Ancient poetry remix!

My "Parade of Want" (2009) vs. "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens (1843)

Illustration by John Leech

I want to stay poor forever.

“You’re poor enough.”

I want to be selfless.

“Much good it has ever done you.”

I want to dream of people that meant something.

“Look upon me!”

I want to spin a web of truths.

“I won’t believe it.”

I want to escape forces of habit.

“These are but shadows of the things that have been.”

I want to fall asleep in the bed of my childhood.

“Ask me who I was.”

I want to force time to be inconsequential.

“It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little.”

I want to believe in more than I do.

“You don’t believe in me.”

I want to trust that I will die happy.

“May nothing you dismay!”

I want to knock on a strangers' door and be invited in.

“As if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave.”

I want to breathe the air from twenty other countries.

“I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,”

I want to rebuild those who matter.

“You were always a good friend to me.”

I want the father of my children to be an amazing man.

“Because I fell in love.”

I want to be contented by the sound of wind.

“You recollect the way?”

I want to grow my mind like a weed.

“Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then?”

I want to accept my inability to ever fully know.

“God knows”

I want to learn to be a duck and allow words to roll off my back.

“What else can I be, [….] when I live in such a world of fools as this?”

I want to remember that my days are numbered.

“I am a mortal, and liable to fall.”

I want to expect what I deserve.

“You fear the world too much.”

I want to feel my laughter shake the tips of my toes.

“Here is a new game”

I want to smile in the faces of adversaries.

“What do you want with me?”

I want to be confident in the life that I choose to lead.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

I want to create good.

“Ghost of the Future!”

I want to create good.

“I know what it is!”

I want to create good.

“Do you believe in me or not?”

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. (2018, March 4). A Christmas Carol (Original First Edition Cover; 1843 Original Illustrations in Color by John Leech). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm

 

Autumn Girl

Watch. Is she feral?
One day you'll train her to eat out of your hand
Each step is a statement:
I dare you. Impress me. 
Her change is scattered across your floor
Her influence is under your bed
And you're driving
And she's editing with her big red pen
You ask all the questions.
The answers are marked on the small of your back.
You love the way she walks
And the way film can't capture her eyes
And her hair is the color of driving through fall
And she changes just as fast.

Shower

Part my lips and blazing water flows in

    To clean out the space between my bones
    Sweep up the scraps of Sunday sin
    Dust off my brain and its great unknowns
    Mop the heavy smoking conflict from each lung
    Sanitize the silent grime left in your deepest cut
    Rinse the unhappy acid from my tongue
    Floss the indecisive space between my heart and gut
    Buff my kidneys to their youthful sober shine
    Purify every thought black with doubtful unease
    Scrape each stillborn concern from my spine

    And Brush the bad habits from between my knees

The heat of this labor escapes in sharp exhale

    Short breaths birthing shining music in major scale

The Fingertips of a Voice

Thin sheen of water on a floor
Invisible until touched
The fingertips of a voice send ripples through
Memories puddled there
Growing to waves of contemplation
What was said back then
Felt in deepness of the gut
The wind of heavy breath adding to the whites
Of his eyes and the waves
Travel to the other coast
Crash against deeply seized hearts
Washing down throats with swallowed thoughts
Leaving salt on the tongue
From great bodies of pining
When the annual touch transpired
But as the waves and phone lines break
I tear away from the enthralling current
And bursting to the surface
My lungs refind the air
Of only lightly missing you from afar
So that I can keep afloat.

No Eclipse

You are staring at the sun
Blindness in beauty and awe
Try to stop what has begun

Light that compares to no one
Can cause them but has no flaw
You are staring at the sun

Color exceeded by none
Wanting on but you withdraw
Try to stop what has begun

Danger not to be undone
Through my skin and eyes you saw
You are staring at the sun

The casing bursts from a gun
After the shot, hot and raw
Try to stop what has begun

Heat and glory outrun
Freeze in fear only to thaw
You are staring at the sun
Try to stop what has begun

Post-Algebra

You and I were an open-ended equation.
Drifting, diving, dividing into what we both didn't know.
Using a previously unknown technique,
We introduced mayhem and true sacrifice under the guise of casual romance.
And we multiplied that by secrecy, humor, and a dual inability to communicate as functioning adults.
I loved buying you that lying ring.

What I Couldn't Write

There is no poetic way to say that I broke your heart
Every metaphor falls short of that fear in your eyes
No hyperbole can exaggerate minutes spent thinking of you
Similes paint a lifeless picture of the trust I shattered
The game of alliteration cannot dance around this remorse
Absolutely no onomatopoeia could express the sound of sobbing, the arms wrapped so fiercely, the breathing of hair, the tears falling to clothes, the pull away, the closing door...
And nothing rhymes with I’m sorry.

Parade of Want

I want to stay poor forever.
I want to be selfless enough to love you all again.
I want to dream of people that meant something.
I want to spin a web of truths.
I want to escape so many forces of habit.
I want to fall back asleep in the bed of my childhood.
I want to force time to be inconsequential.
I want to believe in more than I do.
I want to trust that I will die happy.
I want to knock on a strangers' door and be invited in.
I want to breathe the air from twenty other countries.
I want to rebuild those who matter.
I want to imagine the father of my future children being an amazing man.
I want to be contented by the sound of wind.
I want to grow my mind like a weed.
I want to accept my inability to ever fully know.
I want to learn to be a duck and allow words to roll of my back.
I want to remember that my days are numbered.
I want to expect what I deserve.
I want to feel my laughter shake the tips of my toes.
I want to smile in the faces of adversaries.
I want to be confident in the life that I choose to lead.
I want to create good.
I want to create good.
I want to create good.

These Threads

Over my head, into you.
Each particle of smoke twisted between these threads
Stands tall with wild hair, pensive eyes,
And a thin coating of hatred.
Each particle that I breathe in is you.
You in jeans and a yellow cardigan. You.
You hiding in the air of my clothes.
You beside my closing throat.
You coursing through my lungs
You and every. Single. Ounce. Of your complete and utter abandoning indifference towards me.
Me. Only sometimes. You.
You all tangled up in this shirt.
Me stretching every long sinew of my back to drape myself in these threads.
Me breathing impossibly deeply.
Me soaking myself in this smoke.
Me forgetting all of your bitterness.
Me. Falling into you.

Rabbit Foot

I miss missing you, rabbit foot
Oh, dear, gasp, choke the faith I had in all that's disturbing
Your cool, soft smoothness in my hand
The luck I gleaned from actions so unnerving

I'd rather just pretend that we've moved on.
So I can't stand this slow dance.
Cheek to cheek I can't help but love
Which is why my habits are those of avoidance.

Speaking of which, you're just a habit. You fill the gaps my mind creates when it over thinks until all that surrounds is a masticated mush--ohhh, no--of spoiled secret feelings. Bitch?

I Could Be Something Done Poetic

I just need time. But time isn't what I have or want.
I wish time could be inconsequential, like TV programming or waffles.
Then maybe--not to get heavy or anything--I could be something.
Things could turn out alright.

I stole a clock from my school. Their clocks were always on time.
I figured, heck, this might mean something, like the word defenestrate or the Bible.
Then maybe--not to get artsy or anything--I could be poetic.
Now it's on my wall and it just freaks me out.

I keep telling myself that I'm running out of it.
In my mind that sounds positive, like leaving Detroit or escaping a rip current.
But really--not to throw a pity party or anything--I could be done.
The clock could strike midnight on me.

And being finished has a certain deliciousness to it.

A Couples' Weekend

"You don't really love me!"
Shrill female tones
Back to the wall, high pressure
His lungs feel every grove
In the plaster, dust
Wrists in hands
Fear in passion
Tongues in cheeks
Figuratively, then literally
Weird.
"You really do love me!"
Shrill female tones
Back to the wall, high pressure
His lungs feel every pulse
Breathing heavy
Loving heavy
Deep admiration, need
To stifle every
Mistake and such great heaviness,
To stifle every---
In mind.

Good Cells By Now

From up high, you look so good
And I can hardly quench these needy cells
And what am I inspired by?
Other than what I'm doing now
Which is disabling the youth in my bones,
Adding to crow's feet and laugh lines
Representative of self-depreciating self-preservation--
Not to mention bending myself
Over backward into an abdominal paradox.

On the Knees of Seven Words

Bile bubbling up the slit of my throat
Beside seven words that I'm choking down:
You are the one that got away.
Knees against tainted linoleum
I do my best thinking while powerless,
With you I always have been.
They're pushing back up, cannot be consumed
Those seven words I can't accept
Rupture between my lips in black.
My tongue is being attacked by teeth
I do my best thinking while powerless,
With you I always have been.
Droplets of arrow-shaped longing,
Messier than blood, pus, spit
Coating every surface within legs' reach.
Eyes closed to the mess I've made,
I do my best thinking while powerless,
With you I always have been.

Above Alive

A brushstroke, a fume, a painting, a price tag
Dictating numbers in ink too dry to quantify
The rush of breathlessness when the air grows thin
And the live energy that clouds can share with fingertips.
A note, a crescendo, a song, a label
Attempting to describe what is alive as stagnant
But in your D minor lives a flock of double-winged birds
Without stomachs, without eyesight, only flight.
A word, a sentiment, a novella, a synopsis
Overlooking the city of substance which lives between the lines
With glowing steel too tall to understand
And it close enough to the sun to set every inch on fire.
A bolt, a wire, a sculpture, a photograph
Losing the curvature, the depth of all that's intertwined
As growth takes the shape of the moon
Complete with the reflection of light set to stun...
No, a photograph could never capture you.

This is What I Remember

I kept crumpled pieces of you hidden in the niches of my clothes.
Dreamed about all that you entailed.
Lapped up your exhaled air as if it could save me.

I used your body to fill the off-white rooms of a empty house.
Echoes absorbed by your shirt on the floor.
Silence banished by labored breathing.

I had yet to lose all of the saccharin innocence that kept me so thin.
Bones were still growing then.
Parents were still vaguely loved.

I had yet to lose all of the saccharin innocence that kept me so thin.

Too Cold, Too Bright, Too Humid

Dear lovely, my sweetest apple blossom,
You are the pearl in every single clam,
Oh, my adorable little pocket possum,
You are the softness of every lamb,
You are spark of every fire,
Therefore our ties I must hereby sever.
You are the harmony of every choir,
And yes, that's right, dearest, we must never be together.
Not because I don't think you would make everything better,
After all, you make me happier than a rabbit in clover,
But because, quite frankly, I'd rather complain about the weather.
You take away my melancholy and it has to be over.
It's true, my princess, your presence eases my mind into zen.
So I never want to see you ever again.

Open-Ended [Air] Without Any Nerve [Endings]

Fingertips!
Numb to the touch but they're feeling so much
Every nook of your skin to every cranny of mine
Don't stop!
You might be imaginary but you'll do just fine.

Darkness!
Drawing you near and discouraging all fear
Treebottoms coated in the most sexy still
Don't look!
Only feeling them is half the thrill.

Breathing!
Just as I like it, staggered and ever haphazard
You don't get stability while taking this chance
Don't worry!
I'll protect you from the sharp edge of romance.

Separate!
I'm just a toy and you're a big invisible boy
Plastic and secret do make a good pair
Don't fall!
Treat me like a Barbie doll and never care.

Notation!
Do, though, remember this September
As the month you succame but didn't succumb
Don't forget!
That you finally met a woman properly numb.

Two Ears, Four Paws, Etc.

A mouse.
Wide-eyed and limp in spirit
Buried deep within the walls
Four paws scratching
Exactly when you need silence.
Buried deep within the left ventricle
Scratch thumping away.
A mouse.
Worn thin and soft spoken
Dancing within your secrets
Sneaking beneath the pantry door
Oh, the lack of light
Twenty teeth rotting
Chewing your artisan head hollow.
A mouse.
With the love of each of your goodbyes.
With the secrets and the stench of old kisses
With the shaking movement of your eyes
With the jarring shifting of near misses
With the confusion of the sweet disguise
With all of the the fluidity of the listless.

This Fire Wasn't Cute, and It Wasn't In Our Hearts

You were my brilliant disaster
And you were my favorite disease
I do apologize, my sweet venom
For never making things easy