Muted Day (Poem)

On a soft, muted day

cupping a fragile evening in my hands,

lacing my fingers through twilight hours,

I lay myself, naked, down upon

      a field of emerald green grass,

to feel blind poems etch themselves

across my whisper-quiet skin.

...And trembling slightly under the vast pressure

      of so ink-black a sky,

I sigh a tender sigh,

heavy with moments

of life sketches and drawings

traced when I used to

smile at the color of the morning and the smell of love on my fingertips.

Still, naked

speckled with falling stars,

I gently blow the fragile evening

as one would dandelion seeds

during a summer picnic,

and watch twilight swirl around dusk, each distinct hour

journey upon its own path into a new day.

Now for the Running: Part II (Poem)

Everything I breathed in instantly became a jumble of lines,

swirling and howling in my ears 

as my eyes teared over from fear and joy.

I knew without a doubt he came quickly behind

as if the pen on my paper doodles bled him closer and closer to my sprint.

Alleyways turned streets, turned highways, turned tucked-away corners

where scenes from my life flipped and reeled like a motion-picture book.

I saw gorgeous amber-yellow cafes

replaced

by concrete thumping clubs

replaced

by junkies

replaced 

by burning cliffs

woven between

girls leaving men and mean looking bottles.

For a second I even thought I was swimming deep,

flailing and flapping in nose-high ocean water, 

thick salt tickling the back of my throat drop by drop.

"Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop..." words jerking out of me, ragged.

I have never been a runner, 

and nightmarish man with a fresh hole in his chest chasing me aside,

I couldn't hold out much longer, 

scrabbling for the corner of building,

splitting skin where once a rock had flown from free and heavy.

Twisting and spinning I broke free,

wondering how much my life was worth anyway,

wondering how much he had bought my dreams for.

Inside my head there had always been such lovely images,

pieced and stitched together with hours of patience,

days worth of watching snow slide down a melted pane,

months worth staring at a wheel-go-round of words fling

sentence

after 

sentence into my head.

Now this idiot was chasing me, panting down pathways.

"Oooof," enough. Enough.

I plunged into a bar.

"You know young man, this bar is owned by him," 

a sallow man told me from the corner where he sat,

leaning against a wall that backed against another wall

that crumbled into another wall leading back to me.

Gray and charred, all walls were decorated with pictures from my life,

stills, thousands upon thousands of them.

My heart broke then, 

and emptiness poured in like an upside-down waterfall.

A Whisper Once Told Me (Poem)

She told me to float,

and watch the sky carefully.

“Something incredible will happen,” she whispered to me –  

Days passed and the river took me further –

her whispers never left my side –

they never lied and still I floated.

at last, when I could breath no more – I stopped,

supine. Blinding sun, heavy earth.

Falling Stones (Poem)

Swish

branches on the shoes of a wondering man –  

Blink of the sun,

hovering over oceans of waves

stumbling along her path. 

Tremble of the earth – with

the falling and clicking of stones in heavy saltwater

and there she goes;

floating, dancing with the sea. 

My pen scratches paper-

blots,

and here she is,

purring and crawling over my words.

My Streets (Poem)

I wish the Andes hadn’t been silenced–

I wish the city cradling me during birth had yelled a little louder. 

I wish I had seen them take torches to the shoulder-high monte.

I saw the Andes burn,

how it heaved its ashes down crowded, ugly streets.

And wondered why those black flakes burned,

why they smeared my clothing,

And my father?

I saw him swimming,

head bowed to his Father,

flakes of white ash on his brow –

valley trees murmuring his name. 

I have always connected poetry to fire

whether my pen admitted it or not.  

I connected serenity to my city,

whether the children robbing me knew it or not –

I always heard the

humming

strumming

running

whether the crowd cared or not. 

In the winter, when the air burned my tongue,

and sun licked my eyes–

I turned to my mother,

and tumbled into her as waves upon sand.

and it was then I heard the mountains

and I craved…cradled,

words. Incessant fire.

Now for the Running: Part I (Poem)

Even before the first stone hit,

something inside my mind cracked and splintered.

I could only stare upwards at the cathedral's eyes,

fragmented by my throw,

as myriads of glass shards rained down like lethal rain.

I couldn't tell you what made me do it.

I probably couldn't even tell you where I was,

except that watching the windows shatter

was like seeing a painter's perfect picture slashed with stray paint,

and I sat sadly down on the curb.

----

The moment finally came when I rounded the corner and saw him.

Blood trickled down his eyes where he'd been cut,

and I gazed upwards, 

where dark holes had been punched in the cathedral's face.

Looking down at him,

I suddenly realized he was holding a chunk of rubble,

while passing it back and forth between palms.

My head swiveled left and right,

and saw no one. 

Crumpled newspapers and Sunday mass pamphlets rolled past,

as if I were in an old movie set. 

"I suppose there's nothing left but to sit down and join you, no?"

"Suit yourself." 

He seemed strangely lost, out of place.

His hair rose at strange angles from his face,

and pictures blanketed the skin on both arms,

while the blood on his face caked and dried.

His empty hazel eyes switched between curb and church,

the stone went thunk thunk every time it passed between hands.

"Whyd'ju do that?" I asked, pointing vaguely skyward.

"You're not real," he responded. "I remember you from last time, except you had a hammer with you then."

"Huh, I don't remember you at..." trailing off as his gaze turned on me, baleful, cold eyes silent. 

"You're the architect of these, right? Bastard. I knew you would follow me even here."

----

I hurtled myself from the curb as only dreams can teach.

I had twisted myself and thrown my chunk as heavily as I could

before I could even process his face,

folding in on itself in rage and fury.

It struck him in his chest, 

his snarling face snapping forwards as he stumbled.

"Now for the running," I mouthed to myself,

ecstatic to be slipping through alleyways in a chase for life.

Fold me in a Night of Sunshine (Poem)

I`ve been eaten by the world.

Fish feast on my ocean self,

and wolves cast about hungrily above for a remnant of my shadow,

for once it was strong and sticky,

a stitched companion glued with hazy feelings to my side.

Now free

zaftig shapes whisper in my direction

while I remain couchant amongst friends,

spreading my smile country to country,

wave to watery wave,

former ruin to a sleek concrete jungle.

Still, under a soft blanket of blue

floating lazily and weightless,

I feel sea animals nibble at me,

quietly having their fill of

my thoughts and darkest corners.

...and light as sunshine,

turquoise seaweed like eels coil around my chest

and comfort.

Escape from an ocean-wide space,

breathless watching tundras above me churn hungry wolves into cachinnating wınds.

I`ve been under these waters too long.

Even Poseidon grows weary

and prods me skyward,

needling me towards discomfort

and away from evenings at his side,

where once I soaked in a minimum of pain...

Where else to go but arid tundras,

to face those timber wolves hulking in the corners of spruce groves,

prowling around the wonderland of my mind,

awaiting my fall over the edge of the world after it's had its fill.

And so I stand,

chewed and fantod,

awaiting what? 

Has the feast ended?

Do days have an end?

A bramble of undercast questions

hidden in coral depths...

Give me simple days,

not tasting of sea brine where I have soaked for years,

watching shadow puppets carouse around the stage of my head.

Give me smooth days,

like the sinuous curve of a woman from hip to warmth.

Fold me in a night of sunshine

and I will give you what I know of love.