Every now and again I like to post old poems of mine. These poems are a part of me and I reflect on them again and again because to me they capture bits of me. The following three poems are no different.
A Beautiful Sleep
The words came late one night
when all dreams come
to close old doors,
“Don’t you know what life is?”
I thought it sounded like poetry:
a line that never ends,
a hallway of opening doors
where we must enter.
We turn strange handles
because a future is waiting.
A promise of life once given
is never taken away.
All doors are passageways:
the black door, like an eyelid.
There is an awakening.
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I love this poem and remember it often because the first stanza did happen. So I'm a pensive guy, but random questions like that do come to me every now and again. And then the whole concept of this life almost like a beautiful sleep from which one day we will wake is an alluring and powerful image to me. I love it.
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I am
I am the blank slate and pad of paper
pages fluttering with the chance breeze;
I am the smooth stone thrown into the river
that skips before it falls away;
I am the large crowd quiet in an auditorium;
I am the large family talking together at breakfast;
and the group of friends, laughing by the mall.
I am the first to say I’m shy,
I am the second to arrive early,
I am the third option,
and the fourth in line.
I am even the fifth of September.
I’m the strange boy in the classroom;
and I’m the girl who sits beside him.
I’m the woman walking at dusk
and the man
on the moon
in the reflection
in the dark
on the road
in control
but on the fritz
and on the edge
and even I
am ready to say
who am I?
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This poem and the next have a lot of "I am" statements. In both these poems, this blog can't get the spacing as I would have it, but oh well. If I remember correctly both came from exercises we did in a poetry class and I think both turned out well. Both are meaningful to me, at least. I especially like the flow of the middle stanza and the first two lines of the third. I hope y'all enjoy them too.
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From the Year of Dragons
I am from a land that I never knew
upon whose mountains, I am told, I first crawled.
I am from the old and scratched blue station wagon
bought the year I was born
the year of dragons.
I am from the large warm hands of my sisters
and my older brother’s prayers.
I am from the cold bathwater, dripping and wet.
I am from the absences of my father and his age
and the ages that my siblings had long before I was born.
I am from a playground in Japan
and the boat which took me there
from the other side of the world.
I am.
I say I am
from the death of my grandfather
who died washing dishes
which may not be surprising
to some.
To some, I am from the airport in Atlanta
and the waiting room there where I slept
elevated by two chairs
while snow fell from the blackened sky.
How strange to believe, to realize, that I am from that snow
again dripping and wet with one eye throbbing
with leafless branches above webbing the heavens
as the new year’s bonfire burned to ashes
and I am from the snowball that hit my eye
and knocked me into the cold, cold snowflakes
where I lay, waiting for midnight.
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I enjoy this poem because it holds so many memories for me, and memories that I've been told. I also like how the last several images lead into each other. Who am I? Read the poems. :)
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