Previously Unreleased!

September is the best month for many reasons that shall go unnamed, but it seems to also be the best month for this lil' blog of mine. I mean, I just feel like updating it more often this month. The following are some poems written awhile ago that can't be found online, even on my other site (yes, I have another site that I no longer update. The link is on this very blod, in case you missed it). They're just poems that either didn't feel right at first, or for whatever reason I just didn't pass them around. Some are funny; some are personal; some are just interesting concepts taken from my overly active imagination. Hope you like 'em. :)


Savannah
Would you walk with me, if you could?
Though you were born small
you grew in my heart like this city.
I always returned to you, like the child I am,
but your center is the place I looked for,
where the lights shine. Yet you are hidden
in the alleys of the cobblestone streets
that line the river between us.

You draw me in like the marsh tide
and I cannot escape the one way streets
or the city squares that we would circle.
Time pulls at me; I cannot stay here.

I move away and seeing you becomes special,
as if I never took you for granted,
or wanted to get away from the old buildings,
the hanging oaks that hide the open sky.
Revisiting, I wonder who left who behind.
But this is the last time I’m coming back;
this is the end of the known roads;
these are the final steps of childhood.

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Elegy from Savannah
I.
This is the last look into my world,
one of many created, one of my many stars,
the lighthouses that guide me home.
Even in the dark of night, I could find my way here.
The stars shine bright far from the city;
I would watch them from the lawn out back.

At the peak of my youth, I saw meteors falling
and I too am coming down, one last time
to see the house where I grew up,
the house that I am leaving behind.
The welcome lights are on inside,
but now they remind me of fire.

II.
The boxes line the hallway and the stairs.
Dust, like the sun, hangs in the air.
As if I’ve entered inside my heart
and begun to take the rooms apart,
unshelving the memories left behind.
I thought I would cry, but the feeling’s numb;
this kind of clean-up clutters my mind,
trying to package what I’ve become.
I wish, sometimes, to return to where
the house was the world of each new start.

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College Guys
Some college guys still wear diapers.
Not the paper or cloth kind,
but something a little more spiritual,
not wanting to flush or shower
like they think Peter Pan would do it,
perhaps mistaking regression for rebellion,
because they never learned to spell good.

Sometimes I’m too angry and harsh;
I don’t mean to say I’ve grown up,
being the “capable guy” in a black suit
who slides into work with black Porsche.
That’s not the point, never was.
College isn’t about escaping our home,
but becoming our own parent.

Somewhere in a white room
you’re an old man catered to by nurses
who change your diaper and feed you.
You’re done. You can’t do it anymore.
Is this the picture you’re painting?
You might think I’m suggesting growth
but maybe I’m saying “take care of yourself.”
The original reason you came here, wasn’t it like that?

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Envy
I believed it was magical, your life,
like the fairytales I read night after night.
You with her, smiling like heroes
riding away with the sunset in sight.

But you told me it was a labyrinth
with forking paths and no set trail,
no string rolling behind you, and no compass
to the red center, an end yet veiled.

To think a wish could trap your soul
and drag the imagination of your heart
through hedges and dirt, and leave marks
on your world; I, too, want a clean start.

We are alike; I give back the words:
“You don’t know how good you are.”
To think I wanted to be something like you,
I’ll throw away envy, but remember the scar.

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Like Children On Swings
When does love begin?
Even a child can see in my eyes
the embers catching flame in the wind.
He asks his simple question as we stand apart
in a room of crowded people:
“Do you love her?”

I see her talking over there.
Dreams and overplayed images
flow from my mind to my heart,
a flooding river. I say,
“I don’t know.”
and laugh at nothing, eyes looking away.

When does love begin?
Leave it to a child to drag such heavy words
from the depths of my well.

There’ll be no easy sleep tonight,
with thoughts sloshing side to side,
like a bucket, half empty.
I already don’t know when I’m dreaming,
but I often wake before sunrise.

If smiling and laughing with you was enough,
I could give you beautiful words.
If unease and shots to my gut were simple things,
I could move on from here.
But as it is, we’re like children on swings:
meeting for moments and going nowhere.

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The Silent Dream
I saw the closed door at the end of the long hallway,
there where people once dwelled, but now the lights were off
for I knew the furthest rooms were vacant,
the beds stripped one by one, and the furniture put in place.

I stood with cold bare feet at the other end by the drinking fountain
beneath a bright glow that stretched itself even to this distant door,
the one that appeared stuck shut and glued by the shadows
until it silently opened, as if sliding on well-oiled hinges.

My father came out of the darkness as a young man.
He who I recognized from pictures passed the empty places
to put in the mouth of my hands a small gold throne
complete with the old king, whose weight I could not bear.

We held it together, molding away my darker fears
detailing instead airplanes, butterflies, and angels
but I didn’t fly away or drop the ancient treasure
because he showed me how to hold it alone.

Then a child tugged at my pant-leg, my unknown child.
What could I do for him, now with my hands full?
Though he was tired and thirsty I could not carry him,
and my father had vanished, so we were alone together.

The eyes of that child trusted me and looked up to me.
So I took my father’s treasure and formed a footstool
upon which he stood to drink from the fountain’s river.
Surely in his dreams he will remember what I handed down.

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The Old Man’s Torch
In a stubborn dry field
where dusk singes the horizon
and shines like fool’s gold off the tall grass,
but reveals no path to tread
the old man is walking

step by step.

Torch in hand
and wearing the black of night,
he overlooks the unkempt remains
of a long and fruitful season
coming to a fated end

step by step.

The flames yearn to escape
from the dark wind to this wasted space.
He readies his torch to swing like a scythe.
“You’ve had your freedom.
Here is justice.

The harvest is over.”

Two Oldies But Goodies

When I Became Poetry
It was then I loved
Poetry and blue passions.
Students led to rain
Beneath concrete passageways
To feel January’s breath
Moistening the mind.

Told of the haiku:
A distillation of force
Of simplicity.
Not a poet then, but air
Pure and without complexity
Or torrential dreams.

Passion pierces stone,
Water eddies in thin streams,
Wishing to take form
Over my young, broad shoulders
To soak me into being.
I write in ripples.

Oak leaves drift downwards.
Though nothing else comes near me,
The rain is coming.
And if I open my palm,
With ears and eyes listening,
It will catch moments.

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This poem is one of my personal favorites. It originated in 8th grade, walking outside on a rainy day, as described, while studying haikus. And then the teacher had us write several haikus, which I did. Years passes and I got to college, and then I looked back at these haikus and wanted to do more with them. I learned of the tanka, which is 5,7,5,7,7, instead of the haiku's 5,7,5. And so I thought to make this a single poem consisting of four tanka. But somehow, I thought it was 5,7,5,7,7,5. I've probably lost many of you, but if you still understand what I'm talking about, then you'll know that I messed up with this poem. But I don't care, 'cause I like it anyway.

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What goes unnoticed
Perhaps I don’t look nervous, standing before you,
two legs crumbling beneath me.
But I am a piece on auction
and no one is raising their hands.
I am girl being sold into marriage
who cannot let her tears down
or slouch her back or bat an eye.
I am a fool in the stocks,
humiliated and revealed.

How close are you watching?
Has one of us blinked?
Here I am in the spotlight of a stage,
protected only by a practiced masquerade,
while you wait in the glare of shadows.

It is amazing what goes unnoticed.
It was easier when you saw me
as introverted and unfriendly,
not trying to see beyond the stoic mask
and drowning steady voice.

What lies in the tap of my feet,
the plunge of my hand into a pocket,
or the swivel of my head
as I look no man in the eye.

Loneliness and fear
I have sucked inside like a deep breath.
I must continue on.

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Every time I talk about this poem, I say how much I would love to be on a stage and start reciting this poem as if it weren't a poem, as if I was just talking. That'd really surprise everybody, eh? And I would be nervous too! But anyway, I like this poem a lot because I, personally, do tend to read into body language a lot. And because sometimes it's easier to be unknown to others. Not always. I like being around others and having fun and all, but sometimes... in the midst of it all, I begin to wonder which is easier. And I think they both have their difficulties at times. Anyway, I also enjoy poems where I compare myself to a girl because I think it throws people for a loop. Many things do I like about the poem. Hope y'all like these poems too, even if you've already read them before because, as I said, these are not new.

Fast Food

Fast Food
Back on the road, he unfolds the paper,
carefully like feet scuffing the grass.
I listen in the dark to the nature made known
by the chewing, the animal and its cud,
the hooves clopping down the trail.
The slurp becomes a nearby stream,
water rolling over the smooth stones,
churning onto rough rocks, yet unbroken.
The shaking of ice: a distant thunder
no one fears and from which none seek shelter.
And finally the wrapper crinkles in his hands,
as freshly fallen leaves crumpled under toe
along the path to home, to safety, to sleep.
He shrugs and tells me he’s satisfied.

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So the inspiration from this came tonight when I was driving back with some friends from the Temple near Raleigh and we stopped off to get some food at Wendy's because they were hungry. After we had our food we talked a lil' while until suddenly there was silence and I could hear all the sounds of them eating in the car. And it dawned on me how many of the sounds could be compared to nature. And then I thought, "Well that's just a cheap replacement." And then I decided I ought to write a poem about it. Just as sometimes we're "satisfied" by cheap replacements for food, so it is with nature and life in general. And that's sad. Hope you like the poem!

Fireworks and The Archeologist

Two poems posted today, both written several weeks ago and polished slightly since then. The first received its inspiration from hearing fireworks, but not seeing them out the window, while the second I wrote, wanting to write something for the passing of my grandmother, over a week ago. The images come from a trip I took with her some years ago. Well, here they are:

Fireworks
She looks out the window,
and my eyes follow, out into the night,
where lamplights reveal emptiness.
And then I hear the drumming sound
of victory overtaking itself.
The gunshots in the dark, upwards.
This is what calls her attention.

There are no bursting colors
or sounds of bombs dropping,
only the black sky against the rumble
that she calls fireworks.
It is like the marching band,
pounding their red hearts
and beating their chests.

It is a never-ending symphony of clocks,
the crashing of chairs and tables,
doors closing against me.
All this happens out of view.
I forget to listen and the moment disappears.
The triumphal noise has ended long ago.
The lonely silence returns.

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The Archeologist
O remember that my life is wind – Job 2:7

I remember Stonehenge: the rocks piled together,
and the dawn casting shadows like a river of darkness.

My grandmother stopped on the outside of the circle
perhaps imagining herself with a brush,
uncovering history with a gentle touch,

or seeing as the ancients the passing of days,
a cold solstice foretelling the long nights.

And I remember the ruins in Scotland
a village once covered when wind pushed the sand.

Then it lay below us, she and I, walking through time,
entering in homes that once sheltered families
a child and his grandmother, talking around the fire,

or a young mother and father around the dinner table,
in a timeless scene with one son and three daughters.

I wish I could reveal more than the garden remains
of an old island home, lost in this tumultuous aging sea.

But this is how I discover: exploring memories,
searching for the twinkle in my grandmother’s eyes.

Lightning

Lightning
“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning” – The Glass Menagerie

Lightning is what woke me that cold night in summer,
not the sensation of my bare toes, or the open window.
I am always a child in that image.

Lightning is a memory so faded that I can’t remember
more than the black and white, that it happened sometime,
but never the way I imagine: with rain pouring outside,

with the whole world sleeping but I, caught in wonder,
alone in the experience of being hurt, of wanting to drift off.
All you see here is mine and no one else’s.

Lightning is the scent of lavender, years older, by the door
at a place that is not my home, though I dream nightly on the bed
in a room small enough for one, smaller for two.

The thunder echoes afterwards, clapping for an encore
telling me to get on stage, to reveal myself for your diversion
to forget that life has just been struck.

Yet it is the sharpness that keeps me alive,
when people come simply to leave me behind,
when the girl doesn’t walk with me anymore,

or when my grandmother passed away one afternoon.
I hold them with my bleeding hands in a flash of white,
until the darkness reminds me who I am.

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Okay, so this poem probably needs some fleshing out still, since I wrote it last night and revised it slightly this morning, but I think it's a poem with a lot of promise. Also last night, I saw the play "The Glass Menagerie" with a friend and really enjoyed it. The quoted line is one of the last of the play and, considering that the play is a memory play, I made the connection between lightning and memory, and enjoyed the connection so much, whether it's what he meant or not, that I decided to write a poem with it. My mom also showed me a poem recently comparing one thing to many images and I wanted to do something like that too. So anyway, the poem is basically about how whether memory comforts us or haunts us, it is what so many people live from. And it's hard to escape, but somehow, it also makes everything else in the moment more alive. And yet in some ways, it also keeps us as children. I'm not sure if I just made any sense right now to you, but it makes some sort of garbled sense to me. Hope you liked it anyway. :)

Portrait of a Roommate

Portrait of a Roommate
I hear through dreams and I smell the smoke.
I find Tomorrow sitting on the couch,
ashes between his fingers, beer can empty,
telling me he forgot to go outside,
complaining of a headache and the bright lights,
the ones shining in the open corridor.
But he won’t go to bed when I tell him to.
No, he just watches sports on TV
though he isn’t paying attention, not even thinking.
Inside him is an emptiness that smells
of abandon, of hidden rage beneath the blank face.
I return to my room and turn off the switch again.
I want to sleep, but I turn to the wall too often,
imagining I can move in with Yesterday.

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Well some of you may know that I have a roommate that smokes and it drives me up the wall. So last night this scene basically happened, with some minor changes here and there for poetic effect, naturally. And yet, I decided to myself that the whole thing could be symbolic for someone who's immediate future doesn't look very good or is worrisome. Such is not my case, I like the looks of my future a lot, most of the time in most areas, but there's a lot of people, I think, that are having trouble. Like Tomorrow is some terrible that they can barely face, let alone stand up against. That's sort of what I was thinking while writing this, hence the inclusion of Tomorrow and Yesterday, here. Anyway, I had fun with it. Hope you enjoy it too.