Nothing Less True

Reel in the colored trailors
that jar and shine the lights of my mind, and in them
find, the fine wines, where we dine
where we'll plot our points of trouble.
Don't trace your stationary hand on my neck
on my back, on my sides, but sell your mark, cause I must
feel that I'm this real
I'm more real than you
And enclosed is this print, that
Circumstance has drowned me
drawn in deep blue,
what weathered conditions we've seen

they've sorted nothing less true

Candy

Candy mouth, candy eyes
Stark blue windows into your mind
Blue homes line the streets, and
driving down low, it's true
how everything blue
reminds me of you.

Sleep

He died with the airplane roar that was
his voice
That holy roar that tapered after every beat
in mushy clouds that garbled its sound
into sleep
but I couldn't sleep
not with it above me
not without it
dissecting its way into my dreams
and soon enough, it'd be the only thing
i'd see.

Life and all its delicacies.

I've noticed that when people experience grief, all they want, simultaneously, is to be heard and left alone. Because no matter how individual, how private, their loss may be, they will attempt to convey it for others--something not quite possible, even in the realm of experienced loss. No life is measured the same, no life is truly experienced by others quantitatively--but they hope there can be something real and touchable--hope that all life feels equal in loss-- forming something out of nothing, forming bonds out of split ends. They don't want all the fake pity, the cliched words of comfort. But they still go to people--they need people. There seems to be something comforting in knowing what to expect from others. Which brings me to that one line we almost constantly say to someone in need: "I'm here if you need to talk" or "I'm always here if you need me". But are we always really there? Are we always willing to give up 'our' time for them--and are we doing it because it's the right thing to do, or we don't know what else to say? Honestly, I think it's a little bit of both. When you have a friend who has experienced loss, what else is there to say? There is nothing else to say. There is "loss"--and lest we know it or not, it comes in all forms: loss of words, loss of knowledge, loss of motivation, loss of life.

So next time you feel required to say, "I'm always here for you if you need me"--assess if you'll really be there. Assess if they'll really need another "loss" in their life.




Photo cred: amyjart @brickfish.com

To face me now is to acknowledge
I am aware
To face me now is to say
that I care

Quiet Town

Pleasure this, a drab and distant adventure
A sailboat sailing home
Sleep wakes me up a good time
Old horses riding home

Curious Sam's dancing fireplace
A lamp to our quiet town
Brick, dark red, like an aging wine
Striped socks, under covers, set down.

Abandoned little girls left alone in running cars
Dragonflies on windows, scientists, examining from afar
You'll find their electric dreams locked in journals, I suppose
With their smiles still buckled, seatbelts at their nose

Guitars floating downstream, some man outside the bar
Waving at me, drink in hand, lipstick on his collar
Two hands, indecisive, glued in the pockets of my coat
The frozen ocean awaits, just one admitted each boat

Souls preserved in amber glass, two tickets to the show
Words dripping from your mouth, their meanings you'll never know
Puzzling pieces that jumble the mind, they weigh a heavy load
Ruins that haunt the sleepless kind, wandering down the road

Elderly couples, forgetting sense in evergreen rocking chairs
Their favorite books, shelved by force, bellow beneath the stairs
What remains of their minds in the rolling breeze, I've wondered up 'til now
I know what's left, as there's never much left, in the Winter of this quiet town.

Holdin' Strong

As always, I've made the very rash decision to put off homework as long as possible. The time? 12:45 A.M.

Mission... almost accomplished.
I'm a terrible student. lol.

Photo by: AmaliaChimera.

"The More Loving One"

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

(1957) W.H. Auden