep,
and in my dreams, I carry the clouds and the stars beyond them.
From there I may see the things I have yet to carry.

I carry my own weight across the populated Earth.
I carry my own gravity and the light of the sun.
I carry the stars from my dreams, and from them,
I create constellations in broad daylight.
I carry my heart.
I carry the soundwaves of voices like
space nymphs, singing songs I want to remember.
I carry the sight of people coming closer and drifting further from me,
escaping and re-entering my orbit,
an arm-length or a light-year away.
I carry their images and sometimes,
I reach for their silhouettes and I try to feel their thoughts.

I carry my heart and it is full.
My heart is filled with emotion,
and my emotions are the Earth’s turbulent winds
across a golden, sun-kissed field and
the sound of a waterfall crashing into
a pool of water at the bottom of the valley, and
equally the eye of the storm in which
the world is a spinning oblivion,
but here, it is quiet.
My heart is the recollection of times past
in a yellowed, well-worn tome awaiting a reader and
the diary of someone whose story begs to be forgotten.
My heart beats for someone to understand its journey,
but it longs to understand what it beats for.
I carry the silence and the music alike;
I carry the Earth and all its wonders.

I don't know why I went to the park that day, to be honest. But it was as though the idea was contained in the center of one of the anti-depressants that I swallowed that morning, as though it was released into my bloodstream along with the rest of the ingredients that usually bring me a sense of peace (on good days), as though it bloomed like a vine that weaved through my capillaries and consumed every part of me. Once it took hold of me, I couldn't rid myself of it, so I succumbed to it. As soon as the bottom of my sandals made contact with the soft dirt of the playground, goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin like every memory bursting through my subconscious. The last time I was here, my shoes never met the ground, because you carried me on your back like a child and set me down gently on the tire swing just inside the entrance. I walked slowly towards the swing, envisioning how we must have looked that day. My hands clinging to the chains supporting the tire like they held tightly to your heart strings, my legs kicking from beneath me as though I were splashing in the waves of every ounce of love that poured from us, and my hair flowing in the breeze with the same ease that we existed in each other's presence. Your hands pressed against my back and pushed me higher and higher, and although I was swaying several feet from the ground, I had never felt more safe. I could hear your laughter from behind me and the soundwaves wrapped around my chest like a parachute that I knew would carry me to safety. I felt drawn to the swing once again, so I lifted my legs over the tire and wrapped my hands around the chains once more, rocking back and forth slowly. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to feel the rythym of the swing throughout my entire body. But my meditation was interrupted by a familiar sound that seemed to be gliding upon the invisible fibers of the light breeze that was softly kissing my cheeks. The sound wrapped itself around my head and entered my ears, filling them. I opened my eyes to see several shadows walking in my direction in the distance. The trees overhead were offering them a cover that they slipped quietly beneath, but within seconds, they stepped into the sunlight and I caught my breath. You were among them, and your head was tilting back in laughter, and your hands were moving gracefully in front of you, and your feet were walking swiftly as though you weren't wading through a swamp littered with my memory. And that was when you saw me, and if I hadn't been looking right at you, I wouldn't have noticed the slight twitch in your smile when your eyes met mine. But you didn't miss a step, you never did. Not even when you wrapped your fingers tightly around my heart and then shattered it into a million pieces. I couldn't remove my gaze from you, from your graceful and unaffected presence. I couldn't even register who you were with because I was so focused on the way your tongue slipped effortlessly in and out of your mouth. And if I wasn't mistaken, you slightly lifted your head in my direction as a nod of recognition, but you kept on walking. And I kept staring, because I always seemed to be the one clinging to something that was already gone. But it was in that moment that the vines in my bloodstream dissolved and I suddenly felt free from it all, as though it was my purpose to revisit the place I have replayed in my mind a thousand times only to replace it with a new memory. And it was in that moment that I realized that all you would ever be from now on is a memory, an empty tire swing swaying in an invisible breeze.

Not so far away girl
still so impossibly far
why must we wait until sunrise
to fall asleep?

Why is this beauty only conceivable
after the bottle dripdrips empty?
sinking deeper and deeper into saturn's orbit

youthful vibrant fluffed up peacocks
clucking on about research chemicals
and music festivals and last night and 6 days before
about banking and obamacare
and oh, my they're all talking
all at once
talktalktalking about this this this and that
not even asking for audience
soundwaves echo into nothingness
screaming lungs void of substance
fleeting purposes
failed courtships
unheard unimportant words
and oh, my, what a tedious thing
the night has become
but to stay at home alone
would be even more unspeakable.

Outside the party across the street
there is a tree
splayed out overhead and undergound
soaking up carbon growing tall still growing
slightly sad tree breathing in the silence of our sighs
dancing fallen leaves wrapping up the deadspace around us
deadworld space where we two sit under the edge
of revelry and absurdity
laughing, drunk, with the moon and the stars and
for just a second
feeling
slightly less impossible.

It is because of you that I am fully attentive
Soundwaves that wash over me from start to end
Music, my only friend

Now, we ride the waves of wifi to get what we need
But our gaze upon an artist is lost
Once our playlists consist of only a few of their songs
Handpicked amongst others, so our entertainment isn't lost

I understand the desire of variety
But I value the intimacy of a record I can hold
Knowing that for a while, it's just me and this music alone

seven years young, always sharing a still smile.
You find him decked out and drowning in choir robes, with
Golden curls placed gently on a hammered head.


This boy plays piano in a dead sanctuary
Following familial rule,
until he let it all go.

the boy began playing music unwritten,
off hymnal sheets
Harmonious melodies stream from dancing fingertips,
Intrinsically clearing the once-cloudy air with vivacious voodoo.

The boy’s fingers groove up and down the piano,
His touch graces ivory keys and
His foot performs a rhythmic pedal-pressing tango.
He calls the audience: everywhere, eyes ignite like flame:
A communal headturn towards the piano.

They need more.
They crave it.

All the sanctuary people rise from the seats,
Abandon their pews, they enclose this boy.
No means to scare him, they want to experience.
The audience turns their ears towards the piano’s emissions,  

Emanating from within

Inhaling soundwaves—
Intoxicatingly sweet.
They absorb his notes into every pore of their skin,
Fueling their bodies with musical nutrients.
Electric jolts flow right into the room’s extremities.
They let down their hair and begin to dance.

Until a brief noise, distinctive throat-clearing, came through the speakers;
Heads shifted to the podium, only to see their ticked-off pastor,
Smirking and waving sarcastically.

Discipline.

The congregation stumbled back to their seats.
The boy stopped playing.
Ending the enchantment, killing the sanctuary.

Air again filled with ‘God’s voice’
through the mouth of the speaker.

A speaker who just wanted attention.
The boy slipped out of the piano seat, out the church’s doors.

You want to chase after him, give him a ride
Where could the boy be going in the middle of the storm?



The pastor’s prodigal son.

here's to the glam rock messiah of outsiders and misfits,
the androgynous man of the stars with the music.

born in brixton,
he traveled the universe by spaceships and soundwaves
with wild hair and one eye dilated.
book-loving and queer,
in love with the thought of turning 50.
the world had never seen a man
living different lives at once,
but here the starman came reinventing himself:
ziggy stardust, thin white duke, aladdin sane, major tom—
all different selves tied together by his heart.

he lived his earthly mission, rightfully so
that even the gravity of the world could not keep him put.
so on and on he strummed his guitar and crawled on stage,
in spaceboots and dresses, in porcelain doll makeup,
reaching out to all the nobody and somebody people

but one day his cosmic vessel
was taken down by a secret sickness
and halted his mission here on earth,
and so the streets and little bars smelling of cigars
were flooded by the ones who mourned,
who looked up to the stars,
wondering where their starman went.
the world had never seen such an electric creature,
but here the star man came in music and dance,
saying it was alright to be weird—
to embrace strangeness
in a world where every earthling wanted to be the same.

and perhaps, he isn't really long gone:
his time here may have ended
but now he is out there, somewhere,
on some distant star,
watching over the Earth as he always has.

Collaborate on a spotify playlist that will play on shuffle in my casket after I go.
I want you to add songs you want me to feel the radio signals of.
We know we feel music with a fifth sense,
A full body ASMR tingle
Whispers of russian woman fixing our robot parts.
Well I can't hear you, speak, move or eat
But bones vibrate to soundwaves just the same.
Give my casket the best **** bass you can find.
Bass that will wake the dead.
Rattle me like an instrument the way you plucked strigs while we were alive
You have control over what i hear after I go
So you may play me music beautiful as we played in the space between our fingertips

Play spotify in my casket
Only you and those i trust have access to adding songs.

But don't add garbage music.
Because I swear, I will haunt you.

Husky eyes
They stared at me
Like a terror in the night
I'm being terrified

Soundwaves get so low
To where creatures howl
The thread inkling looks to thin
Cells explode to their looks within

Bluff, puff, ****** eyes
Don't stare at me
I can get no sleep
Please let go of me

a single note slips out of the chord
as the others cling to safe harmony
she turns the soundwaves to crackling lightning
she becomes the tension of a catastrophic earthquake
she pushes the limits of the dam and threatens to flood
she is dissonance
and she will hold out before her resolution

Sordid ways
Manifest in exquisite shades of gray
Hiding from the sun In the shade only to complaining
about how dark it is
Mark this in your notebook, quick quote
Like going for broke is nothing compared to running for smoke
Hoping I choke on the next pill
Please stick in my throat
Riding the broken ferris wheel
Of blood, sweat and choked tears
I stud the walls with stars
and crush bars on mars
And break fists with locked cars and bottles of tar
And there you are under me
I bear teeth and tear sheets
And leave a trail of beats broken and ****** in the streets
I'm tasting tarmac under the weight of a thick black boot
Steel toes hold my nose to the road and I let go
And when my arms released I fell through the concrete
Floating weights in the breeze, at ease
To where she pleased
Indivisibly re-made, but the road isnt re-paved
Potholes crack my bones
****** stones mark the way
I was born into this
A writhing pile of spit and ****
Mixed with molten steel and brimstone and lithium lips
Living in Zildjian hits and Fender amplified Soundwaves
My breath wastes in songbreaks
My voice creates earthquakes
I make myself what i want be
ovecome whats in front of me
Cause theres something inside
that wants to fly so i let it ride
At first sight or at first light
whichever brings life
Because I feel like walking through some fire tonight

On occasion,
I have been driven to acts of extreme nonviolence
by those who have expected the opposite of me

There is nothing quite like
the sound
of a father's dismay
at his son
who refuses to strike him
despite his deepest wishes,

Or the relief in a girl's voice
after promising,
without her asking,
to never abuse her.

I think something is wrong with me.
For I am only violent in my music.
Is grunge what life is suppose to feel like?

Is that what my best friend hears
every day he shuffles past
loose bottles and snapped belts
to crawl into bed,
hoping to not distrub the presence
which gave him life?
A presence still snoring out the whimpers of his little brother?

Did my dad hear bass tabs
when he told his abused siblings that
"there ain't no way I'mma treat my children like he did us?"
I wonder,
does he still hear them?

Are howls and chords what the boys in bathroom stalls
playgrounds
hallways
classrooms
my bedroom
my porch
my basement
hear when they make me taste the ground?

Can the violence of soundwaves really be mistaken
for the passage of time?
Does life truly deserve a Grammy for
Best Harrowing Performance?

Is life really just one big mosh pit?

...

On occasion
I have been driven to acts of extreme forgiveness
by those who deserved only a little

All they had to do was ask
and that is what scared them

Maiden and Observer

As speculated,
The observer and the scientist
See an enigmatic entrance.

The arrival of the specimen:
He shows haste,
His wrist flickers:
Punctuality.
He mouthes questions of career:
Orderliness.
His vocal appetite silent:
Surrender.
He declares instruction:
Superiority.
He brightens athleticism.
Focus.

The smile appears through
in the unknownest places,
Within restaurant doors,
Through the soundwaves.
Through ideations:
Competitive movement.

Inertia and stagnation is of disinterest.
Wordly reflection produces empty reciprocration.
Can it be a metaphor for the observer,
Can the specimen by the symbol?
Both reflected from one another.

There is the one,
and then, the other.
The challenge is:
Exhibiting both states
Simultaenously.
This is the task of the maiden.
The balancer of scales.

The scientist seeks to understand,
There is evidence of somes sort
A hidden bliss a smile inside,
a moment of analysis.
Notions brought on by previous experiments.
Past failures predict present outcome,
Recent knowledge or estimation?
Emotion links to reason,
Reason negotiates but stands firm,
The scientist is fatigued, his hand lowers.
Body language is lazily interpreted by curious Observer,
Studying this new behaviour.

The professor places his spectacles on,
He sees no other path to take,
He concludes and hypothesises,
This specimen can be learnt from
No more.

Specimen's silence allows flowing thoughts to pervade the mind of the observer and the scientist.
Silence given to the cynicism of life,
the broadened mind
perceived as narrow.
The observer is observed.
Now conciousness changes in the realm of the user experiencing himself.
Self perception, self defense,
Guard is raised,
Gates are closed.
Only water flows through,
Other matter obstructed.

Maiden, Observer, Scientist, Specimen.

Brown eyes scan the crowd.
Wild with fury.
Frantically hopping from face to face.

She is hunting, with an intention to ****.
Your heartbeat spills over her eardrums.
She knows her prey is nearby.

She focusses on you,
And you finally see her, too late.
She is only meters away.

No escaping this time.

People slide past like ghosts.
Not one of them notices you, frozen in fear.

Her hate cannot mask her hurt.

She is an injured creature,
Out for vengence.

Her mouth curves back into a snarl
To reveal the sharpest teeth you've ever seen.

You search desperately,
For a man with an axe,
For someone to protect the castle.

But an imposter's lips can only call for help
Is so many instances

You are caught.
No escaping this time.

She circles, preparing to strike.

Her lips shape one word:
Liar

It's soundwaves wash over you,
Truth knocks you to the ground.
You were only ever house of straw.

Retracting her claws,
She retreats into the sea of oblivous faces.

You're humilty served.

You are left in shreds.

Nobody notices.
Nobody cares.

I know winter has
arrived.
The nights
are now
frigid silent
As if the very
Chill
compressed soundwaves.

As if the very
cold that crept through to
my marrow,
unimpeaded
by however many layers I was wearing
(it was two),
laughing and biting my nose,
burning my
throat and lungs with
each breath,
could actually
block out the noise!

As if the very
ice in the air had
magnified the moonlight
wiped away the
fog and smog
pollution and dust.
Cold Air Filtration.

...And that's why, with
weather cold enough,
from high enough,
looking hard enough
mortals may see the light
but
will probably
Blink.

Soundwaves Break
Vibrating through as
his heart swells
Building up sensations
an unignorable spell
Releasing an excitment
so divine he slides
out of his hiding
and begins to rise

I can only write on the computer.
And I suppose that that’s not really the right thing to say, because people are going to say that I really am part of the next generation who survives solely by technology.

I really do try to write on paper, but I can only use pen because pencil smudges too easily and the end gets so dull,
So when people say that they can’t send me a link to one of their favorite poems because it’s on paper, my respect for them goes up by about sixty percent.

The part of writing on paper that scares me the most,
the part of speaking in real life that scares me the most

is that I can’t delete words.

On Microsoft Word, I can go back and add words into the middle of my poem, I can look at it as a whole and as a half and everywhere in between,

I can delete half of it and forget about, and that half will be lost forever.

But the way my fingers sometimes stick to the keyboard reminds me, I think, that the words that I’ve deleted stick with me forever, no matter how lost they are.

They’re not in some vast, infinite vacuum of the internet-

but stuck to my fingers because that was the only physical presence of those words at the time they were given life.

(Baby ducks follow the first moving thing they see when they hatch,)

And it’s some weird, modern folk tale, how the words got life, and how the words died.

So maybe if I’m the only one who can’t write on paper, then this word carrying curse is the punishment?

It’s a special flaw that makes the protagonist unique but relatable, (along with making her not able to spell anything and not able to talk to people)

And if poetry is just rambling and writing is ranting, then what are words.

The cancerous cells in a slice of bone marrow?

More likely some hellish creature that comes out of everyone only at two in the morning,

or the sticky stuff that I feel sometimes on my keyboard (or is it my fingers?)

Because my sticky fingers are a word’s physical form,

and if you think about it, you really can’t ever touch a word. They’re either soundwaves or dried ink on a dead tree, or pixels on a screen.

(or on your fingertips or your tongue.)

And I carry them with me everywhere, on my tongue and on my sticky fingers.

Narcissus was hunted,
His life abated through reflection
‘Till all that was left was his beauty
Stained on the water’s surface,
And his tale as a flare in the night
For every proud soul.

Thenceforth we shamed ourselves,
For every fleeting glimpse at the face
Which contains the twinned thoughts of our own.
The mirror, now a symbol
Of despicable self-assurance,
Man’s vain invention.

It is the microphone
However; the tool that listens,
Clamours attention to every word
And breaks in vicious soundwaves,
That’s the true measure of vanity,
A catapulted voice.

The mirror, used more so
As a reflection of our self-doubt
And all of the fear people can see.
My self-effacing curses,
My knowledge of singularity,
And total lack of greed.

I was grown-up for the first time
Sitting at the bar alone.
I left my scarf on, let my
Coat slip off to reveal bare shoulders.
If it was cold that night I never noticed.

We slipped into the car and
Sat breathing the same soundwaves.
I just wanted to be happy.
I just wanted you too look at me with
Older eyes that used to take
My clothes off, that used to keep me
For later.

We sat on the edge of your bed and
Slowly laid ourselves down into
Strange hands; new calluses we never
Felt and new feel
To those same sheets.

I don’t remember the morning overtaking us.

You stood in the doorway.
I cried as I kissed you.
The only night you let your love show.

My mother's love got taped on reels and spools,
Cassettes she threw on on an old-school deck,
On wheels that spun straight through our lives and went
Unbreaking. What played in us played there on that
Machine, so we were soundtracked to her old-school
Tunes, to folk stuff - sixties hippy **** -
That pulled our radar-hearts around and made
Our souls attend. We'd be bouyed-up on soundwaves,
Beats her hand MC-ed, her finger soft
On PLAY, and sometimes, when the mood was right,
We heard her too. Who knew that half a world
On, on some late night slot, some other tune-in,
I would find her track, and be rewound?
Her sonic reverb tells me, “dance now, dance”.

I'm not very smart
This is of myself
I gave you my heart
And hope that you help
To...

Keep me together
Keep me from falling apart
But I shouldn't have done that
After I gave you my heart

The pounding sound of heartbeats drown me in their noise
My eardrums on the verge of bursting, but I have no choice
Taken over by the soundwaves, lost in a cloud of rot
My ears are bleeding, because of your voices, I can't stop.

The deafening overwhelm of nothing
When the credits fade
Or the note hits its final crescendo
The “thank you for watching”
soundwaves enter your eardrums
Your surroundings stare back, begging you to pay attention
The clothes piles
The ***** dishes
Dust on shelves and countertops
Everywhere is clutter
Walking is a landmine
Suddenly it hits:
You can’t tell the difference between now and five days ago
You know that something aches
Maybe the chemical imbalance, maybe the loss of an old friend
It could even be everything
But it’s definitely something
I can feel it every time I wake up and I smother myself back to sleep
sometimes I won't even let myself use the bathroom
But there’s plans in the diary
And an exciting life laying the footpath ahead of me
And yet
The silence blasts in my ears
And sores my eyes
Hollowing me inside
I’ve always been like this
I just don’t know if I have it in me
To roll up my sleeves
And try again.

His fingers barely brush my body
It may only be atoms connecting
Molecules bonding between the two.
He uses them to read me
As if my skin is covered with Braille texts
And he's trying to find the answer to a riddle.

The ache in my brain
May be from the alcohol
Or it may be from the intensity.
Maybe too many sensations
Can cause brain cancer.

The memories play in my head
Like a silent movie.
The kind with mustache-twirling villains.
Except in this movie there is no villain
Just a man and a woman
And whiskey and a pool.

Tomorrow his sweet nothings
Will run through my head
Though they're far more than sweet
And far more than nothing.

I cannot need anything more
Than his hands.
His electricity will power my heart.
I cannot need anything more
Than his words.
His soundwaves will bring me to perfection.

calamity and noise
polute my calm poise
distraced by the confused solute
of try-it-again rhythms

Our lips are not for speaking truth
beyond the barrage of empty words
that flow from their parted caves.
I’ve taken to holding open my ears
because there is so little you can hear
when you rely on deceptive soundwaves.

The truth lies somewhere within
the silence of two lovers on
a king-sized bed in a rented room
smelling faintly of *** and
someone else’s faded dreams.
It lies somewhere in the electric touch
that travels on the closeness of skin
as two hands quilt their fingers together.

Two hands melt into one
sharing a pulse that speaks volumes
louder than anything the lips
could ever try to spill out into the air.
Listen not with your ears, but
with your fingertips along the curves
of her body, the open chords on
your guitar, make her sing your name.

Study her like the holy books
you never bothered to pour over
in search of authenticity,
in search of meaning.
And when you crash together
harmonizing strings of pleasured profanity,
gasps, sounds that almost form words
It should feel the same as
holding her hand.

And even long after you finish
return to your sides of the rented bed
collapse near into sleep with a
frenzied exhaustion
don’t let go. Right between your
fingertips lays the closest path
you will ever have to hearing
words of candor.  The truth
Lies between two lovers.

All sounds
Speak
To your body you
Keep
None

each day,
or afternoon,
as a fresh start
flutters at my eyelids,
my mind begins to race,
and i am presented
with a choice--
split right down
the middle of my
consciousness.

one half of me,
growling and snarling,
sees only the bad.
he hears the demons
in my home.
he wears my insecurities
as his own.
he watches the fears
i replay, they increase.
he encourages my sadness,
becomes my self-loathe.
and as his arms encapture
my own soul,
i feel the melancholy
press down,
overwhelming me
as i surrender.

the other half,
shy but bright,
sees only the good.
she is the soundwaves
that always wash away
my tears.
she shows me the
first days of autumn.
she laughs at the bad,
and shows me the
overwhelming good;
waits for me to come
to her,
and then embraces
my soul lovingly.

as these two halves
battle in my brain,
i must choose--
to be happy,
or to be sad.

the sun rises,
and the sun sets.

the mouth of the wide vortex is in esse,
made of the same atoms as flowers and
oceans, organs and soundwaves, it demands
physics, laws, follows them with faithfulness
just like one of us. nothing more nor less
is it, no great power does it command:
in disbelief we shoot it from our land
back to its ‘place’, no boundaries transgressed.
how could we believe in those new places
viewed from the jaws of the living threshold?
that it’s all like our home, all vast and old
and developed. if we just go into space,
the secrets we long for would then unfold.
with care, accept the vortex’s embrace.

Somewhere along the way
we forgot to tell you that
this isn’t always fun,
that writing, like Hemingway
said, is akin to bleeding.

Apparently we forgot to mention
that, like Selby says, it doesn’t
take much to do this; it only takes
everything you have.

I know for me, more often
than I would care to admit,
I’m still writing out my horrible
fears, feelings of inadequacy,
intense depressions, memories
of fistfights in boy’s rooms of
elementary schools, middle schools
and high schools all over this city.

That **** doesn’t just go away, you know.
But, writing about it helps.
Hell, writing about anything helps,
but it’s not always fun.

Sometimes it feels like drowning in a barrel of tar.

I will never forget watching my daughters be born dead,
I will never forget seeing my wife’s puffy, tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes,
I will never forget what I did to deal with what I saw, with how helpless
it all made me feel, how inadequate I was as a husband, as a parent, as
a partner.

I couldn’t fix any of it. I couldn’t take any of it away, but there was one thing…

I could write.
I could bleed ink.
And, I did.

I bled decibels too.
I took these notebooks full of bile,
of misery, of near insanity, to a bookshop
with a PA and a live microphone.

I used that microphone to spread my disease
as far as the soundwaves would carry it.
I wanted infection, secretion;
I wanted a ******* pandemic.

What I learned was that doing this;
writing it out, spitting it out, throwing it out
in small rooms full of people with their own stories
made my stories tangible, alive to an audience of my peers.

Going further back in time, I can recall a pretty clumsy
****** experience.

That girl, in her father’s Winnebago,
she told me that she wanted to do it just to
see if I could, and I could.
She was done with me before whatever sweat
we’d sweated had even dried.

She made me wait at the end of her driveway
for my father to pick me up.

So, when that older poet writes about
lost loves, or lovers long gone, I get it.

Because, maybe he’s writing about how sweet
and supple they were so long ago, so that he might
better be able to get a handle on the recollection of
the biting crush of loneliness that their departure brought about,
and might still live in the memory of his heart.

We write what we write.
Some of us call it poetry,
we may even reach higher
than we perhaps should,
and call it art.

But, I, and I would gather, we
know that it’s not always
a happy or enjoyable task.

It is a task of upheaval
and ultimately of survival.

It is not cute
but it is culture,
not always art,
but artful payment
to that which is painful,
pure.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

He never said goodbye, she never said hello
They exchanged talk, soundwaves from encyclopedia pages
Wandering into each other's doors and out, unintentionally
Noticing the chipping paint and bald nails but mentioning nothing to preserve the friendship
He longed for her skin, she pined for his mind
And in every spiral they missed the count or forgot to look
And now they read they sorriness of it all in a book written by no one

-cj

In 1963, Ohio State pointed an ear towards the heavens.
They figured if someone had something to say, at least we’d be listening.

I’ll still talk of the stars in your eyes to anyone who happens to ask,
and I’ll speak fondly of your smile and your charm.

My friends don’t ask me anymore.
I’m told to forget, to give up, to not care,
And my poetry falls on deaf ears.

Fourteen years later, we heard our first note.
And for just a minute, it played louder than space,
And it traveled at hydrogen’s tune.

For 24 years we tried just to hear it again;
but our alien song was no more.

Lately, I’ve taking to talking to stars,
hoping that maybe they’ll listen.
I know I don’t broadcast a hydrogen note,
but I’ve heard soundwaves travel forever.

Maybe, someone’s got really good ears,
and maybe they’re listening hard
Because I’d love to sing them a song of the girl,
the girl with the universe eyes.