"unpaired" poems
The stream
twists, slithers, binds
two banks to each other,
slinking ‘cross the dry gaunt gulley,
unpaired.
Under
the faded trees’
blinds, I sit on stone from
where riparian-paradise
explodes;
California’s stolen soil, air,
are logorrhea in
the toilets of
my ears.
I sit
stream-like, apart, meditative –
echoes of Kumeyaay
swirl inside
my head.
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 7:56 AM UTC
The day we roared with infinite jest the
larder packed tight with provisions burst.
So much canned meats, tinned, pemmican
hardtack we had stored knowing our
journey north would be sufficiently trying
that sustenance would prove difficult.
The slog. The slacking day when you rolled
off the sled, creviced. Your voice booming blue
crystalline as we see, no escape. Trapped and
the cans I hurl into the hole.
Hours I read to you lipped, curled into a
snail, a shell, a crocus of yellow
a dread of
finishing the story and saying to you there is
no
more. So you cannot tell, when the pages have ended
I make up confabulate truth and fiction
embellish.
Pretend the story line marches
forward decades and we are in the Amazon;
You’ve discovered
that the water
that seemed
guileless is crocodile filled.
They bite hard and
you can imagine.
All primary colors on the
floes, all glacial movement, slow to melt, fast to burn through
the colors of our arctic rainbow.
I had primed the lamp the last night, before that dawn, before
the ride in which you fell.
The wick trimmed and each
consequential action of the day I placed
hanks of hair
neatly side by side into banks of snow.
Under my cracked tongue is
a bump that rolls
mole like cyst.
Partner of my travels to this cold realm, your self shelved.
Below: Did you hear me whisper? Asking why today
have I become.
The whispered promise of holding
upright against the dark. I thought.
It would be magnificent.
Not even fanfare. Or aurora borealis. Or flight.
Yes dreams of flying.
Yes dreams of ahah so it is after all.
I thought I would recognize the moment of unleashing.
What makes the special now?
If I whisper Abandon I might hear you echo in the ice. I might see your
boot, attached to. A glove alone, unpaired.
The story they lived, the story they tell is one of each husky,
one by one, no longer. Starvation and then there are none.
But we are in the Amazon, and it is a scorching hot day and there is
much to be explored until you fall into the river and get bit.
I take it all back.
You laugh because I add flying monkeys which is
us pretending that we’ve explored
this terrain which looks like a bed
in a room and a chart.
They cannot
stop your bleed, and so we begin again.
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 1:04 PM UTC
I am down
To my last stick,
But I am still not
Over the thoughts of you...
Of your gentle voice,
Of your tender lips,
Of your warm embrace,
Of the tiny c r e a s e s you make on the bed sheet,
Of the fragrant musk,
Of the window dust you used to wipe off,
Of the unpaired slippers,
Of the now cobwebbed toothbrush,
Of the hair strands left on my towel,
Of the socks,
And of the smell of your mocassin.
There's just so much of you I am helpless about
Now that you're gone
As I blow this last packet of smoke
Into the darkness of this spirit room.
I weep.
Jun 24, 2013
Jun 24, 2013 at 8:28 PM UTC
To touch base, I've mixed with bass,
treble; or tremble at the highest volume,
audiotapes left in the closet, those love
confessions in secret; titled into a mixtape,
Or was it a mistake to place myself in the
music I tried to write?
The lyrics are just me ranting away,
in the thinking of finding a way.
I feel a little blue today; in a jazz of a saxophone,
ordering snacks on my phone. It feels too easy to
rhyme. To play with my words. CD discs,
I was scratched by love; in the ignorance of bliss.
Sad playlists saved in good question,
earphones stuck in my ears while I'm still asleep.
Good reason for me to seem so restless,
bluetooth speaker; hoping to successfully connect.
Still pairing to an unpaired match I could bet.
But music is always emotion, just in beat,
catchy hooks, melodies, and shuffling your feet.
To get you off your feet, get you to think, and as
my dad would say, "your favourite songs gets your *** lit"
I can't function without my music.
Jun 21, 2022
Jun 21, 2022 at 3:44 PM UTC
Think of the lonely hearts at the zoo
Kept captive for reasons they haven’t a clue
Souls kept unpaired on the ground
Not a mate for them could be found!
Should have thought of it when trapped from the forest
Or acquired them from another zoo
Showcased them those unwilling guests
Forgetting they need mates too!
Mightiest animal decides these creatures’ fate
Dictates how they should live and be grown
The right time to love and have a mate
Or spend life in their enclosures alone!
In the name of care you make their lives messy
Consign them to the doom of loneliness
You ruin their home invade their privacy
No wonder the zoo doesn’t have a happy face!
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 1:33 AM UTC
Will I lose or will I break.
I can not let my Addict mind
Take over as it will convert quick &
dope will become my fate.
For ever Gone, unpaired & Lost.
Toss my self away to the drugs
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 7:10 PM UTC
The poetry of longing
is but the bright side of despair.
The expression of a yearning
for a love no longer there.
The embodiment of our parting
that cold dark Winter’s night,
brutal in its finality
beneath the stars unblinking light.
We turned there from each other
as two halves, now unpaired,
Each knowing in our hearts
the bitter tasting fare.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
keep plodding
Keep plodding the great
unpaired line up
basking in the illumination that
streams
from those opposite
of them
some sick trick
of light
or dark
that sends those caught
in the crossfire on a wild goose
chase into the night
some version of this that works our
limitations
Breed
Stagnation daily
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 12:50 PM UTC
I feel like "orange",
Nobody rhymes with me,
I am bright and bold and delicious
And I am loved...
But I am alone.
I am unpaired.
Nov 18, 2020
Nov 18, 2020 at 9:46 AM UTC