Laments of A Pen

My ball-point rolls over
pages lined with lists.
Is this what has been written?
My computerized counterpart,
the keyboard, has relegated
me to menial things. messages,
notes, groceries, schedules,
lists. I miss my days atop
the literary chain. Days when
typewriters were too much work
for typical transactions,
when laptops were nothing more
than future science fiction.
And amidst my lamentations,
all it seems I still have left
is I'm not rusting like the sword.
No, I am still the mighty pen.

Reading Between Shelves

This library is a beehive, honeycombed,

that student has a set of wings,

translucent, buzzing, flimsy, like burnt sugar,

they smell of honey's sweetness.

Yet they're bitter like Garfunkel's failures,

because this building is not a beehive,

she's rather more a concrete castle.

But one fucked up, not one majestic.

We're trapped because the printers buzz,

while Arjuna approaches awakening.

The crumbling plaster.

Enlightenment.

Our progress is the man in quicksand,

he devours books and atlases

while Déscartes sautés encyclopedias

that the workerbees will someday eat

in a morbid feast of frantic serenity.

All fragile wings must become mouths.

La rue de victoire, ce n'est pas vrai.

We're paved by the labor of lesser wings,

clinging to the catacombs of this library.

How much is lost?

Is it the words or the writing
that are extensions of the self?
Because I can't quite tell if
the phrases that I'm reading
represent what I really felt.

The question I can never pull
from my mind's stuck drawer
is one concerning who we are
compared to people we once were
and if we become more.

If I turned the pages backward,
revealing fresh what's been before
could I look into a mirror
by looking through the keyhole
of my younger bedroom door?

I'm not sure if I'll ever grasp
what all goes into growing.
But there's one thing that I know
and that's that the self's
not static but it's flowing.

green city bench

he leans back in his long plaid jacket
and watches the traffic as it practically
melts down the blacktop street
in the summertime heat
that knocked him off of his feet
and keeps him fixed to his seat
where he listens to heatwaves glisten
and his friends are all missin'
the barely audible brilliance
of the millions of miniscule breaths
breaking forth from lungs of leaves
that cling to the trees
as they try to not freeze
in the summertime breeze.

Role Model

I wanna be like Bob Dylan
and change the world I live in
I wanna sing songs about something
that people care about
for more than 3 minutes
and not care how I sound.
I wanna be like Bob Dylan
and be entirely myself.

Looking over my grandfather's shoulder.

I'm looking back at battles I didn't fight
and deciding who was in the wrong or right
and even though my absence gives me innocence
i feel a certain sense of necessary recompense
for the wars unwon by my ancestors indirect
because i believe that even if i'm correct
it's no thanks to my vision that's not so great
but only the lenses that history can create.

the heart as a hose

the pipes have been filling with pressure
yet it's taking less to fight off the flow
even though from what i know i should
begin to grow weak from holding on
and perhaps my eyes missed small drops
that slipped through fingers but failed
to leave traces of their trickling down
but small amounts mean nothing now
since i spread my fingers in the decision
to let the unquenchable rain down.

thickening skin

the flesh once worn raw and burnt with blistering
has become a lesser affliction with the aid of time
and after repeated incidents of recklessness
calluses have caused an unconscious carelessness
because the pain has become a part of the past
and not much is noticed through numbness
so once sensitive skin is sacrificed to scars

working for working

i've been so busy being busy
i've forgotten how it feels
to do something worth doing
that isn't on an endless list
of never-finished needs.

breathing thinner air

i'll admit i envy agnostics every now and then
thinking it might be nice to not know a thing
and admit it openly with honesty of insecurity
free of an impulse to feign a false sense of solidness
when really i'm worn with wavering worries
and doubts leave me considering a questioning
of the claims i make so consistently with confidence
that my faith is founded on solid ground
but my self-induced spiralling away from the frame
leads me to listlessness every now and then.

repeating how i repeat myself

i've been sticking one foot in front of the next in a systematic circle that seems concentric the way i can't connect the dots that don't come in contact with my stationary circumference that i'll never stray from as long as i long for this pattern i call progress, preferring to run in revolutions than crawl along lines for fear that i won't feel the wind on my face telling my brain it's better to add to laps as fast as i can than expand my map at slower rates or take a rest from my ritual of repeated reps around my world where quantity counts for more than meaning.

minus one, plus one

sometimes i find myself meaning metaphors
in a more literal sense than originally meant
like that time i talked about albums and how
every new release is as different as the days
that go by and change your face that i first
meant to write these lines about but now
i'm going about it in a roundabout rant
about the way words can stand for themselves
while also substituting for something else

American history

life is a line in our analyzing eyes
A leading to B without bend or break
only carefully calculated curves allowing
a chance for a change of course
because we believe we hold control
of pathways we've paved over the past
refusing to believe in a reality
that can't conform to our conceptions
of straight-edged explanations
from mechanically molded minds

taste aversion

memory can make itself a bit of a menace
when your mouth remembers more than meals
and moments after can alter your appetite
like an illusion of an aftertaste unwanted
caused by connections made unconsciously
but ever effective nevertheless
to remind your mind of the illness
affected by your former favorite food.

haiku #28

i had an ice cube
i was trying to save it
now i have water

closing credits

i want to watch the miles pass beneath my feet
feeling fresh air silken sheets against my face
running under cliché clouds and symbolic sun
straight off silver screen and into newborn night
not because i believe in a certain satisfaction
or happy ending heroes going home glorious
while choreographed conquests ask questions
left unanswered by assumptions of immature
or perhaps just quietly content pedestrians
who can quickly forget the fleeting remains
of final frames while names make a way
across the screen and off the pageless plains
leaving only a lack of color in their wake
masquerading as night when in reality
they've given birth to the breaking of day.

memories like melodies

faces stay familiar, somewhat similar
to the way favorite songs forever play
and even after long seasons of silence
the rhythm remains in your ears, intact
needing just a few notes to bring it back.

every note is harmony

harmony between notes played on piano keys
making more than gray of white and black
with magic not from notes or nimble fingers
but in the heart behind the hands at work
and the mind combining more than notes
though there would be no chords created
without the work of another artist
whose hands assembled hammers and strings.

different directions

i've been digging deeper, but i can't take the dark
that eclipses my eyes as i cut through the earth
until all that remains is the side of my shovel
catching the last few rays from the fresh air above
and i remember my youth when i used only palms
cupped and curved to remove dirt and earth
and shallow holes hid only ankles and feet
but now that i've grown, so have my goals
and i want my work to show the steps i've taken
towards greater heights and higher standards
but i can't see how my lofty new life can help
my well-washed hands hold this dirty shovel
and dig through depths i've longed to discover.

singing similar songs

listening to my brother's bright eyes
as he takes his secondhand shower
and i change in my parents' room
wondering what it's like to stick around
without staying in my parents' town
never letting myself regret running away
because i haven't left the starting line
spreading my stance across the states
so i can continually shift my center
back and forth between now and then
and i know they know it makes no sense
because i can't belong in plural tenses
even though i ended up in this halfway house
without my plane getting off the ground.