Did you listen to the teacher, or did you force your views inside the cap to where the knowledge grows? Did you think I’d never reach you? Down deep where the green water flows?
I wrote a trillion poems soaked in acid and blood. I climbed to the top of the mountain and rolled all the way down while Sisyphus laughed. I don’t know shit about the other half. How they live. The thoughts they give - my heart clutches; my brain, a sieve.
I’m not interested in excuses, sad ramblings, hidden muses. I want to dance with my shirt off in the breeze. I want to fly like the smudge of pelican you can only just see. Up there. In the sky. That’s where I aim to be.
And I ain’t above dying to get there. I don’t think I’m so precious that I need protecting. I don’t have that self-importance all the rest of you have been perfecting. Projecting? Fuck if I know - I’ll just lay my head down on this concrete pillow.
If I start talking funny, just slit my throat silently. Drag me behind a building. Flood of blood. Drink it if you like, but leave the body for scavengers. I plan on living forever inside a vulture’s insides.
Now, you’re done; you’re done with this, and you’re done denying that you were the one who stood there with the red balloon in your hand, laughing. Like I couldn’t get a balloon if I fucking wanted one.
Fuck you. Fuck me. Let it be. Two minutes. Maybe three.
You're educated and you're wise, and you have a poet that suffers inside your heart, Dan. The Mader rap may be quiet, but it's always there, colouring your words. Fabulous, as always Dan. I wish I had a talent and a voice half as profound as yours. This is truly inspirational... which leads me to my own contribution.
ReplyDeleteloving the rhymes and the steady rap. He's standing there with the balloon in his hand. It might just go pop.
DeleteWords? Words come easy. But thoughts? They’re a different animal? Thoughts take effort, especially when they’re coherent. Thoughts come from questions. And questions come inadequacies. We all need something more - or less – than we have now. We all want things to get better rather than worse. But behind all these changes we want manifesting there are questions; those that we need answers for before we can go on.
ReplyDeleteI’m asking myself now: what do I need? Or what do I want if I’m being cosseted. I need time, more than anything else. (I’m assuming I have water and air and the other staples we take for granted when we have them.) I need time and I need comfort more than anything else. I need quiet and I need a space where I can isolate. I need a place in my head where I can talk and I can listen, and where I can maybe find some answers for myself.
That big question in life: what do we really need. Do we all need the same thing? What's really important? A huge conundrum.
DeleteThis hidden meaning
ReplyDeleteWe are wont to speak outside of cages,
outside the pressure of our minds.
We are spent where we stand.
We are pages ripped out and tossed
without question, the vowels + consonants.
We are sounds inside these spaces,
the rich strands of it all put together.
Life spills forth out of the edges,
seeking a stage to assert itself upon.
But where is the hidden meaning?
We wear it inside, turn it outside,
this eternal signal to everyone:
here I am. We are standing here,
making a point of being, of breathing,
ripped from wombs, all so unique.
We are the mix-up, the mishmash,
the dreams we envelop sometimes.
We are the trees that breathe anew,
summoning colours in the dark.
We spill forth, rattling our cages,
being all we can stand to be.
As I Live and Breathe
ReplyDeleteYour name is the first word
I write each day,
though not in black on white.
No, it’s the clear blank-page
morning air upon which
I sigh in deep blue desire.
Your name is the final word
of my daily opus before
my eyes close in sleepy
punctuation. I’ve written
thousands of such pages
over the years,
tossing hundreds away,
sharing too many,
keeping some hidden
beneath my pillow.
And nobody knew but me,
and few would care unless
they perused them through
your eyes. I know you’d prefer
not to see your name sighed
between the lines upon
the morning air or evening breeze.
But a man’s got to breathe.
Twin Flames
ReplyDeleteWhen we stop and look at one another,
even when we’re not in each other’s presence,
I love the picture light reflects back to me.
If it’s not beauty, it is beautiful. So beautiful.
I see scars, but they help draw the picture.
I see dark eyes that still run with tears,
even now when our lives - past and present -
should’ve run them dry. So I cry. Again.
Because here we are, nesting together where
we offer one another no conditions other than
acceptance. I accept your scars and tears
and joys because they’re yours…as you accept mine.
Mine, yours, ours, mirrored souls illuminated by
something unexplainable but so easily understood.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Next First Time
ReplyDeleteBecause it’s been awhile,
here’s how our next first time might go:
I will take your hand, palm-up,
and circle my fingertips on yours,
feeling for the corduroy stutter
of your unique whorls and ridges,
since I want to know all about you.
From there I would slide my fingers
along the arroyos of your palms,
disembarking at your wrists.
That’s where I would flip over
our forearms to softly introduce
those little hairs to one another,
because it’s been too long.
At the bend in your arm, the backs
of my fingers would climb up
to your shoulders and from there
traverse across to your neck,
where they’d hold position
until my temple rests against yours.
Will you feel my pulse as I'll feel
the beat of your heart sharing
the warmth we’ve needed so long?
I'll wait for the flutter of your eyelashes
against my cheek. And if your tears
might fall, I'll catch them there as if my own.
When it’s time for me to
step away, my hands will follow
that same route back. But not home.
Home is where our souls are joined,
whether near or far, as they reach
to touch feelings we thought lost,
but have returned, as we always do.