Song of the Sea

Home was a mountain
That reached to the sky;
Softly I left you,
Not hearing your cries.

In rolled the ocean
So wide and so deep
I let it cleanse me
And rock me to sleep.

And dawn, like a flower
Now blooms through the lies
And beckons me homeward
To see through your eyes.
--

My new friend Kellie and I wrote this, line by line, on the beach. Not just at the beach, but on the beach; in the sand. It was really cool.

Overgrown

Your hands are temples,

Elegant architecture,

Alabaster; let your

Foundation fall, swallow

The empty, earthen hollow

In me, deep.

For when you leave,

The walls grow luminous,

Ruinous, gone to us:

A forgotten room. And

Soon, these seeds sown

Seek light, tight, choking,

In me, overgrown.

$3 a face

I've decided that I'd like a lot more of my poetry available to be read here on my blog, so I'm going to be going through some of my older stuff and posting it periodically. Here's one I wrote about two years ago.

$3 a face

I saw a man
On the streets of San Francisco
With an easel
And a table
And a sign that said: “Portraits: $3 a face”

He sat,
Ready, for three whole dollars,
To poorly recreate, in marks of colored dirt
Any one of a hundred thousand perfect little masterpieces
That God sculpted for
Absolutely
Nothing.

Perhaps,
Like some sort of psychic,
He could read the lines on your face
As a palm reader reads those
On your hand,
And silently explain, with brushes on paper
The truth about yourself
That you knew all along
And didn’t want to admit.

Perhaps, I thought
Those $3 are not for the portrait itself
But for his insight;
You could know, just from those hasty brushstrokes
Whether you were truly happy
Or sad
Or hated
Or loved.

I paused, hands in pockets
In front of him,
Surveying the fluttering faces hung before me,
Sketches of souls on display for all to see;
Some beautiful,
Some not.

His strange, dark eyes found mine;
I smiled, fingering my wallet
And turned,
And walked away.
--


I'd love to hear what you think of this poem. When I first wrote it, my church choir director asked if I would read it for the choir and use it as a springboard for a small devotional. The funny thing is, he had interpreted it to mean the exact opposite of what I'd intended. Which brings up an interesting question, I suppose: should the poet and the reader agree on the meaning of a poem? Personally, I was pleasantly surprised that someone had seen what I'd written from a different angle. It was good for me to have someone point out that things like this are open to interpretation (and/or maybe I should just learn how to write more clearly). Reading it now, this seems a significantly less awesome poem that I'd originally thought...

Anyway, I still read the poem for the choir, albeit so nervously that I was asked to read it twice. I think they liked it. And it worked well for the devotional. So, happy ending. The end.

Morning

This morning,

I woke to find my

Bedroom full of gold.

Someone must have

Come in the night, and while I slept

Draped it over my bed

In rippling swaths;

It clings to the corners like

Cobwebs, like

Just-remembered joy.

Untitled No. 2

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person." --John Green

Untitled #2 (Blue)

Blue.

Simple, human-- it suits you

Or it did, then.

I remember blue;

I remember “Hello.”

But then I fell,

Like the shadow I am,

At your feet: a feeble imitation.

My hands strung with thread

To the tips of

Your fingers,

I dance, silent.

Now,

I see you only in black,

Mirrored fragments, grinning and godlike,

Inky footprints fresh across my mind.

You left an ember

In my chest;

I burned to ash.

Time passed--

I forgot what you are. Forgive me;

Perhaps one day I'll

See you again

In blue.

This City

I feel bad for not writing. So here's an old poem that I wrote almost a year ago.
--
This City

I am the breath of this city
Gasoline lifeblood crawling asphalt veins
This raging, pumping heart's
Chaotic rhythm
Mine.

I am the eyes of this city
Burning spotlights tracing prison walls
These tinted lenses etched with
Fractured beauty
Gone.

I am the ears of this city
Unsettled crowds applauding abstract themes
These clashing, caustic hopes'
Forgotten promise
Lies.

I am the voice of this city
A humming drone feeding countless mouths
This jigsaw puzzle beehive's
Daily labor
Song.

Close the Window

This was meant to be a song, but I could never get it to fit with any music. Also, I don't think it's particularly good. But I needed something to post, and I found this in an old notebook, so...
--

Darling, close the window
The light is coming in
And you only pretend to know
What I've always seen:
This wasn't meant to be.

Darling, close the door
The rain is coming in
And you don't live here anymore
Is it cruel that I,
I just want to stay dry?

Darling, close the book
My tears are spilling out
With remorse for what I took.
And when we learn to live
You'll find what I could never give.

Tell me dear, what took us here,
So far?
I should have known the cold would show
The scars.
So let go.

Life Cycles, I: Dawn

Dawn

inhales

the fleeing stars

and ripens

with blushing, fertile warmth

behind a veil

of blue

and

birth, like crimson agony

soaks the linen sky in blood

and fades.

Dawn,

the infant morning,

cries out in fleeting sparrow-song:

live, and see,

and wonder.

Whole

Several months ago I wrote a poem called "I Am Home (Where)", which I set to music and uploaded to YouTube. Since then, I've been meaning to write more songs, but haven't gotten around to it until now.

Lyrics:

Verse 1:

Breathless with emptiness catching the light

The longer I stand here, the less comes to mind

And it's not what you think

I'm not being naive,

But as free as I am,

I'm alone.

Verse 2:

Reaching for something that has to be there

Each breath a fervent wish, each word a prayer

And it's not what you think

No, I'm not being weak:

This world may be mine,

But it's not home

Chorus:

And I'd go a long way to find

What I hope could someday be mine

It's time to admit I've been waiting for

What I've been created for

Is there nothing more

Than me?

Verse 3:

One day I'll find it, oh one day I'll know

The last missing fragmented piece of my soul

That one final piece

Will make me complete

Yes, I'll understand

When I'm whole.

CHORUS

Alternate Chorus:

And I'd go a long way to find

What I know somehow is mine

It's time to admit I've been waiting for

What I've been created for

'Cause there's so much more

to see.

--

I don't pretend to be particularly good at songwriting, but I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, especially considering the amount of time I spent on it (not that much). This one is much more of a song (instead of a poem-set-to-music) than the last one. Parts of the music had been floating around in my head for a few weeks, but I finally wrote some lyrics and put it all together yesterday.

Some explanations as to why it doesn't sound better than it does:

First of all, I'm recovering from a cold and not singing very well. Second, the accompaniment track is really choppy because I had to record it in pieces and then stick them together in Garageband. Thirdly, the various noise-making objects and animals in my house don't have much respect for recording sessions. And finally, this was all recorded using built-in computer microphones, which is why the quality is so bad.

 But enough excuses!

If you happen to be someone who is good at songwriting, or you know stuff about recording, any comments or constructive criticism you may have would be GREATLY appreciated. Actually, any feedback at all would be great.

Finally, I'll love you forever if you subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

A Sonnet for the Moon

Across that velvet curtain of the night,

Through fields of scattered diamonds loosely tossed,

With melancholy gaze and mournful light,

She searches far and wide for love long lost.

For what does her celestial body yearn?

What hunger monthly starves her to the bone?

What bids her, while a skeleton, to turn

Once more across the sky, cold and alone?

No human heart has known such solitude!

For every night she hides with stoic grace

Her pain, and seems, in earthly eyes, subdued;

Both lovers and lamenters know her face.

She hears each night the cries that mortals make

But not a tear she sheds for her own sake.

---

P.S. I've never written a sonnet before, so, yeah.

Tin Can Galaxy

A little note before you read: I usually like to let poems speak for themselves, but as this one is a little cryptic, I thought I might mention where the inspiration came from. My family and I just got back from visiting my grandmother in Wyoming, and if you've ever driven through that state (especially this time of year), you know exactly how exciting the landscape is. It's a trip we make often, and I'm always struck by the flat, windswept vastness of the countryside we travel through in order to stay inside her little mobile home. This poem is about that feeling. I hope you enjoy (comments appreciated!).
---

Tin Can Galaxy

Curled up inside
A tin can, like
Six little pebbles
We rattle, brittle
In the cold, impossibly
Alive, impossibly small.
Our trek across
That living void outside, that
Gleaming, frozen emptiness
Should have stolen life
Like color from our
Flushing faces, this
Glorious nothing
Our forgotten eternity--
But we live on,
Six glowing planets
Defying infinity with
Our significance,
This hollow, fragile,
Ugly little box,
Monstrously minuscule,
Our galaxy.

Broken Soldier

March, broken soldier, unto that dark horizon;
A shining city is waiting there for you.
Dream past the darkness, your own sun is rising,
Wake! For the dawn comes anew.