Tag: poetic

To Write a Heart

How do we trace the outlines of the invisible?
where despair won’t touch you gentle
and secret won’t fingerprint its way out of chest
and won’t poetry its way out of fear
the darkened cave of mankind’s deepest secrets
and treasured desires
the place he enters through the mind
tucking away all inner thought
inner being
inner wish
inner fantasy
that real self
hiding in thought
a storage place for his hopes
his hatreds
dreams and guilt
a peeled off echo of coming and going and knowing better
this is his resort
his vacation away from himself
his place of residence
he lives here
inside the cave made of chest
the place he thinks no one will ever find
can we write the heart?
take it beating
bleeding
and dripping with genuine
soaking with regret,
and repentance,
and expectation,
and nerves all tender like
hanging suspended in the air
or on the closet hooks of his thoughts
under the bed spread of memory
flowing back and forth like waves
we stand knee deep in his tears
our clothing soaked with his love
and his hatred too
can we contextualize the heart?
twist it
turn it
influence its shape so that it fits on these lines
can I drink your thoughts?
so that you relate to lyric
and your heart fits the silhouette of this pen
and puts a dent in white paper

To Lose a Friend

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From crayons

To paper

To dreams

To memory.

We tied our wanting into a bow

And placed it on each other’s laps

Where neither trial

Nor thunderstorm

Could wash away our fairy tale.

Did not occur to us that neither plastic bags

Nor happiness

And not even the future was strong enough

To hold us.

We were brave.

We were warriors.

We were safe in each others ears

Promises to each others secrets

No one could tell us any different.

Calendars did not lend us its eyes

Did not carve reality into the sticky notes we placed

On our destiny’s

We merely rode on the backs of memories

We created out of air

That smelled of hope

And lullabies

That felt like oxygen to lung

Breath to life

Truth to wisdom

But that bled deception underneath the surface

Of blue lines

On white paper.

That smelled of jasmine

Now shattering glass

Hopelessly pasted together

Encoding our hearts in one anothers chest

We opened up

Fearlessly vulnerable.

Stored our futures away

With the ease of speech

Letting them hide behind our eyelids

Trapping falling tears into bottles for fear

Of losing sight of the other

Amidst the blurs it birthed

When doubt crept in.

And we held onto these bottles

Like we babysat the others gaze

Too naïve to understand

That there were no guarantees

That we must not put our hopes into fallen stars

And wishing wells

For now we bleed

Both apology and need

For our broken wings

Pierced diamonds

Both myth and martyr alike

Legend to sacrifice

Do you know what it’s like to feel every twist

And turn

Of a dying bow?

To be undone?

Shackled to the worst part of your life story

Prisoners to the memories you created

In each others smiles

Now dangling regret

In the sky.

Love Me Into Music

music-4

the birth of tranquil

when words meet music

racing anxiety slowed,

and slick,

and subtle

like splashes of sunlight

chipping at our faces

warm and comforting

like tapping footsteps

love me

like drumming fingers

like dancing

bobbing heads

and bodies contorted

into the full figure of violin

and singing like half notes

like puzzles brought together

and connecting to the sky

we love like wireless

find us anywhere

find us weak

and fractured

our experiences tugging against our very

existence

like tendons and muscles

our faces pulled back

like nostalgia

an orgasmic melody

of words to virgin ears

potent,

and suspect,

and anxious

musical therapy

a body of instrument

like balls of flesh torn

into stuttering syllables,

and time signatures

and melodies and pianos

we play poetry like pianos

like fingers are feathers

every nerve tickled

by the slightest touch

a Katrina of waves

pleasurable

and strong

like euphoria

brushing against the shores of truth

love me into music

like base that split atoms into frequencies

that scrape the sky

that loves like stringed instruments

this is a love

that sounds

like

music

No Punctuation

Dear Love,

your voice is the sound of pages

I’ve been waiting to read my entire life

like run on sentences

in a book too perfect to end

tell me

how do you shackle power to punctuation

If I could

I would end this poem with a period

or place a comma in the places I need

to catch my breath

but you

will only rush to the tips of my fingers

you see love

will only leak

from the pores in my skin

like the sounds of many waters

flooding its way from Noah’s Ark

you shelter me

like an infant

carefully encased in its mother’s womb

before language existed

before there was ever a need of capital letters

dear captain

you chose us

before there was a thing called history

sucking at its mother’s breast

we are nurtured by the past

to understand the future

Dear Love,

you are the answer to every question

and the sound of your mercy

is the only thing worth setting my alarm clock to

so I’ve chosen to reverence you this way

with outstretched pieces of paper

and ink pens

and a medley of words

all purposed to form the letters of your name

all destined to sing your praise

with no punctuation

no commas

or periods

or apostrophes

just run on sentences

limitless

like sign language I don’t remember learning in Public School

and while my tongue clings to the roof of my mouth

while my heart waits

I’ll write you poems

in the form of prayers

on the palms of my hands

and I’ll leave them running

like fountains of compassion

overflowing the levees of thought

I’ll leave them open

unedited

unrevised

and grammatically incorrect

so you’ll read me

like you always do

and never forget what my heart looks like

with no punctuation

because all the world has ever needed

was love.

These Good People

I will tell you of these good people

A scroll of courtesy on their tongues

Neatly wrapped in rainbows

And angel’s wings

The finest hello

And thank you

And good morning, please

We are telecommunicators

In front of computer screens

With scripts

And sayings

And clichés

That ring sunshine

Like a glass of sweet summer breeze

Trapped in cold winter bottles

Set free

But hurricanes do happen

And thunderstorms will sometimes fall into your lap

You may one day trip over someone’s mistake

Find typos in their smile

Cracks in their armor

Leaks in their wine-skins

And I promise you that these people

Will backspace their lines

Tighten up their scripts

2nd draft their good mornings

Because the sun didn’t shine on you today

One mistake

One mishap

One earthquake

And I promise you

That they will pick out their courtesy from your face

Peel back the savior

Their “how are you?” left in your smile

Pull back the Hero once carved into their chest

That moment they cared more about you

Than they cared about self

But one mistake

And they’ll drop their cape

At the foot of your tragedy

I promise you

That the levees of trust

Will break

And Crack

And leak with suspicion

From the pores of their skins

You’ll smell the stench

Of give up

On their breaths

The sour taste of newborn behind their ears

The fabricated persona

Tattooed on top their tongues

I warn you

Whilst bathing in the wake of your passion

Whilst being kissed by white paper

Do not forget

That these people are not your friends

And will turn their backs

When you need them most

Because in the age of technology

Most people’s thoughts are not theirs

And their courtesies are pre-written

Hearts plagiarized

A routine kindness

From so called good people

Who forgot to mention that angels

Are not always good

So paper wings will just have to do

A standard hello

Like the signature on an email

And they have convinced themselves

That this

Is

Love

Why I Write Truth

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Because the world is a violent one

and screaming death a song

so routine is its lyrics

crooked notes twisted

and then dropped

like  lifeless bodies

a glass vase

shattering

crackling

like fire on the mountain

and no one seems to be

on the run

I write truth

because its better to spill ink

than blood

Last night

I heard angels mourn

their tears fell like hailstones

from the sky

they told me

another person died

I write truth

because light chose not to shine today

the sun looked down

and vowed that it was too dangerous

on the ground

I write truth

because the world is crying out

cause it ain’t safe no more

not like a piece of paper

and black ink

not safe like blue lines

and poetry

I write truth because

Maya ain’t here no more

and somebody’s got to tell that woman

she’s phenomenal

somebody’s got to sing that man

a song

that ain’t full of lyrics

that bleed

I write truth

because Langston told us

to bring him our heart melodies

that he may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth

away from the two ruff fingers

of the world

dear Langston

here is mine

Dear Poetry

Dear Poetry

I wish I can take your words
and carve them into the sky
as if you alone was the cement at the fingertips
of the Almighty
wish I can
breathe life into your nostrils like I held onto the strings
stapled to the backs of the wind
Dear poetry,
I wish I can copyright your metaphors,
& trademark your similes
Wish I could draw you away from every mouth
whose saliva has not promised to cherish your wisdom
like stomachs rejecting old food
You see I wish that your nutrition could be savored
only in the mouths of those who speak truth
I’m tired
tired of seeing Allegory’s
washed down the drain of unconscious minds who
seek only to dream fairy tales
bathed in rhetoric
to wake up wet with euphoric ignorance
I appeal to the relentless generosity of poetry
to drawback its compassion if it dares
and stop playing the violin on our hearts
like disobedient children that tap dances on their mother’s last nerve
cause
Poetry can change nothing if truth
can’t hit the concrete with a curve
I wish
Wish I could ensure that you are used only when truth spreads its wings like butterflies
nervously flapping inside the jaws of understanding
Like truth when it opens its legs to laws and commandments
and gives birth to obedience
In whose laughter resounds like the deadness of Sara’s womb
I wish
that deception can be buried inside the heavens
like the stars at noontime
that do not wish to be available
only so that our eyes may see something deep.