Fears

You know when you lean too far back in a chair,
and you almost fall and it gives you a scare?
Well, that's how I feel when I look at you.
Like im falling out into the open air,
and it awfully funny that I dont even care
that often a smile is all that you'll share,
see to me that is a trade quite fair:
My last living breath for the chance that youll dare.
See there, are worlds we could open,
with naught but soft words spoken,
and it's quite clear that I am broken
but I am not past the point of hoping
I think we're just afraid of choking
and only part of you hopes were joking
cause we are that close to blowing
and you're pretty brave with those matches you've been throwing
cause there is simply no way of knowing
whether our fire will be gently glowing
or one that is violently burning
just like you cant finish a book without page turning
or a class without some learning
or a romance without some yearning
because isn't that all that love is?
A simple state of need?
Like a stomach's got to feed,
like a heart has got to bleed,
like eyes have got to read,
like the tide must recede
like animals have got to breed--
Wait. Crap. That isn't what I mean
I swore I could keep this clean,
So let's swing it back to you and what I've seen
Like giggles and grimaces with smiles slipped between
or eyes that wander and day dream
or a soul so big you're bursting at the seams
but such vague things are all that a can glean
because if I were to find out more
 I'd have to get closer, and I have done that before
the experience struck and cut straight to my core
so here I stand, knuckles inches from your door
and I cannot complete the action.
See among your friends are certain factions
that would reap such extreme satisfaction
from your negative reaction.
So I have a worry, I see a complication,
in your possible lack of reciprocation
because you have your ways of intimidation
that make me into a fool, an aberration
 but I cannot use words like fear or fragility
for they would impune my masculinity
and although that is a part of me
it does not define all that could be
and it is a simple reality
I am afraid but I hide it in jokes and poetry
I slip it into a slew of metaphor, smart-ass and simile
but I better stop hold my words right there
lest I fall right out of my chair.



Poet's Note: I wrote the first three lines of this poem over a year ago, the rest came to me recently.

A Spark of Inspiration

There is a certain state of mind,
in which you yourself may find:
An incessant ticking,
like a little miner picking,
But really it's a thought just barely sticking.
Of course what you want, what you truly desire
Is that someone, something will burn and inspire.
However, you forget there are different types of fire.
There are those that crackle merrily,
and those that spark sparingly.
But the worst are those that do consume,
in their smoke is spelled impending doom.
Sadly in your current paradigm,
you believe that you are fine,
and as the heat comes rolling in,
you are busy with the pretty words you spin.
No, you wont even notice,
until your situation's hopeless.
For your sleeves and your hands have caught aflame,
and you have no name to curse in pain,
you have only yourself to blame,
as in your words you begin to burn away.

Impending Departure

I cannot attach.
I would extend hands in friendship,
or affections in courtship,
or ropes in hopes of salvation.
However such grips would break,
reciprocation would be fake,
and threads would tear, loosing me to damnation.
The issue is distance and time.
As it usually is at the heart of the crime,
Too soon it will be that I'm no longer be here
I will be miles away in what seems like hours,
and such issues desperation devours,
and this is what I fear.
I cannot attach.
I would leap, grab and aspire,
instead I ignite in solitary fire.
The blaze beats back the black of distance.
So instead I crouch, huddle and yearn,
I sit and I bask as I burn,
I am safe from the cold, at least in this instance.
I do not attach.

The Futility of Poetry

The problem with describing feelings
is that even at their best,
words are minute.
A thousands words could never,
given the adjectives and adverbs,
describe even the basest of our motivations
Take my simple jealousy.
The green eyed monster so it is called,
with fangs and devils horns,
Leathery black wings that beat the night,
as it swoops and drops
upon the dimmest doubt
making it the loudest shout.
Or does it have frogs legs?
As it leaps and hops
from unintended words
never meant to be overheard.
we do not know.
For whatever monster plagued the Moore,
whatever beast turned sweet Desdemona,
from maiden to whore,
tis not the same thing which knocked upon my door.
Or how could one describe affections?
Could it be a light bursting through a window?
bringing brightest light to the east ,
stealing the suns fading glory in the west.
Or could it take the form of an eye opening in the ocean?
consuming all bringing it fathoms beneath
to lands where such fore mentioned light
could never penetrate,
but for the faintest photon,
which exists but in desperation and futility,
which is to say it does not exist at all.
The problem is thus:
feeling exists in a dimension beyond perception.
It exists in a world lacking polygons or perfection,
in a chaotic paradigm which shifts upon heart beats.
This poem was not meant to describe my feelings,
but describe my own ignorance.
I could no less use words to explain feeling
than I could use lines to draw circle.
My life would be better devoted,
to spinning lies in honey,
whilst vinegar speeds through my veins.
Or chiseling vague images in ice,
and leaving them at your door on hot summer days,
because the pools that remained when you arrived
would probably better depict my feelings,
then anything I could ever intentionally make.

Two men walked down two parallel roads,
and on their backs were heavy loads.
Although these two walked side by side,
neither mentioned what they had in mind.
That both shared a similar fate
That both men fought for state
One was red, one was blue
then bullets flew between the two
and once they were clad in that crimson hue.
No one could tell who was who.

The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye

I watched you read that page in the history text book.

I watched as your eyes glazed over,

and I know that if I ask, you'll say you didn't get it.

Then you'll tell me it's not important, that you don't need it.

Then when I try to tell you why it is important I get cut off--

"you're good at history, you get it."

I don't get it. 

I forget names, dates and treaties just like you,

but I care.

These paragraphs are the only thing that remind us of the pain in our world.

These paragraphs are our only source of perspective.

So you don't remember the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Well what about the thousands of people that thought maybe it could bring peace?

You don't know José Martí?

What about those who were brought to revolution by his poetry?

The hundreds of battles, the tiny shifts in borders, the changes in regimes,

it will all come down to you guessing right on a multiple choice test.

Now think of what our world is stricken with.

Will OCCUPY ever be a small paragraph someone will forget?

Will Obama's policies be forgotten as he is diminished to "the black president."

So please don't tell me that I "Get it."

I don't get it.

I forget names, dates and treaties just like you,

but I care.

I try because I will never know the pain of losing a friend in Vietnam.

I try because I will never know the feel of a whip on my back.

I try because I will never know what it's like to be denied rights.

I try because the fighting, the war, the death has all been in my name.

It has all been done for the movement of history.

It has all been done to earn a paragraph in that text book.

So maybe, you could try taking notes.

The Fallen Trees

I laugh at the tree who grows tall.
Doesn't he know he will one day fall.
That his hubris was not the first to claw at the sky,
that the builders of babels tower also gave it a try.
But as the tower did, so the tree too will collapse
and like bricks, branches will come cascading past
men who cower at the tumultuous upheaval
that falls from heaven like that ancient evil.
See, we all have that selfsame sin inside,
we bend to the pull of power and the call of pride.
 Until like the Scottish soldier who craved the crown,
our delusion makes our world come crashing down.