PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

"No excuse, 

but the metal has rusted. 

An unkept armory. 

Barrels with red, 

 

triggers peppered orange. 

Springs stuck, 

pins, unmoving. 

Bores obstructed. 

 

The whole weapon set

useless, 

to the trained eye. 

But

 

a gun is still a gun, 

the potential it has

to kill, 

ever present. 

 

Rusty or not, 

it is still recognizable, 

months of no use

not enough to erase

 

the sizable impression

of the shape, 

the indication

of the handgun, long gun. 

 

The task looming, 

Armorer, 

keys in hand, 

sighing. 

 

Unlocking 

the cages, 

duty tumblers turning, 

locks coming free. 

 

So long, 

had it beem

since maintenance

had been laid

 

where it belong. 

The familiar metal

began to fill hands, 

twist, turn,

 

rifles broke down, 

pistols slid apart. 

Rusty was the

mind, 

 

as were the firemans, 

but both began 

to be broken

free. 

 

Rag, brush, 

break-away sprayed, 

assemblies oiled.

Pieces began to click, 

 

operate smoothly, 

unlike language, 

where lack of use

means disappearance, 

 

past tense

isn't the demise

of functionality of things,

like bike riding. 

 

or an armory. 

 

The Armorer will be busy,

it may take some time.

But he will pass inspection. 

 

With work, 

with determination, 

desire 

and time. 

 

It takes time

for things to rust. 

 

It takes time

to fix such a lack of use. 

 

The best solution

isn't busting rust, 

but daily use, 

rather." 

I lean too much on this description,

I can’t explain straight how I love you

so instead I will paint you in the light of

minutes and falling slow and laughing through the pain,

heat and support systems and split second choices,

skies and canyons, screams and whisper breaths,

gold and metaphors and scribbles…

hope it’s enough.

I have made this challenge a library,

over half a year of shifting

I have tried to tell a pretty tragedy

but somehow the pretty’s missing

 

Good intentions, I want to spread heart

Gray creeps up around my grin

This year’s library is how I keep

knives from slipping under my skin

 

Still grass grows around sinkholes,

showing just how we survive

We try to shine in our own spaces

pull magic out of staying alive

 

We have made this challenge a library,

a year of change and how we show it

We have tried to tell a pretty tragedy

and that’s what I call a poet

She told me

that since I love this

she wants to see it.

 

I swear that’s the nicest thing

anyone’s ever said to me without thinking

that sounded like it was thought out for centuries.

 

She said she wants to know

how I rant,

what sets me off

when I don’t usually say

because it’s already bottled up in writing.

 

I’m afraid of how she’ll see me

this vulnerable,

this aching for all the wrong reasons,

this cliché for all the right ones.

 

I’m afraid all this baggage

might send her

down the coastline.

 

I know I will show her my passion,

but not as much as she wants.

I will collect

all the words I think are worthy

and leave the rest behind.

Recycle my words like the dying sun

the candy wrapper you don’t notice beneath your feet

the one you leave stuck in the car door

when you go back to the warmth

 

So I’ll just stay here in the corner

and keep leaving things behind

all my dreams crueler than sleep

 

Recycle my words like I can tell you want to

I’ll crumple them up for you

but after you toss them I’ll follow behind you

steal them back, build them into something more

I have never written

like a petal,

words perfectly placed,

 

pauses perfectly positioned

like curves

down the slope of the mountainside,

 

soft dirt spilling

through my fingertips,

sifting through only the best earth

to grow my syllables,

 

picking colors so they

blend like a sunset

and I can sit there

at the end of the day

knowing I gave exactly

the colors the world needed.

 

No.

 

I write like a

weed,

 

shadows unable

to shame me,

waterfalls unable

to drown me,

 

just enough wild

to snap in the air

as I try to crack this world like a riddle

bleed it wide open

I can wield this art like a knife

like a drug

 

giving everything everything

too much of everything,

 

but still the wild waxes

and I stretch to every ceiling,

 

choosing words like a twister of seeds

scattering to whatever

wind I let loose

 

and the more I push through

my soil

my skin

my soul

the more that grows.

"First, he says, 

 

first and foremost,

the cub has it's roar, 

or did I mean Lion? 

 

He tells me, 

performs for me, 

the vivid imagery

of the courage and strength, 

 

trying to give unto another.

No script, no paper, 

off memory, his poetry

is in his heart, 

 

and apart from my written word, 

wow, can i perforn like

the one singing bump and grind? 

Well, I most definitely have 

 

not the voice. 

But, 

the artist has instead

his art in his soul, 

 

and no pen or pad

or book in hand, man, 

this man has it. 

So does She

 

giving me sweet epiphany, 

alliteration and onomatopoeia, 

hyperbole, dreams of red velvet, 

a memory of perhaps

 

succulent treat, 

and after a beat, 

another artist approaches,

such powerful words. 

 

All of them, 

potential no longer blocked, 

mind unlocked,

her voice giving me thoughts. 

 

I am home, 

I am surrounded by poets, 

artists, lovers, dreamers, 

those who have suffered

 

more than I, 

hearing some of the pleas. 

It would indeed be

enriching, more imbued positivity. 

 

And perhaps comical

as I watch one poet

almost run over another

on trip to couch.

 

I grin, laughed, 

laughed more when asked

to rurn to page 24. 

Hands, the color red, 

 

subjects being poured about

by all these great writers. 

Such emotion, 

they read,

 

I listen.

Tonight isn't about me, 

this is about them, 

and I am humbled again. 

 

Tonight is about you,

and you, and all of you 

who pour their soul, 

so vulnerable. 

 

Lessons, being preached to me, 

wise words, being brushed 

across my canvas,

their paint so vibrant.

 

Their pain so real, 

like my own. 

What I strive to do, 

being done unto me. 

 

They want to write, 

they make me want to 

write, right now. 

Never stop writing, 

 

requesting got returned keys, 

being alive. 

Poetry has kept me alive. 

You, artists, breathe into me...

 

life."

"Feel it, 

the sensation of breathing, 

with a new friend. 

Not

 

the addition, 

but the release of a union

of muscle and sinew, 

effort

 

cast to the side. 

The breath

enjoyed

with the support 

 

of the floor. 

The ground, 

the dirt below, 

thinking now

 

of feeling the green grass

in between your toes, 

the Earth, 

our Earth. 

 

Nay, she is not ours, 

we are instead Hers. 

Your breath... 

given strength by Mother Earth. 

 

Do you feel it? 

The ebb of the Earth, 

the beat, 

the ancient, encompassing embrace. 

 

Do you feel the flow

of the Ocean,

the breath of Mother Earth

made manifest?

 

Do you feel the presece

of the energy,

in this room, 

right now?

 

The energy that is still, 

the energy that links us, 

neighbor to neighbor, 

the energy of the mightiest wave

 

crashing onto the shore,

the wrath of the surf

felt as fury by the surfer

that Hell hath no. 

 

The energy of the exhausted canine

resting finally on couch

with the child who so tenderly

ran it tired. 

 

The energy when Autumn comes

when you're not quite done

kissing Summer

goodbye.

 

Do you feel the breath? 

Do you feel your mind 

spiraling all over this

whirl of whimisical words?

 

Do you feel the heart? 

Your heart? 

My heart? 

The flow of energy 

 

of the one to your left

or right? 

Us all, limited not

to labels

 

or categories, 

not by old, young, 

American, skin tone, 

the foolish boy or the sweet lady.

 

Try Human, 

Homo Sapien, 

try Earthling, 

giggling practitioner about spirit fingers. 

 

But, 

you know what? 

I do not

need to instruct, 

 

because I feel it. 

I feel you. 

I feel joy,

stress, searing pain, 

 

us joining as a whole

with our Om. 

So beautiful, 

you people. 

 

This is it. 

This is you, this is me. 

This is Mother Earth. 

I feel it.

 

And maybe you do too."

"Tragic, 

tragedy can be, 

with repeating sounds of words, 

or screams and cries;

 

pain is a universal language.

Everyone knows it, 

this I believe. 

But,

 

even then, there's plenty

of discontent for which has and has not

been felt, 

as though suffering is to be measured.

 

I've seen it, you have, too, 

the pain of the neighborhood, 

tires slashed throughout, 

just another siren,

 

crying, 

at my end of the city. 

Such a pity, and then

the loud clash

 

of the car crash, 

one having smashed into the other,

and in this moment of pain, 

this tragedy,

 

comes unity, 

Humanity.

The unprovoked question

of the desire of assistance,

 

the rush to the scene 

seen by me

of the people who live on this block, 

calming the sobbing mother,

 

bringing the young ones out from the cold, 

the old man sweeping the broken glass,

no police having arrived yet.

Yet, nothing but pain

 

bringing us together, 

celebrating that everyone is okay.

 

Silver lining, 

pain unites,

every little thing

is going to be all right,

 

the radio said so."