Loneliness Poems

Sometimes, as Wordsworth once said, there is a bliss to solitude. But often not. Sometimes when I'm tired I begin to feel a little lonely and I write poetry about it. Not that I'm actually lonely, I don't think, but being tired can play its tricks on you. So here's a long list of poems that I've written, not tonight but a while ago, about that topic. Some I've posted previously, and others not. Interesting how often the topic has come up in my poetic life, and these aren't even all of them. I'd say it's one of the larger themes in my poems - either loneliness or trying to deal with it, or finding comfort from it, such as the last poem here. Anyway, enjoy as you will.

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Hidden WIndows
Are you, too, blessed with open eyes
that you see the patterns in my movements,
the quilt of my days? Are you so wise
that you watch, but never speak the events?
My eyes are windows, thick and tucked inside.

Why do I find you in the crowd where you aren’t lost?
The jumble pushes us together and apart,
yet you trace a path in the shape of a broken heart.
Did you notice all these lines you crossed?
It’s lonely within, stuck amid the moments I hide.

Are you, too, cursed with watchful eyes
that see time and again how others take no note:
the giving hands, the walking feet, all disguised
by a serious face and silence, that ragged coat?
I’m always learning that no one cares to see.

The wind doesn’t stop for a leafless tree.

Why do I veil meaning in a string of words?
No one notices even that which is heard.

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Trusting in Compassion
You know her:
she who loves everyone,
but still sits down with you,
to listen to your good and bad days:
the time when you made 1st place,
when you found a beautiful site,
when you someone loved you,
and also the car accidents,
the arguments that left you weak,
the stress of shouting.

But she knows you;
she talks with you about anything,
listening, mainly, to the tender mercies:
the small smiles and the simple songs.
To her you open up your hopes and fears too,
trusting in her compassion.
She tells you to dream big:
to catch the moon in your palm,
like it’s the hand of a new friend.
And she assures you that you can do it,
that success is yours, if you will take it.

But who really knows her?
When the time comes, you leave her,
for other friends who don’t care as much,
because you know she understands.
You are sure she doesn’t mind.
And she doesn’t mind,
but alone in her room, she thinks aloud;
she writes with ink on paper,
and bangs on the pillow,
hoping she can bury the silence
and re-write her heart.

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Stranded
Listening to the sluicing of conversation,
the lull and roar of the passing minutes,
I am suddenly aware in the silence that drowns me.
I look across the room to see the crowds,
where one laughs and all laugh, and sometimes a shout.
Elsewhere a small group of friends tell the story
how they met someone over the weekend,
how they ought to call him or her sometime, maybe.
A young couple holds hands and forgets
the sounds around them which like waves
wash incessantly upon their solitary island.

And even more are stranded alone on their islands,
calling out, though no one hears them in the wake.
They wreck ships, light fires, run into the dangerous ocean
and still no one sees them or plans a rescue.
What is lost in the confusion of the waves?
These people and I, we are lost in a forgotten sea,
falling apart and sinking deeper into the cold water.
My cliffs are eroding; my shore is slipping away.

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From the Spirit of this Japanese Lake
The high-pitched flute that is casually played
in and out of tune, reminds me of the desert,
like the wind on the water is sweeping sand…
is merely a mirage.

How lonely, the rustling of leaves on the center islands,
the black birds and dead flowers fluttering away
(this cannot only be the wind’s fault),
the vast emptiness.

The walkers do not swim here on a warm day,
as if respect is the same as isolation.

In the shrine-like pier a young boy kneels to ask
if I am truly the master of the lake?

Or is it the old man fishing where there are no fish,
the flute, searching for a watery snake;
the gray bridges, or the bums who come to sleep
in a stretch of shaded paths?

There is life here, but we are not connected;
and how far could I reach anyway, lying only here,
rocked by an inconsistent breeze, unstill like a child,
unseen in an orange corner.

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Late Nights
It seems a habit now to go to sleep at this time
when my eyes are heavy like stones in my pockets
reminders that I carry a burden beyond myself.
I promise myself that if my eyes ever open again
I will rest early tomorrow.

But it seems a habit to sleep at this time
when the moon has disappeared behind the high clouds
and the yard outside is lightless.
It appears so lifeless, but then I hear the owl coo
and far away, the coyote howls as if the moon was never lost.

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Minnesota
I have been a stranger in Minnesota.
The airport and a camp are all I really know.

In the tired airport,
early and alone,
I walked up and down the escalators,
retracing my steps ten times over.
No one knew me
and I recognized none.

We were packed into buses.
The Californian beside me talked without stop
and the scenery consisted of aureate fields and silver highways
that I have forgotten and reimagined.

The camp was little more than a forest by the lake
whose forest was thin,
whose lake was cold and reflective at the end of summer.
And I was still a stranger
walking up and down hills
tracing the steps of ghosts before me.

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The Labyrinth
The sound of water
sluices through the walls of the garden,
the leafy hollows of green.
I am meant to be here,
lost in the shade of an unknown ivory tree
whose branches are my fingers pawing at the blue.
I am a part of this.

If I leave the central fountain will be forgotten,
but there will always be that longing,
a desire for the solitude that stands by you.
I have been lonely in a crowd of friends.
That is why I return
and search for a different companion.
I can join these leaves
where they form the looseness of my hair
and the curve of my face.
They hold me close
until nothing is hidden to them.
I can watch from in there.

And when I reappear,
stepping again onto the red stone trail,
new paths unfold that lead me on,
closer to the one who waits at journey’s end.
He is neither child nor adult,
only the reality of being,
a presence,
an inner self who understands.
He stretches dormant below the magnolia blossoms,
beside the foxgloves that hold his soft fingers;
the emerald grass bends beneath him,
extending out like pleated wings.
He’ll know innately where he is when I wake him;
he has flown above this spiraling world.
Please, I will whisper, carry me home.