Dark Poetry Prose Poetry April 23, 2005 Dark Poetic Prose

9pm 4-23-05 saturday

your eyes are loud. as are mine. screaming. shouting in a voice that most never hear.

your heart is smooth and supple. and yet upon deeper inspection i see, there is scar tissue.

though where i walk is not neccessarily what upon i tread.i take each step with the past as my compass. a guide, but not an itinerary. a sense of direction since everything beyond now is transparent.

when i breathe, i'm not only taking air in. the world shivers in its sleep and i pull the blanket back up over it.

when i listen, i'm not only taking sounds in. my heart taps out the sos's.

your talk is strong. words on steroids. but everyone is strong these days. or so they claim. better still, to be gentle. allow all those timid moments in your life to alight upon your open palm.

let them rest there while they gather their strength for the many years they've still to balm.

though where i lay is not precisely the x i'd once marked. so long ago when youth and hubris drilled in its flag. that banner still waves. the stronger winds its savior as it clings gracelessly to all that i've abandoned.

9:42pm saturday 04-23-05

understood isn't the goal. understanding. that's the buoy i swim toward as the ocean rises taller than i can tread.

don't move me. allow me to move you instead.

that is all i want from anyone i could ever hope to love.

leave the grass to lie where upon you've cut it. allow it to return to the roots from which it first arrived. and therefore concluding the circle in the act of life.

kneel me down. that i might humble myself to. all the people i've failed to understand. all the situations in which i've been more myself than and not the friend i intended to.

the cold is gone, but lingers still. like this braid of grief i wear around my throat. heavy pendant dangling as my thoughts weigh it down.

it might be made of gold. or it may be made of lead. something tells me that i'll never really know.