Poetry Post

Hello all!

I leave with you some poetry. I do not write poetry often because I'm simply not very good. This will be a rare, if not singular, occurrence that I hope you enjoy.

A Walking Villanelle

I took a walk today with eyes that really see

Past the first impressions of a world not ever found

And came back with new insight that set my body free

The luring lights on the small marquis

Caught my eye and held me bound

As I took a walk today with eyes that really see

In watching common bourgeoisie 

I caught their thumbprints looping round

And back again with insight that set my judgments free

On barren cherry blossomed trees

I see crackling veins in leaves an arid, dusty brown

On my walk today with eyes that really see

The sky had always been a pale blue to me

But I just saw a big long streak of gold-pink-coral-red uptown

I’m sure it’s backed with insight that sets ideas free

Piercing air so weighted with secondhand debris

I noted wisdom written in the ground

When I took a walk today with eyes that really see

And came back with new insight that set my being free

skirting woman

i step inside folds of life and air

sliding up my legs an open field

that leaves my knees and thighs 

free to greet each other

i wasn’t given wit

to percolate my charm

ensuring plans on friday night

attached to someone’s arm

i bite and spit in a rhythmic way

that turns a habit into art

freeing my fingers

for more important matters

i wasn’t given voice

to hand out passive sighs

with silence as my only treatment

to the world’s own cries

Yes, I opt for skirts.

I opt for freedom.

For breath.

Light.

Letters to You

I made out your face a couple of times in some of the dearest and worthwhile lines of my favorite Shel Silverstein book. The one with the king and the peanut butter sandwich. You stepped right out in hyperfocusedtechnicolorsaturatedtones of most folks I know, trails of peanut butter riding your breath while letters and dashes flaked off the bottoms of your bare feet. I followed you home, collecting the fragments of untold words and untold stories that fell behind you while you walked. I don’t think you saw me, but I knew you knew I was there, cause you kept your pace slow so that I could keep up. Your house was something of a sort unknown, but I could tell it was yours cause a sign on the window said Free Showers Upstairs, and people don’t usually say those things unless they’re hyperfocusedtechnicolorsaturatedtones who mean what they say when they say what they mean. You left the door open with an O for good measure. Stepping over O, I went on upstairs and took a free shower. I got to singing Imogen and couldn’t help wanting you to stand outside the door while we sang Hide and Seek. Cause I know you’re not a hyperfoolishtechnicorruptiblesatiatingtongueincheek sort of person who’d insult me with high hopes and low expectations.

But you never came. 

And I sang one part with the other in my head bumbling “ransom notes keep da da da—” It didn’t work out too well. Dissonance needs someone else too, I suppose. After the shower, I gathered your letters and headed on up four floors to your attic to piece a piece of you together again. I heard you downstairs so I worked real quick, my fingers getting tingles and my legs getting cramps. By the end of the day, I finished my work and crept on down past the free-showered floor to give you back a bit of yourself that I figured you might have been looking for. You didn’t look at me, but I knew you knew I was there, cause you picked up the bits of you left on the table and laughed real loud to let me know you cared.

I’m heading on home now, and I won’t look back. But if you ever feel so inclined, come on over here where we give free books of Silverstein and his kind. Cause now one of my pages has empty spaces so I’m leaving it open on my table by the bills. I wouldn’t even think about making you, dragging you, forcing you, to. But 

I’d

really

like

to read about hyperfocusedtechnicolorsaturatedpeanutbuttersandwiches

sometime soon.