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in closing
I’m past passiveVoices. I mean, it made sense at the time. I was drifting passively through the experiences created by others. But that was a product of chapter two (and, more generally, of the Two, but I digress). Experiences color people, and I’ve uncovered new me-anings in their light. This doesn’t do it [me] justice anymore.
So passiveVoices is on its way out. I’m still deciding what’s next. For now, though, thanks for sharing in my experiences. Hope you’ve enjoyed the journey so far.
current events
who the hell could possibly know
that life would plant seedlings that’d grow
into friendships of grass and snow.
if you’ll join my writer’s bloc,
we’ll hide our pens ’til muses knock,
and save better lines for better times.
ill-usion [[re-dux]]
Sparrows hum disfigured melodies as memories become days. I awake dazed and bemused by the dampened soil caressing my back. Apparently I have fallen. Asleep beside me is the abstraction of a woman, her deep blue eyes the only diversion from the torn dress by her side. She looks familiar. Ah, that’s right, I drew her yesterday; carved her limbs from palm branches and stainless steel, built her a mind and filled it with fading photographs, stole a complexion from a mannequin and placed it gently onto her plexiglas spine. And she was good for me. But her eyes of limestone never saw my cloud as her home, instead wondering what it’s like to dwell in flooding dirt or to seed barren earth. I fulfilled her desire and turned my cloud into vapor—a last resort much better in practice than on paper—resulting in her by my side and this recollection of mine.
She awakens.
I smile.
She walks away.
I have yet to stand.
one change per-chance
man this train smells, but at least i’ve got a seat.
on a subway going somewhere, and that where is up to me.
the first stop is dunn loring, yes i’m on the orange line,
then you walk into the train… what a coincidence of time.
you always told me things happen for a reason, but after you abandoned me i abandoned your philosophies because they never made sense to me anyway. yet this just seems to fit, us moving together at breakneck speed without a chance to betray the twisted lies we’ve weaved.
so i threw caution to the wind and when i said “hi” i almost screamed, an instant reaction to a situation in which i thought i’d never be. “long time no see.”
“yeah” you shyly said, a broken response to a broken friend.
an awkward silence.
moments become minutes and we still have nothing to say. i mean i have millions of secrets to share, seven thousand sentences wouldn’t be sufficient to spew into this long overdue conversation. but since we split our once united worlds i became someone you never knew.
but i’m conflicted. you see we shared everything when we were together and i’m just not prepared to lose out forever on the chance to see your smile just one more time. i mean hell you didn’t even like me drinking and here i am aching to tell you i’ve become so much worse since our last night, so i’ll hold back even though i know it’s not right in your eyes. history repeats itself and i’d only scare you if you knew how long your picture christened my shelf, your frozen smile watching over me while the days became dreams. i was a symbol of perfection in your eyes. i don’t know how or why but you saw through my self-made disguise and discovered the self that was really mine.
but enough reminiscing. long ago i gave up insisting only having you back would make me happy. this moment is not a remembrance but a reunion, a time to stop trying to rewind and instead go forward as fast as we can bear. this is the time i’ll open up and ask you about your day and your month and your yearning for full-fillment in a half-empty world. i’ll stop wondering if you stopped daydreaming or if you were ever the broken one during our long time apart. i’ll say everything that i’ve wanted to say all this time, the emotions for which i’ve written countless rhymes and i know after we talk i’ll finally be fine!
or i could turn away,
and scrap this broken plan.
and with my drink in hand,
i’ll get up to stand,
and be off to a regular day.
the block buster
if you’d just rewind,
i’d see clearly its our time,
at least in my mind.
if you wouldn’t mind,
like a mix tape we’d rewind,
making up lost time.
in a moment’s time,
i could resurrect your mind,
if you’d just rewind.
cocktails and cliffdives
with a flick we arrive,
but you’re acting like you don’t care.
your back greets us with a smile
as your eyes watch the setting sun.
i think we’re making too much noise
finishing our last rhymes.
oh well.
nothing we can do now.
we make our approach.
the porch is ashen and scarred,
like our faces in memories we’d rather forget.
and you know i’d like to make new ones with you,
walking through streets of gold and myrrh.
but you’re just staring blankly,
and i’m unlearning what i thought was certain.
that’s what happens when you’re self taught
from textbooks old and faded.
i’d buy new ones,
but you are the store
and the sign in your eyes says closed.
so i guess i’ll shut mine too,
and turn those switches in my mind.
they tell me to press on
with this endeavor
and it’s making me wonder
is the just the beginning,
or the end of an era?
someday soon i’ll have the answer.
but until you take the time
to turn a passing glance,
i’ll roll my dice
and take a chance.
dictionary
12.09.08
this poem is a metaphor.
a meta-formality of postmodern poetry.
this poem is written from a third-person point of view,
but a first-person state of mind.
[that second person interjects sometimes.]
this poem is a form of the verb “to be”:
irregular and imperfect, yes, but also the
foundation of all characterization.
this poem is, was, were, and will be.
not will.I.am but will.I.be.
like will I be your soul’s cryptographer,
or its translator?
will I be the Darfurian mother at yet another son’s death-bedside,
or the UN bureaucrat who says “it’s not a genocide”?
will i be the effigy you noosed from a tree,
or the innocence the burning image stole from me?
will i be the truth i know is real,
or only what I want to feel?
this poem is linguistic decapitation,
a guillotine for verbal thieves
who ransacked the vaults of congressional testimony,
who told us mistakes were made and pipes were laid.
Poem drops the blade,
painlessly killing those who stainlessly stole language’s innocence.
this poem is a slave master.
it forces words to work in ways they weren’t meant to
leaves them out in the scalding sun without pay,
harvesting the seeds of cotton dictionaries and tobacco thesauruses.
and if any try to make their own meaning for their verbal lives,
it meets them with a shotgun at the gate.
this poem wrote its own story,
sprinted down the streets of North Philly at 3 am looking for its drugged-out mother,
ran through the alleyways of Kensington to escape the gunblasts from the lyrical 9,
boarded up its windows in Germantown to avoid facing the fact
that when bullets are flying time is abstract.
this poem sees itself in you.
this poem is strength and weakness.
margaret said, “a word after a word
after a word is power,”
but in the bell tower of liberty where poetry cracked the gong of deception,
our linear conception of english vernacular deconstructs itself.
this poem is a murderer.
it held its gun to the head of a pen.
its hand shook.
the pen begged.
mercy.
but it had broken its promise.
to only write that which is right.
the poem fired ten shots.
the pen blots and bursts.
spilling the ink.
that formed america’s unthinking.
the ink slides down the table.
covers the granite with a thin black layer.
a coat of arms that only the CIA bore.
this poem will now deconstruct spelling.
here goes.
S-P-E-L-L-I-N might seem incomplete. but come on G,
you know what’s complete is never discreet,
like the broken beat
that beats faster than the ecstasy-laden Bourbon Street raves
called human hearts.
this poem may seem depressing.
but as we reach the end of our poetic Journey,
remember that i
don’t stop believin
in the power of our vernacular to evolve.
but it’s up to us; we were naturally selected.
we are poetically expected to review the disconnected.
those disrespected by this right-brained world.
we are looking for internal links between
letters and words,
words and phrases,
phrases and life sentences.
because life is the jury who sentences us,
who reviews the facts and chooses the truth.
but i… i refuse to give in,
refuse to abuse this beautiful language to judge
those who have yet to find their artistic muse.
this poem is not a metaphor!
this poem transcends paper.
this poem transcends mind.
this poem is as real as I am.
this poem is real because I am.
this poem is life, liberty, and the pursuit of poetry.
this poem is not a metaphor!
i am a metaphor!
this poem is me!
so grab that blood red pen.
this poem has only just begun!