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.

Start running, push off that gravel and don't stop

Keep reaching, grab that next rung and pull yourself to the top

Don't look back, there's nothing there home is gone

Keep running, let your feet fall in rhythm and don't stop

Keep climbing, that summit is all yours, you belong at the top

Don't look back there's nothing there but things done wrong

Keep running, ignore your aching muscles and don't stop

Keep pushing, those barriers wont keep you from the top

Don't look back there's nothing there you've been away so long

Keep running, breathe deep, breathe even and don't stop

Keep moving, you can be still when you've reached the top

Don't look back, there's nothing there but a cliched song

Stop running! Rest now let me see you before you start again

I can barely see you from all the way down here

Take a look back sometime, we miss you back home

Counting Up

I live in moments,
each second is a millenium in which I can define the world and all that is in it
and still forget it in the next eternal moment.
With each tick the world changes
and is reverted upon the tock,
new meanings new hopes,
 but still the same dream,
 the same illusion of control,
like we live on the face of the clock,
at least you do.
I don't.
Because the only timepiece I  keep is the measure of heart murmurs,
but my heart does not murmur,
it shouts
speaks out
 has mind of its own
and though it can only give voice about once a tick
that seems to do the trick
because by the time tock comes
I have loaded my guns.
You live like target acquired,
I live like a poet inspired
and don't you dare get tired
because every second lost upon yawn
is day done until the next brink of dawn
and like a child sprawled on the lawn
who you claim does not realize what he's losing
you've already lost too much.
You say youth is wasted on the young
but moments are all too often wasted on grown up humdrum,
our years are numbered in days
which are constructed of hours
which are made by minutes
which are counted in seconds.
So everything comes down to this next second
which is really the next minute
which rolls into the next hour
which falls into a day
which concludes this year.
Now as you walk into the daily drivel you call maturity
I want you to see,
we youths know our days are numbered,
we are simply unencumbered
by the weight of wasted moments
because we did our best to spend them wisely,
not upon completing the next task
or rushing to get to class but by sprawling on the lawn
watching the coming of the new dawn,
 in awe of moments which last eternities.