Deaths we do not fathom

Two poems that center around death in some way or another. I bet that makes you really excited to read them now. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them nonetheless :)

Death by the Blade

Even in dreams you can be stabbed; I’ve known it:

the cold dagger sliding into your breast from

a person at the door; the anger different than

the blade, less solid than a statue, yet larger

than the house, or the tree that shrouds it.

But the anger also is the blade, hidden inside

a dusty cloak, as suddenly revealed as it is buried

inside your tired heart. There is a shock deep

within the cycles of sleep, a wound that kills you

once, before the dream repeats.

The scenarios vary, but you cannot stay

dead for long; there is a motive to fulfill,

a belief to share, a reason for their hatred and

your many deaths. Your mind begins to learn who

to trust, where to speak, and when to flee.

Too bad we don’t remember these warnings.

The dream doesn’t leave behind photographs,

only watercolors stirring in the memory that

recall the sting, the inability to escape, and

the betrayal felt. But more often I fear the details I

can’t remember: the wielders of the blades.

A man or a woman, young or old, stranger or

friend. I watch them all now; I sense the daggers close

to their skin, a guard against threat. I recognize also

the weapon beside my own heart and resolve to

throw it away, or surely life will be lost. 

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Earthquakes

Perhaps there was an unjostling of the heart

that I didn’t notice.

Then, I was waiting to be served,

my mind in a book, the book in my hand,

the hand relaxed on the edge of an old table;

the table may or may not have moved.

The waiter asked if I had felt it,

the echoes of the Virginia earthquake,

200 miles away, past plains, rivers and mountains,

or so I imagined. He told me

of the boxes shaking in the back room,

though nothing spilled: no broken

bottles to clean up or

fires to put out;

though closer to the seismic center, there were

cracked buildings with

split pipes, water and gas spraying

into the street,

and real people.

But we didn’t mention it, couldn’t fathom it;

we forgot it,

and laughed about our lost

chance to experience

an earthquake.

Nearby, another customer was still reading,

unaware and absorbed in a letter

from a place I don’t know,

a place I can’t even imagine,

a place that doesn't exist.

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Both of these poems are, in fact, based off of personal experience. The first was really a dream where I was going around talking to people (as if I were still on my mission) and people would stab me and it hurt. And then it started over again with a slightly different set up and each time the me in the dream got smarter and more ready to combat or escape from my assailants. It was a pretty weird dream; I'm not going to lie. So anyway, the next day I kept on thinking about the dream as I was walking around and decided it would make a pretty good poem, and I think it did (I like it, at least).

The second poem was based on the earthquake that just happened in Virginia. I was actually sitting in the Apple Store, not a restaurant, (the former would be a little hard to explain in a poem) but I was reading a book and I didn't notice the earthquake; nor did the Apple Store guy who attended me. He mentioned how it was the second time he'd missed an earthquake (the first time he had been sleeping) and he joked about it a little. Only later, as I thought about it, I realized how lightly we take events like this sometimes, as if, because a disaster happened far away to a place we don't really know, it's almost like it doesn't exist and the pain isn't real. Therefore, that's the kind of idea that I was trying to work into the poem. 

Hopefully something got across from either or both of these poems. Thanks for reading!

Portrait of a Young Traveler

A long time ago I wrote a simple poem that I titled simply "Portrait #1". Over the years I've come to consider that poem one of my own personal favorites. Perhaps because of that, I like to title certain types of poems with "Portrait" in it. The following is one of those poems; I hope you enjoy it!

Portrait of a Young Traveler

The child sleeps in a foreign bed;

his suitcase yawns on the rigid floor;

his clothes are jumbled like bed-hair;

and his days are mixed in his bag

until morning is night and night, morning.

His eyes are closed like airplane windows,

too tired to watch the chase of the sun

or the dreamy forest like a blanket beneath him;

his hands pull the covers close around his head

because summer is winter and winter, summer.

You can find him within the door of that room;

he hears the opening of an old hinge;

he stirs within the thin blue sheets

and counts the seconds of your retreating steps

for today is tomorrow and tomorrow, today.

Traveler's Poetry

While I've been traveling around I've been writing poetry of course. But I've been writing it from the southern hemisphere.  What with the rest of my family also traveling a bit, I feel like I haven't gotten much feedback recently, so I've waited until things have settled down for them to post again. Here's two poems that have come as a direct result of my traveling; hope you enjoy them!

Swansea

Mine was the only car in the lot and the only room with life:
one chamber in a dying heart.
The innkeeper tore off the map and named the streets
with the lines on my hand.
Offseason, the innkeeper called it, as I looked back to the map
half-filled with vacant hotels.
A simple main road was like the tourists;
it skipped in and out of town, along an empty beach
where I would later walk to listen to the snoring waves
while the day aged.

Even the ocean swelled like a old man:
slowly the water rose from its lung
and slower still it heaved against the land.
The sand was a pale beautiful,
born of the winter breeze and left to defend itself
like the children huddled together
across the road. They pointed at the yachts
like they were stars in the dark,
and then to the cars, that shot across town
on their way up the coast.

Tomorrow I’ll follow past the open farmland,
golden fields, and green valleys.
From season to season fires burn the pines and I imagine incense.
I’ll smell it again,
on the other side of this inlet.
There the view will appear like a scenic churchyard
overlooking Wineglass Bay.
I’ll raise my camera like a toast
and point it at this ghost of a town to say,
“May someone remember you when you’re gone."

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The Other Side of Summer

On the other side of our world, it’s still summer;
I am waiting to catch that plane home
days or weeks away (it feels like years
sitting at this cold breakfast table,
where I feed on the wind for conversation).
I wish my morning breath
didn’t paint mist across the sky,
when I begin to see light on the horizon.
You say the heart of the north glows
and I imagine the smell of oranges,
as ripe, as burning, as the dawn’s own fruit;
the taste stings my eyes as it rises
from a leafless tree of clouds
over the ocean (that gaping mouth
that swallows words and warmth).
I shiver beside your chair, filled with an echo
(I conjure you out of my rotating seasons,
through the center of the earth:
a frozen flame that crackles within me),
that no one else can feel.