Woes

Her words are like a trumpet ringing clear
I hold them, oh, I hold them, like it’s heaven in my ear
And try, my god I try, to answer clear
But words are like a drop of rain
They fall and land, but don’t remain
And what they could have been…it doesn’t matter…they just disappear

And still, I try to speak them all the same
While fearing they’ll be heard, but lack the strength to thus remain
I say them as if words could make me sane
And yet they never seem to hold
The light you need when life is cold
And so I see you shiver and the only thing I know to feel is shame

Her words are like a beacon in the sea
I follow, oh, I follow, like they’re only meant for me
And so I tell myself I have a key
That promises an avenue
Where you and I are me and you
And hold, do I, illusions of a world where me and you are truly we

And disregard the chasms and the crows
I wrap my arms around the highs and try to disregard the lows
And seal your name in rhymes and written prose
That never really mean as much
As but a fragment of your touch
And still, my goddess, still, I wish my words could simply wash away your woes

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Probity

I watched her walk away in fields of flowers
And still I had to ask myself, but why, and where, to whom now does she go?
I drank the seconds, smoked the minutes, and consumed the hours
And, even now, I fear I’ll never know

Where treading, no, she never left directions
And so I looked for symptoms like a sickness in a world that wasn’t ill
As if a hunter lost within a land of false connections
Or an addict looking for another pill

I watched her walk away but couldn’t follow
And not because I wouldn’t or I couldn’t, or I feared the trail ahead
I simply tried to fill the parts of me she left so hollow
And maps could never tell me where she led

Perhaps she flew or swam across an ocean
And left me, as so many have, and many more will likely seek to do
For even as I pen the words imbued with much emotion
I wonder just how much of it is ever really true

Interpretation

Perhaps the poems I write for you are what my fingers trace
While following the scars upon a heart I can’t erase
The Morse code of the tapping tears that travel down your face
And so do I decipher them like sad binary code made from the burns of cigarettes and tattered lace

Perhaps the poems I write for you are raindrops in the wind
A book of lightning letters in the veins upon your skin
The prayer I wouldn’t say because for you I would’ve sinned
And so I search for you in all the words already written and inaccurately write them all again

Perhaps the poems I write for you or pressed upon your cheek
A record that my fingers play forever on repeat
The lines upon your lips that, when you’re silent, seem to speak
And so I deconstruct them into sentences and phrases like a secret that my heart could never keep

Perhaps the poems I write for you are what I choose to see
The memory of photographs that never came to be
The parts of you that led me to the better parts of me
And so I seek to paint them as a portrait of tommorow in the shades of every lost apology

Yesterday

I met a girl from yesterday that wore, as if reflections in her eyes,
The halo of a melting sun
Behind a grinning moon
So, in a sea of little coffee cups where books are a disguise
I heard, but also felt, as none
Could feel except when swept away by little paper notes of never, maybe, soon

Where distances were moments set between the soft facade of never – more
And music – even missing so –
Was made of lyrics still
Just like a faded, old impression left behind when pages tore
So that I needn’t see to know
That all departures were impermanent from there where ever – more was really real

I told her of tomorrow – but here eyes, they only saw the day before
Like silver crowns and banners blue
And palisades of chance
With gentle arms around the fair that should exist in love and war
I felt, but also heard anew,
The song her somber heart was playing as if asking me if I would like to dance

And there between the islands made of coffee cups and half-remembered books
Where people spoke, but rarely heard
How could I not but rise
As if a leaf within the wind that never cared just how it looks
For she had stolen every word
And my tomorrow, all the same, the girl with yesterday still shining in her eyes

Fonder

So compasses have broken
Like a glass of old champagne we meant to drink
And left within our palms as if the last remaining token
Of a carnival of sand that needs to sink
Into the what’s and why’s we squander

We walk the weary bridges
And the catacombs and tombs and holy grounds
Where all the trails we knew have worn away to naught but ledges
Where the days we shouldn’t keep are always found
And, in our dreams, we yearn to wander

So maps have finally failed us
Like the courage in a cup we cast aside
And smiles are the elegies of failure that regale us
When we see so many shadows that we’ve shied
But never stopped to really ponder

In places that we never
Meant to tread, but here we are, and thus remain
Where all we know is heaviness in cords we fear to sever
In the absence that has left us none the same
And only made the heart grow fonder

Wound

It echoes like the pulse within a heart that’s meant to swoon
And like a swell, a storm in hell
When, slowly, bells and angels fell
As if a cracked and cold bassoon it was
…And always is too soon

As if a song so violent that it cannot help but croon
And what is done are merely crumbs
When all the sums are one or none
And oaken hearts are sadly hewn because
…They couldn’t play the tune

On strings they never meant to play for ears that seem immune
Where, to the songs, we sing along
Where nights are long and hope is gone
And love has leaned into impugn where flaws
…In deserts, seem as dunes

And walking far away from fields we’d threaded like a loom
We, looking back, into the black
We slowly crack from what we lack
And tell ourselves we’re meeting noon’s applause
…With these, our liquid bleeding wounds

Admission

Maybe it’s your stare
Or just your hair
Or just the way you care
And maybe I was scared
Or unaware
Or simply wouldn’t dare

To place my feet on edges dark
And tilt my head to hear your heart
And let my own enjoy your tune
By letting these, my lips of winter, meet you there in June

Maybe it’s your eyes
Or that you’re wise
Or that your words surprise
And maybe I was numb
Or simply dumb
And simply couldn’t run

To where you were and always were
And see that you were always her
For whom I always wished to find
For moons were in the way, and to your sunlight I was blind

Maybe it’s your lips
Or just your hips
Or all your clever quips
And maybe I was weak
And couldn’t speak
Or was afraid to seek

The place I knew you’d always be
The you that always wanted me
The path that could’ve lead to you
Where these, my winter lips, could finally say I care as deeply as I do