My Heart on my Sleeve. Well, err... My Heart on my Blog.

If I were honest with myself, I'd probably realize that I don't really like poetry. True, there are some amazing, epic poems that are a gift straight from God (or at least, a reasonable representative). You'd think that I, as a romantic covered under a very thin layer of realist, would go wild for poetry. I'm sensitive, I cry at movies, I absorb poetry. Right? Well, for the most part, I read poetry begrudgingly. Maybe I think about my own experiences and toils trying to find the perfect words as I always fall short and end up scribbling rubbish on a leaf of paper instead of the lyrical masterpiece that I see and hear in my mind. That's the thing . . . I don't really like reading poetry, but I write the junk.

I can't help myself.

It's how I order my thoughts. Any time I'm going through a ridiculous situation (there's usually a feminine name attached to the problem) I have all these thoughts and ideas that rocket through my mind. I can barely hear the real world through their deafening roar (this is a bit of a hyperbole, but work with me here). So's I exercise my demons through paper baptism. The result is usually melodramatic, melancholic, and mostly without form, but I at least have all of these thoughts in some semblance of order.

When Email was still a fairly new concept I had a "poetry" address group to which I sent out all of my mental sieve droppings. For some reason, I thought that people might be interested in what's going on in my life (I guess I've replaced "poetry" in this equation with "blog"). Ha.

So here I present a selection of my "poetry" en masse. There's actually a chronological flow to most of it (paralleling developments in "relational situations" [or lack thereof {development and situations both} ] ). I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's readable, I'm not saying it's edifying. I'm only saying it's me. Somewhere. Somewhen.

Fun Fact: I made my first rubber band ball today. This makes me very excited. I put several short bands on the outside that just barely fit around it, so every once in a while I'll bounce it and one of them will zing off to hide somewhere in my office. It's a fun game, almost like a rubbery Russian Roulette with less death.

Fun Fact 2: If you, oh blog lander, have never listened to Iron & Wine, I would highly suggest it. The album Creek Drank the Cradle is okay, but Our Endless Numbered Days consistently surprises me every time I pop it in (or press play on iTunes [always a pleasant surprise on shuffle] ). If you've seen Garden State, He/they're the one(s) that do the song Such Great Heights on the Soundtrack, which is a cover of a Postal Service song (also an immensely amazing band [my number 2 Fav] ).

Okay *ahem*. back to the poetry.

Music Man

If I were a better painter
I'd paint you a mural
Showing Heaven and Earth
Light and Love laid out so fine
You'd gasp, point, and go "oh!"

But I'm not that good
Not at painting anyway
I can, though, paint you
a lopsided doggy that barks
and says "I LOVE YOU" in block letters.

I'd write you a full, long song
One with every instrument you could imagine
If I were a music man I'd do this:
I'd hire all the musicians to play
You'd sit back, relax, and go "oh!"

But I'm not any good at that
No one pushed me to musical greatness
I can't tell Bach from Mozart
But I think I can figure out
"You Are So Beautiful to Me" on the kazoo.

One day, hopefully, I'll have lots of money
Enough to buy your dreams and desires
We'd get old and fat together without money woes
But for now I've got $1.37 to my name
And I hope you'll like this plastic "I Heart U" ring
I got for a quarter out of the machine.

Fragments

These words are all I have
But they’re so useless anymore
I now know I cannot catch your eye
Nor make you laugh
Like I could so long ago.

I can only give you words to read
They’re my heart on paper
But I know they mean little to you.
So a fool am I, wearing my heart away
For naught, it endears me to no one,
Not even myself.

Every word I write is a scream in my mind
Shrieking the truth: No one listens.
But my fingers move
And my heart still bleeds
Forming words no one reads
And words no one feels
And words you shrug off.

With a mere comment
“You’re like a brother.”
Never have such words burned.
Nor have broken me in such a way
As to leave me shattered,
Lying darkly on the ground
Scribbling frail fragments
On dark paper.
Such is life.

#35

The world dies with a slow groan,
God’s sprawling creatures lose their zeal
Dropping steadily the instruments of life,
Death and heartache is their only warmth.

I am not wooed by the new colors;
Brown and yellow are colors of decay.
A pungent smell of the time hangs above the ground,
A new scent betraying burning leaves as a rich aroma.

My heart pangs for the giants looming above,
Autumn is the season of my soul.
I kick up little pieces of my life as I
Stroll across the fields of me.

This heart, once a vibrant green, wilts,
hues turning yellow, brown, and a mockingly vibrant orange.
And the fragrance hanging in the air?
It’s none other than the rising smoke of the bonfire of the
fallen pieces of me.

I pull my jacket tight as I meander longingly across the lawns,
A single brown leaf falls and floats to my feet,
A single grey tear is held back in mourning; it cannot show.
Autumn’s tendrils wrap tightly around my chilled interior
But the exterior only betrays the vibrancy of spring.

Worthless Poets

Everyone.
All want to sing of your love.
There is not a man living
who has not written a song
in your honor.

Hundreds of sonnets bear the simple title
of your name.
Who can resist the crafting of sweet music
to breeze through your amber hair?

Desperate men pine to have your ocean eyes
grace across their prose,
but who can blame them?

The power of one woman is amazing.
Were she a leader of military might
Empires would fall.

But she is no general.
Even still hearts of whole kingdoms are dashed
when she looks away.

Words repeat themselves
and songs slip to monotone
Has there ever been a beautiful word
that hasn’t affixed itself to her?
Most probably not.

A teeming mass of hopefuls gather at her side.
I do join them, these worthless poets,
by writing this very thing.
I can live with that.

But not without her.

Black and White

I've got to get you out of my head
Entertaining a dead future with you
Won't get me anywhere soon
We weren't meant to be anything more
Than friends, just friends, you know
I don't need you to tell me what
I can plainly see in black and white
From here on out I'll hold onto every word from you
They're as close as I'll get to holding you
I'll grow old without your love
I'll be okay, but I doubt it'll be enough
There will never be a "we" or an "us"
The sooner I realize this the better
Someday you'll only be a memory living in this letter.

I think the saddest thing is this:
You'll never be the wiser when
All I can do is try not to think of you.

Dead Letters

You’ve won.
I get it now.
Something about me unnerves you.
You don’t have to go out of your way to avoid me.
I’ll pull myself away.
We’ve had some fun times
But I see that they are dead now.
Did you know that when you laugh
your eyes turn into little triangles?
It’s a very beautiful thing
But I won’t make you laugh anymore.
We talked about doing something
sometime.
Maybe now I should just mail you the money for the meal.
You’ve pitied me but you never said no because you have
a tragically beautiful heart.
You smiled, nodding when I talked to you,
maybe hoping I would leave?

You don’t have to fake it anymore.
To be honest all I wanted was to make you
happy.
To think I thought I could help you with that!
Never have I had a more ridiculous notion.
No, I can make you happy, and I will.
How?
The phone will be silent and the letters will
die.
Kinda like me.

“Remember that one guy you used to know?
No? Me neither.”

Thing Of Dreams

It all started the day you bled out of my dreams
and reformed in the world.
I was fine with this world with all its misgivings,
but then one day I thought of you and you were gone.
I guess running through my thoughts all day
and long, stupid conversations in my dreams weren’t enough
to keep you.
Anytime I thought maybe you didn’t exist, you’d come running to me
and say “here I am, dummy.”

Remember the nights we spent behind closed eyelids?
We talked about the strangest things...
Why you always feel dizzy when you sit up too fast...
That time we walked in the rain and never really dried...

I thought it was funny, but it wasn’t a big deal to me.
You were here with me, that’s all that mattered
That look in your eyes kept me coming back to the
silly topics
you loved so much.

But no longer.
We lived and we loved
in the world of aspirations and desires but all things good must
end.

You seeped from my fancy and ran into the world
there you are, rather
close
but still so far
away.

There for everyone to see and steal
There for the losing of me.

I was meant for you, and so the other way,
but the world is big and those beautiful triangle eyes can’t help but gaze
at the other wonderful things of the world.

So here I wait, doing particularly nothing
until you grow tired of your adventures.
You are a thing of dreams,
you know.

Bratch