Tag: change

Prisoners

It's hard to love a prisoner, I know,
I too was locked away before we met.
The flower shut in a box will still grow,
But not to bloom: its fruit is regret.
I know you can find your freedom yet;
You don't have to change yourself quite so much.
Only give yourself the courage to bet
On your desires without needing to clutch 
Expectations of them. Our kind are such
That define and find our passions in pains
And restrictions; I admit there's a touch
Of attraction to lows, a kink for chains.
If you tie me up, I'll free you for fun.
We're prisoners of what we haven't done.

The Reason

Whip me
into shapes
of low, submissive 
apology;
               put your name
on each corner of the cudgel
you scour me with.

There's a reason—when it comes from you:
harsh reflections drawn from your own
dissatisfaction and insecurity,
the daunting vacuum of the future—
there's a reason it feels right
for me to take such heavy-
handed excoriation.
I deserve it.

When you hold peril above 
my head, I remember my mother
pleading, what could she do for me,
and my barbaric answer,
                                          kill me.

I look (admittedly with shame)
at the several scars up and down
my wrist and arm;
                                I recall
the frenzied self-inflicted batterings.

Life before you resurrected me,
I've told you, though it's impossible
to really know; but when your eyes
 widen with insanity,
  with mania,
   with sick rage,
it's a mirror to my history.

Not only do I deserve the castigation,
you deserve the patience I got.

I had wanted less and less,
 to be distilled into nearly nothing.
You want more and more,
 to overflow with endless bounty.
Neither of us excelled to such extents,
 but in self-abasement our tears are one.

Bash me with disdain
 for wanting nothing more,
  you have the right if I believe
   that you should humble your expectations.

What's more difficult,
to grow from nothing into something, or
to shrink from dreams to a single datum?
Hopefully somewhere
 in the middle,
  where we draw each other,
   is the right place for us.

Certainly it's more difficult
to be found in your circumstances,
nomadic, isolated, uprooted;
I can never fathom the horror 
of watching your mother deteriorate,
jaundiced and dessicated until
she finally passed away.
    Without Mom I would
      have self-destructed.

You're right
 when you tell me I don't know you.
We have our differences,
  but I want to give you
   the things I have that you never did.

Problems of Experience

It's strange, I've always lived near water, but
I've never been on a wave-striding ship;
Never traveled on the char-belching train,
Nor to a metro ever descended.
I've flown twice, both times were quite unpleasant.
I did ride the bus once on a late night.

My own quandary of opportunity:
In some ways too much, others not enough.
Born into a lens both close and remote,
An existence both strange and typical,
A small life of idiosyncracies
Spinning on the fringe of a family,

Abiding in the shell of employment,
And scuttling among intimate sands
Which only a temporary few see.
Individuated yet standardized.
Delivered to concrete nurseries sat
On top of systems of gray tumuli.

The cloistered taste of a car ride to work,
The connectivity that bores straight through 
Hearts of peoples, a cavern of fogged glass
Hazing infinite personal corners.
A secret trend of water which becomes
Grinding dust piling in obscurity.

Everyone's. Intimate universals.
I don't think it's hell anymore, but he...
And it's only because of him I don't.
He needs an assurance that I can't give,
A worth assessment I'm unqualified
To draft. Appraisals all proffered in vain.

The art of life hides in single vignettes,
In cringe-inducing squeaks of affection
Only one other is allowed to hear;
Which circumstances set the scene for that:
The way his eyes touch me across the room,
Two dorks who somehow found each other's life.

He begs me, how will I recreate him
When he succumbs at last to hopelessness;
How can I fashion his desire's likeness,
How characterize his need for purpose,
His sketching hands working wood waywardly,
His eye that shutters on rainbow fabrics;

I hope someday he comes around, accepts 
Life as we could be sharing it right now.
He could unfold into so many sparks.
Rather than smoldering rage from the past,
He can rekindle brilliant burning tears
Dropped from a point-of-view only he knows.

Our problem lies in our experience.
What secret language is ours to convey
Nebulous commonalities distilled,
The nighttime jokes incomprehensible,
But in our bed makes laughter reign supreme.
Bike helmet with inverted cyclist crest.

If everyone has something they could share,
Is the key not in how these looks are framed?
We thirst for novelty of perspective;
What's something only we'd know of?
Did you ever hear the one about the
Famous Satanist? He Thelema dick.

This Living

I won't refuse it, this living of mine.
Frustration glares at me like a sign:
My era is ending; I'm losing my way.
That's been true, but why decay
When once I bloomed upon this vine?

You know, once I would decline
Handshakes out of terror. How fine
it is now! Kenny drops by and says hey; 
     I won't refuse it.

I thought I had to change my line.
I thought I had to leave behind
This chapter. Before I never ate,
Now I do with laughter. Why say
That now this humble life's supine;
     I won't refuse it.

The Superstar

The superstar of a single block
Is irrelevant on another's clock.
He's made his crowd scream and shout,
But anywhere else he has no clout.
If he's a headcase he's in for a shock.

Once he leaves he's a line of chalk.
Who'll care if someone should hock
Any blasphemy about
                                    The superstar?

At first it'll all seem inside-out,
But is there ever really a doubt
That after he's gone life continues to walk
Ahead, away from yesterday's talk?
That corner will still exist without
                                    The superstar.

Needs

I need the capability
  to pay the way
    through time and obligation toward happiness.

Power of movement's what I need,
  flux's freedom,
    the faculties of change and of stability.

Fame and fortune are not required,
  only some wealth
    for the bills, walls for the nights, and food for our friends.

Just enough to afford my car
  and gasoline
    to go from Spring Hill back to my soul in Tampa.

Are all of these things possible:
  to help construct
    machines and monuments from some semantic lens?

Can I fund the signal of dreams,
  can I foster
    candid portraits that understand their own façades?

And when I meet with frustration,
  what is the strength 
    that will be hammered out of my emotions' storm?

Will I withstand the melting down
  in raging ore,
    will I be annealed or will I crack in the cold?

I'm climbing up the diving bell
  beneath the thought
    of what warrants efforts buried in silent time.

Never expecting to survive,
  will I write these
    words enough times a poem can be discovered?