Winter Poetry Sampler 2017-2018

These poems were written between November 2017 and April 2018.


snowing equinox 

maybe the sky

is depressed 

i’ll encourage you, firmament, 

to kiss my skin again

and weep no more in icy sorry 

they may not understand 

but i do

frankenstein (poems of an autobiographical nature viii)

i am tired of 

the frankenstein 

of ideal me

patched up in my anxious mind 

can’t accept

i’m just not this frankenstein

of better words and prettier form of sweeter lips and popularity 

knock knock 

remember who you wanna be

well you’re not

someone shoot this monster or set its ship a sail and let me sleep in peace as 

myself

new aesthetics

screw pittsburgh’s osmosis into my creative soul 

i now admire dead leaves’ curls

and smoke stained brick

people-scarred land and drug-scarred people 

truck-crunched beer cans, confetti on the cracked highways

so many sad boys here

we laugh in philadelphia

our grass is greener 

they bleed brains and gold 

pollution and wanderers 

makes sense

not all steel is magnetic 

poems for they i know (part v)

antithesis to my creative gods 

clouds to sunshine and old coffee

wearing your baggage under your eyes 

writing your soul in between all cows eat grass 

and erratic punctuation 

and kind silence as we pulled apart daisies 

not counting lovers but minutes to escape each other’s airspace 

this old empty skyline sags parallel to your shoulders 

two different kinds of alone 

but your magnetic insignificance so unreadable 

everyone knows you

but near no one knows you 

“i don’t want to be here” 

“haha that makes two of us” 

“as in, this planet.”

“also makes two of us.” 

poems for they i know part vi 

heart cries a river and eyes hold the sky,

voice fills the mind and words steel my shoulders 

sing me a storm song, lovely. 

they broke your clouds but your rains, they loved me. 

the world doesn’t end beyond the horizon. 

haiku xii - beautiful 

when a boy told me

i was beautiful i for-

got i ever was 

opened ears

silence?

why hardly.

the world is also a psalter.

summerset 

gonna watch this summerset in the golds and greens

of pennsylvania;

gonna leave this field of dustbowl dreams 

and neon signs of yesteryears;

bury myself in dead men’s memories 

and wrap myself in your arms.

r o b i n s 

joyous fury as spring rages in 

i sit in the rain and they frame me

ring around a reasoner 

can’t conjure a renewed love and drive for what i do

i only dream of bills anymore

and so with wrecked headphones and a lack of resolution

i wander through song’s successful shots at three minute self expression

someone push me off my beaten path and i’ll find the words again 

Spring 2017 Poetry Sampler

Below you will find another set of poetry, mostly free verse. These were penned between March and June.



haiku iii  (couplet)

rise thou soaring chords

i breathe in love to sing light 

and color’s touch 

sing, wind shine and wide.

i feel bright silence in flight

of mutual gaze 

andrei in the field 

(another short poem in my series of war and peace verses)

to face again one’s insignificance 

in the only field where he failed everyone but himself

in a world where everyone fails him, including himself 

social anxiety- poem of an autobiographical nature vi

i am sorry that

                  i am sorry.

can’t peel this aluminum foil off my heart, my eyes. 

sometimes i want to escape the sunrise in a black deep dive 

hear the silence;

not break another neck. 

i weigh my presence on the scales of toleration,

measure the hypotenuse of the light in their eyes,

wear artificial confidence around my throat, 

whiten my smile with hope and fear. 

initiate, someone, 

for otherwise my anxiety will always initiate as i drag my heels behind 

its giggling grip on the back of my neck on a wild goose chase 

for validation it then destroys me with and poisons my sleep. 

initiate and tell me 

“i want to be here.”

for i live in constant terror that anxiety’s mask over my eyes 

will be the only me you ever know. 

braces

they are

removing my braces tomorrow.

no more teeth corset.

how many unspoken words will they find caught in those wires?

disembark 

seven forty four.

handfuls of sleepy tulsans blink past glass and the landed plane

at the gathering gray swamp of storms huddling on the horizon,

and all is silence and country music spread thin

over linoleum.

seven forty five.

a door opens

and tumbles out five dozen chattering californians.

culture clashes in the doorframe as over and into 

the midwestern quiet they flood.

the tulsans side eye hurried noise.

intruders.

wake not the midwest until it so desires.

aprilesque 

spring sugars even the earthen corners in pinkened whispered laughter

and lilts across mountainous oceans of newly wakened trees.

it is aprilesque. 

gray diamond rain slicks the skies

and the wind breathes down my throat.

let's unfold our minds in the darkness to a concerto of birdsong 

under two carat stars and pearl strings of falling wishes

in the raw of new grass. i’ll plant blossoms on your heart. 

it is aprilesque

and i living.

miles

veins on my maps and roads on my wrists 

i can see my smile in his eyes 

wind in my lungs and breath in the air 

do you want to run away into tomorrow, today? 

i’ll scatter dandelion fluff and wander the miles 

allotted to me with your name in my heart 

tourist 

i am a tourist in this life,

just here for the food and experience,

but i know i don’t belong here.

somebody tell me when the train for the next arrives.

for eternity, i do believe?

i think i’ve seen enough of this rain-gray place. 

and then silence fell

and then silence fell

floating floating down on lamplit rain 

the cloudy sky blending with your eyes 

(that i couldn’t look at), 

your jacket

(that i looked at instead).

i still smell that night.

newcomerstown 

picture frame of small-town lights, travel-worn asphalt,

and a blush-stained sky, 

leaning on the rock of your shoulder i

 cast my net and gather a jar of memories and fireflies.

we breathe in moonlit nostalgia and smile. 

no wish wasted on a falling rock; 

love is to dance and polish this planet in the rough 

with starlight, 

{this ball of bones and coffined memories at quiet peace}

and sew constellations out of the dreams

we whispered 

and blew over dandelions. 

here in newcomerstown, somewhere, ohio, 

in sunsoftened grass, the moon third-wheeling, 

close your atlantic eyes. 

listen to my hurricane heart. 

take my smile in your hands and 

close the door on the waltzing world.