Really Bad Poetry

No one has ever liked my poetry.  I’ve published a few.  But everyone hates it.  Yet, I still continue to write.  My friend Eva refers to it as a “cheap” representation of what I am capable of, and “lazy.”  I enjoy writing poetry.  Mostly I write it when I’m feeling down.  So a lot of the stuff is just full of melancholy.  It’s just how I process things and that’s what poetry is for.  Just a means by which I get my feelings out so I don’t have to talk about them.

Memories of Ghosts:

 

I gave you all of me, what I had left;

the other part I discovered, still alive

breathing, waiting to be found,

only half-dead, and you breathed life

into it and revived it, like you 

revived the whole of me.

 

A phoenix born of ashes

I was born again from cigarette ash and

whiskey, a liver hardened and a heart

softened like sand in the surf

wet with anticipation

of the next touch, the next

kiss, the next text, the next

whisper in my ear,

the sound of your voice

over the phone.

 

I feel freedom in the ocean, in

the forest, in your presence,

your laughter, your anger, your eyes

burning like a cigarette cherry,

your hair aflame with vibrant orange

and deafening black,

tattoos and piercings

 

I am whole with my arms wrapped around

your soft body, your leg overlapping

mine, two souls joined as one

before the pale lunar slivers

dropped in between the curtains

falling over us pale and naked

and in love

 

I think of you often, in the smooth curve

of the whiskey bottle, the flame from

my lighter, like your hair, blazing

orange and black like a dying sun;

I think of you in the ash I flick

from my cigarette, 

gone and past

smoke and ash

passing into the wind.

 

That Voice:

 

She had a voice like a dying rabbit being run through 

a meat grinder.

Shrill and terrifying, 

like a banshee about to make her kill.

She sat two seats down from me in the bar.

A northern accent.

I didn’t make eye contact

I didn’t look at her

I was afraid to see her.

I didn’t think a human being could make 

a noise like that.

I was afraid she would take my soul.

When we left I asked my friend about 

her.

He said she was beautiful.

Maybe she was.

For every gift we receive in life we are endowed 

with an equal curse.

I will lay awake tonight thinking of 

the sound of lambs being slaughtered.

That voice.

I’m glad I never saw her.

How could God make something so beautiful 

only to be that cruel?

 

Grasping at the Infinite:

 

Endless amber coast beneath my feet

my hands grasp at the sands

as they slip through my fingers

falling into the white foam 

of an azure sea

falling like the slow moving 

hands of time,

falling like the grains

in my hourglass.

A finite being,

an infinite universe,

grasping at what I

can never possess.

 

Deer Season:

 

Two hours before dawn truck headlights 

cut through fog and dust in the street

a lit cigarette illuminates the darkness

blue-gray smoke escapes from cracked windows

and in rolls the bitter chill of November

my seat as cold as the snow on the ground

I reach into my pocket, feeling for the hand-warmers

not yet ready and offer me no comfort

my body shivers, a sacrifice to pay

for a habit not of my own

 

Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, hash browns

coffee to warm my eleven years in that red truck,

black and straight, knowing then

I would take my whiskey neat

my dip long-cut, my cigarettes full-flavor

when I got older

I wanted to be like my Uncle Wayne

a man with a belt buckle and a trucker hat

who could kick your ass 

and still have time

to finish his smoke

 

An hour down the road, red truck,

trailer with a four-wheeler, fog and cold

and Uncle Wayne’s cigarettes

my cousin sitting in the front seat

we took an exit finally

my hand-warmers working finally

still shaking because my uncle told me

too many layers now would make me cold

in the woods later

 

Onto the four-wheeler, blackness and headlights

dirt roads and frozen brown mud

endless forest and brush

I sat on the front, an ornament frozen

from the wind and the chill

my face flustered a ruby crimson

like a sunburn

 

My uncle dropped my cousin off first

then me

he walked 75 yards down then disappeared
I was alone at eleven with a high-powered rifle

just me and the woods and the 

unfeeling, uncaring world of mother nature

silence, then deafening noise

branches and leaves crackling underfoot

coyotes, bobcats, bears, Bigfoot

my mind racing like the squirrels running

for acorns

 

Cresting the hill, a deer!

I scan through my scope looking for antlers

I see two, more than three inches

wait for him to stop

squeeze the trigger

but he takes a step forward when suddenly

BOOOOOM! explodes through the holler

the spike buck

falls like autumn leaves

falling like rocks off the mountainside

falling like snow in the winter

falling like a gust of wind

down the side of a hill

down he slides

 

In the creek he lays, looking

I lay another into him

and another

and another

and another

shot from ass to elbow

he lays his head down never

to lift it back up

I scream “Uncle Wayne, I got one!”

 

My uncle’s steps went from a walk

to a gallop after each shot

until he was in a dead-run

sweat pouring down off his forehead

anxious, nervous, afraid

of what he might find

 

I think of him now that way

full of fear

a brave man not knowing what

his eleven year old nephew just

did with his rifle

a man anxiously awaiting a dead hunter

or a dead nephew, a shot-to-hell four-wheeler

nervous, like seeing his first child born

 

The last time I saw Uncle Wayne he was

in an urn

I couldn’t believe it

such a strong and take-no-shit man

brought down to dust and ash

but I will always remember that run

those eyes

as he came across me

smoke steaming from the barrel of my rifle

and I screaming

“Uncle Wayne!  I got one!”

 

Friendship (For Eva):

 

A Southern pine swaying in the breeze

shaken but never broken

hardened like Damascus steel

sometimes you break me with your truths,

never a lie spoken between us

 

I have seen you roar at demons

and shiver from a bitter breeze

I have seen you stand like Pilot Mountain

and melt like ice 

in a glass of bourbon

 

I have seen your darkness on a cloudless day

I have seen your light in the blackness of night

illuminating as the north star

guiding my path

when I am lost

 

Fifteen years like cigarette ash in the wind

passing and fading, rolling like the tide

ebbs and flows, ups and downs

currents and calm

facing it all together

 

We are there for each other after a hard day

like a tall glass of whiskey

there for each other 

to celebrate our triumphs

mourn our defeats

 

Looking at you I see a mirror into my soul

I see the darkness and light

the hope and despair

looking at you I see

memories and dreams

 

We’re growing old my friend

our dark hair is graying

alone against the world

but we will always have

each other

 

She Overdosed:

 

I thought about her when I was taking out the trash

when I pushed garbage down the disposal

when the cat shit in the litter box

when the toilet overflowed

I could only associate her

with filth.

 

Fresh from rehab she entered my roommate’s heart

He brought her flowers

and she threw them on the floor

“I don’t like roses!” 

She screamed.

 

He loved her but she didn’t love herself.

She was jealous of her children

who received presents on their birthdays

from their foster parents

and they didn’t buy her

anything.

 

I went out one night and saw her at the bar

she bought me a shot of vodka

I didn’t like vodka but I didn’t want

to turn down a free drink.

 

“Will you have rent tomorrow?”

I asked,

“Those shots are $9 a pop.”

Sure, she said.

“I’ve got it.”

Tomorrow came and she didn’t have money

I kicked her out.
She lived in a homeless shelter

for a few months.

I had no pity

no sympathy.

She had a good thing with my buddy.

 

Curt told me a few years later

that she overdosed

on heroin.

I couldn’t feel sorry for her

or extend her any sort of pity

because she never had it in her soul

to give that to someone else.

 

I thought about her

when I was taking out the trash.

 

Closer to the Sea:

 

I search for you in the salt air 

the briny breeze rolls over me 

like the white foam covering my feet

the soft sand feeling for my toes

 

I search for you in the mist of the waves

the rays of the sun kissing my skin

the shade from a milky cloud

drifting overhead

 

I search for you in the storm

in the crashing lightning

in the blinding flashes

in the sound of Thor’s hammer

 

I search for you in the infinite

the vast rolling sea

the heavens above,

another finite being

the other half of my soul