"stormfront" poems
I’m watching my roommate come to terms with the fact that he actually likes a girl here who likes him back, and in the darkness of the dance floor, a smile curves across my face like his arm around her. They are happy.
I turn and scan the room for a broken bird, a wing clipped by circumstance and bathroom mirrors.
I find her.
Feathers furled, perched on a chair, her presence is threadlike, the stray ones pulled from shirt sleeves, I hold her between my index and thumb and I feel nothing but air between my fingers.
It’s a beautiful kind of lightness. She is a beautiful kind of lightness. Her hair caresses the air around her like satin.
Her eyes wide, sometimes I think it’s from fear, but sometimes it’s from the shadows of happiness that she allows to step on her heels from time to time.
They are amber. I see crystal histories, lattice lines of the past I wish I could know, but she keeps her stories locked in her stunning amber prisons.
I fled from her tonight. In the darkness of the dance floor there was no light to reflect from her amber eyes, so the grip of my insecurities around my neck tightened, and I left.
I wanted to walk to the lakefront. Clamor down the rocks to let the moon lap the water into mist upon my slacks, I could picture my silver tie reflecting the moon back at itself, drifting in the waves before the saturation of obsession dragged it to the bottom of Lake Michigan.
I couldn’t stand the thought of my tie not reflecting your eyes, the gray circle at the edge of your irises like the edge of a stormfront,
Transient thunder could lie behind the next whisper of your voice or closing of your eyes.
I couldn’t stand the thought of never reflecting your light, so I only walked a few blocks. I kept looking to my sides, reminding myself that the moon, and you, were still with me.
My dear, like the moon, our time is waning.
But my dear, like the moon, your amber eyes are waxing, lunar storms always on the horizon.
How I long for the fall of rain.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 6:43 PM UTC
never dreamed that you'd be here
in the harsh light
of rolling wind
unfettered by toiling fingers
free of the recoil of shames blank face
some write some
some read
some dare to dream of a paradise
only to find a land of disintegrating smiles
seeing both sides of that hot coin
makes my eyes dust
read what iv written in her eyes
with my unsure hand
with my fractured heart
with the knowing
that after this
i am alone on this sea
with naught but starvation and stormfront
she quickens
its abyss or absolution
turn my eyes away from the open sky
i cannot face whats written there
she walks up to me
but frowns at something she perceives and drifts away
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 9:33 PM UTC
limping slowly into the face of
the oncoming stormfront
his cursing voice carries loud and far across
the expanse of asphalt and filthy puddles
his words twisted
and meanings stillborn
but his foul cursing always comes clean and clear
its a point of pride and joy in his small blackened heart
it replaces all the loves wrest from him by stronger fingers than his
they always have stronger fingers don't they
where do you keep animals on a farm
she inquires from the back of his mad mind
where should you be you rough beast on such a fine summer day
but in the cool shadows of infested filth hole
like an insect
her fantasy face fades with its dark smile
swearing oaths of bitter vengeance
to every accursed face that has ever
bent a wicked eye his unworthy way
and degrading the family name of
every wretched leech ever spawned by
loathsome **** feasting ex-girlfriend
now i must pause this bitter dregs for
the smile which such spewing rancid must bring
hand in hand like twin sisters the tell
of the places me and this mad mans mind have gone
in these strange face nights
its very cold in here
and i am in a great deal of pain
but thru the thick window
i see him limping thru the alternating
sun and cloud shadow across the anvil of the lot
to pull me from this broken fate
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:18 PM UTC
A fly tickles my ribcage
Out in the half rain
I postpone the cigarette
Remember to eat
A stormfront of thoughts hovering near
Precarious and portending events
I sweep up in denial until the mirror breaks
I take better care not to fall back again
I take better care of myself now than I did then
But still it comes around as if reminding me
And my normalness is at stake
Even though I probably never was
I'd like to think I am
Just as normal as you all
I'm waiting here semi-passively
My chains of fear still binding me
Stuck between choosing the future that I want
and the things I'll have to face to make it so
All the while wondering where I did go
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 1:50 PM UTC
Through and through the hollow
i must go. till the breach is a chasm to swallow
and the fall complete and looming.
Through and through, i follow
but don't know. till it fills me with a spasm of sparrows
and the all and all is succinct and brooding.
chintz in the blank stare
and glint in the dark
where i assume the shape of things to numb
and feel diluted.
my solution is not the void, but it's sister.
a cookie in my callous
nailed to a stormfront
behind me.
where the hole is the whole
through to you.
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 8:33 AM UTC
I could not see the next summit,
the gashed gnarl of its face.
I guessed only that its steepening
inclines had been set against me.
I could hear all the echoings
of the dead in their ice-tombs
where their aims had led them
and buried them, then, deeper,
the incredible footfall
of sherpas, spirited, light
and deft, unbetraying. A silence
stretched on toward a night
long with unhuman testimony.
Then it came: the world-clearing
hammer-blows of distant avalanches,
the palpitations of chaos,
one whiteout of potentiality.
My tent fluttered and gripped
at the snow that stored for spring
all paths to the peak, leading
through veils of embraces,
inconsolable losses, charms,
fantastic indictments. Swelling
its stormfront, then collapsing
into a voice like winter, the wind
took up a human song and broke
across the horizons. It sang,
'You are an unborn fjord,
a chasm yet to be. Only water
sculpts its beauty: let it pass.
Throw no harness over the clouds,
they hold no secrets, but are.
Here, while you plan your ascent
each night, exalting the fey,
the indolent, the totemic, you are
like a thief on a watchtower.
Until every such night has passed
you will light, tend, and watch die
a small, tense fire, but awake
surrounded by footprints.'
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 2:15 AM UTC
*Invisible current whispering , tapping me on the shoulder then screaming , Oya's dominating the dawn in her fiery gown
Windows thumping , porch chairs bumping ,
thunder rumbling , tall pines touching , cattle running
Water Oaks were shedding , horizontal wind chimes were flailing
Sheets of white lightning flashing , needles flying onto cars , junk from trash cans flying over well houses , pole barns and pickup trucks
The stormfront is passing , Mother Natures heaving breath is taxing , I'm off to bed part two , cracking the window to hear the sprinkles , adding a blanket , snuggling with a pillow , bits of rain tapping hypnotically , back to sweet
Wednesday morning unconsciousness* ....
Feb 15, 2017
Feb 15, 2017 at 6:59 AM UTC
the lightning tonight, when it came
was hidden behind the clouds
like old fashioned flashbulbs
those boxy ones, we used to steal
and setoff under the bedsheets
the rain came and went
in a windblown front
pasing through without
taking the heat from the ground
just making the evening more humid
the thunder lived up to expectations
loud and growling at the world
but brief like a dog called to heel
now it has passed out to sea
and the water drips from the leaves
and the humidity continues to rise
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 7:54 AM UTC