“Forgive my fingers for when they find your body they will lose themselves.”
—Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott GregsonHome
Longing takes
so much of love’s breath,
what can remain
when figures are confirmed,
static, constant?
Passion pricks patience’s fingers,
makes mincemeat of comfort
with wait and calm and other
words living hearts can’t translate.
Don’t look at me with quiet eyes
bartering memories for touches
like fingerprints on new glass —
your silence isn’t mine to take.
Your words pound
walls with kick-drum echoes
bleeding rhythm my veins,
my mad refrain, your love —
I can’t be sure it’s not a dream.
I woke up
and you weren’t there.
Zero Gravity
Slipping into another
open window of opportunity
you found doors and portals
to my lost forgotten heart,
I’m surprised you found it
after all this time.
It is a heart you once
abandoned
out amongst the debris
in that strange outer space
between our maddening-love
and my eventual
displaced heartbreak.
Well here’s some news for you,
you can’t cling to the past
and wish everything will be well
in zero gravity
you can’t propel your emotions
like some
Russian Soyuz Rocket
out into some forgotten galaxy
and expect to hit a target
like my lost frozen heart,
it will just shatter into
another million pieces
of useless space debris.
Don’t you know the scars
don’t heal any faster
or any better
because there is no oxygen
in this lonely place you left me in.
After all
you left me in a vacuum
to wither and die, my heart is now
nothing but
stardust in your eye.
you are hundreds of lilacs
with poetry etched on each of your petals
tucked away in the pockets and crevices of the ground.
i wet my hands with rosewater before digging out every part of you (roots and all)
diamondiferous pieces of heaven
replaced the dirt under my nails
i scraped your skin, ribs, and back
and met you in my hands
you are right where you belong: on my palm
the very palm that promises to hold you always
just to be a home for the galaxy you are,
harboring you in the clutched fist that is adorned with your touches
i land on your mouth
and you kiss the beauty into me
and i take my tongue out long enough to say:
look at what you’ve done
you’ve made my insides beautiful
can your hands write me a map of your brain
you’ve hinted at the cities you created
surrealistic paper buildings and
lakes of metaphors
i’ve only seen a few of them
they’re smaller than Los Angeles but their lights are natural
your face hints at
blue globes behind clear windows
tiny twin earths
i’ve never seen you up close
i wonder if your word cities
climb into your bed with you and what they
whisper and
how your body feels pressed against your prose houses
syllables staining skin like paint
i wonder what stories
i can pull from your hidden mouth
To Be in Want
I own nothing. Not bones. Nor skin. No parts I want.
An oiled, free, magnificent machine is all I want.
You crochet my capillaries, keeping them taunt.
A bleeding heart is never all I want.
I sharpen my mind to fit this atrophied lock.
A restful sleep is all I want.
You take, I give. The selfish sea is fed, but growls on.
A settled stomach is all I want.
I do love this Marcia-mold and as they say:
Self-love is all. Yet…I want.
The Poem vs. The Poet
I never wanted to be a poet.
I can still remember coming home from school
with red pen scribbling out my creativity,
greeted by mother’s silent broken smile
splitting across a household.
I never wanted to be anything but myself,
but now I wish I could spend a day
in someone else’s shoes,
mine are uncomfortable,
filled with too many pebbles,
life is burning new blisters with every step.
If I look at the back of my hands
it says I’m too young to understand,
but when I catch a glimpse of the shadow of my soul
it says these feelings are hundreds of years old.
I want to be dust, I want to be dynamite,
I want to be the moon during the day
and the sun throughout the night.
I don’t want monochromatic emotions,
I want my eyes to look like mismatched socks.
I want my thought process to be etched into my skin,
so I could duct tape my mouth shut
and people wouldn’t have to ask why I act like I do,
I can’t answer the questions that I’m the question mark to.
If I wrote a poem about the love I’ve known
the page would be blank,
paper stained with silence,
fingerprints smudged with heartache.
I want to graffiti my name across the sky,
so when you look at it, you think of me,
and if you stare at it, you need me.
I’m still trying to learn how to pronounce my name.
I still can’t say words like “trust”
or “acceptance” without stuttering.
I’ve never called myself a poet.
I’ve been too busy pretending that the sound
of my fingers clicking these keys is my heartbeat.
click click…
click click… I’m alive,
I am still alive.
You figure 7 billion like it’s a real number
You figure 300 million like it’s real
Then 39. 39 million and that’s California
Then 300,000 and that’s Stockton
A junior in California
a little kid with big boy britches
can fuck shit up but never taken seriously
You passed, what, a couple hundred—maybe a thousand on the way to work
You know maybe twenty enough to nod when you clock in
Ten think they know you
Five you actually talk to
One you bitch to and just enough without ruining it
And then there’s you sitting alone
wondering where the day goes and where the weird people come from
you wonder why fathers beat their kids
and why we blame anything but fathers
You wonder why death is
and you wonder why we act like it isn’t
Guess it makes the work day serious
‘cause otherwise why do it once your fridge fills up
Read a story about a kid killed
wondered why and what the world was
can’t figure
maybe never figure
and tomorrow I’ll get over it until I read about it again
ask myself the same questions
drive the same route back home
never know anyone’s name I pass
and never want to know
Woe is Everyone I Know.
it turns our love into a burden
makes the bitter seem so sweet
puts distances between us
makes emotion obsolete
it turns truth into illusion
brings the cold to what was warm
it turns the world against itself
and shames us of our form
it can elevate the wicked
it can turn us all to beasts
you can hide behind it, but
it wont protect you in the least
it turns wisdom into ignorance
it turns ignorance to praise
it’s fear, so ever-potent
it’s repulsive,
but it pays.
Devin Twist
They created this test, a manipulated
Mess, we’ll call it ‘psycho analysis’
To explain why he gets so
Pissed, begins throwing people
A kiss, but I understood his fits,
I saw him as a past geologist,
And there’s only so many stones
You can handle before your
Rocks turn to fists, witness was
All I was when it came down to it,
It was his time to need me, and I
Became the lotus of life through
Tantric sex, he gained confidence,
I gained self respect, turning point
For the perceptionist’s, I learned
A lot from his hips, like true
Satisfaction comes when you won’t
Give it up too quick, bend your
Anger in angles undiscovered like
A contortionist, sculpt your mind
Into forms that don’t exist, then they
Label him an incubus, discipline
Him, pump him full of pills and tell
Him, he needs to be fixed, if this is
True, that makes me the succubus,
And where’s my fucking medical
Kit? That shit that gets us down,
Makes us sick, where we met on
A common ground of betwixt, so
No, we’re not celibate like you
Wanted, we found our own way to
Get high, stay lit, without getting
Pill pocketed for a fix, but I know
You’re shallow depth, still
Expects our secrets to the flip side
Of our tricks, there never was a bird
Up either sleeve, just heightened
Dimension in a misplaced relationship, not a rabbit in a hat to
Get picked, just patching up the
Holes in a couple misfits that you
Almost missed, however you had to,
To get your kicks, the elevated call
That ignorance, and I can’t say I’m sorry that you even tried, I’m grateful,
We’ve found this world to keep us
Transfixed, in a mind fuck, buckled
Up, conformed life like this.
I’ve often said age means nothing,
But that’s not the entire truth;
For time, that most stringent teacher,
Has yet to visit youth.
And, youth can never envision
That which it has yet to learn—
That every day is precious;
That no one has time to burn.
Heed this reader, and be wary—
Knowledge only now I carry—
Relish life, and never tarry;
Too quickly, these pages are turned.
A Dream In The Key of Howling
Driving down the road, no other cars
but us. The radio is broken.
Your voice is a shotgun.
There are wolves on the roofs we pass.
They are sleeping, not even your howling can
wake them. I ask you a question.
Can we catch it?
I throw something out the window. A red
birdhouse. Twenty-four birds fly out of it. They
flock to the power lines. I am an
electric love. I ask you another question.
Is there another way?
I fall asleep in the passenger seat.
You sing with one hand on the wheel. A crow
moves out of your way.
You tell me something. You don’t ask
me anything. The sky doesn’t change, even
when I wake up. A question tumbles blind
into the road.
How much further?
I’ve always lost myself
trying to find
the meaning in things.
I’ve also tied myself
to those things
that have meant the most to me.
They have left me broken
and you’d think
after twenty four years,
I’d be use to it
but I am still delicate.
I scare myself
with how easy it is
to not feel a thing
only to preserve
the last breaths of life
I have inside me.
Maybe one day I’ll be ready
to not feel as safe
as I do alone.
I will find comfort like leaves
ripping off trees
and be happy as the wind blows.
