[latextwin]

Nothing Is Far

BY ROBERT FRANCIS

Though I have never caught the word

Of God from any calling bird,

I hear all that the ancients heard.

Though I have seen no deity

Enter or leave a twilit tree,

I see all that the seers see.

A common stone can still reveal

Something not stone, not seen, yet real.

What may a common stone conceal?

Nothing is far that once was near.

Nothing is hid that once was clear.

Nothing was God that is not here.

Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.

Here in the sun I sit alone

Between the known and the unknown.

Robert Francis, "Nothing Is Far" from Collected Poems, 1936-1976.

[latextwin]

when the speed kicks in, i go to the store for nothing

and walk right by the house where you lived with snow white

i wonder if she ever thought the storybook tiles on the roof were too much

but from the window it's not a bad show

if your favorite thing's dianetics or stucco

the drug stores are open all night

the only real reason i moved to the east side

i love a good place to hide in plain sight

what if i told you i feel like i know you, but we never met

here everyone knows you're the way to my heart

hear so many stories of you at the bar

most times alone and some looking your worst

but never not sweet to the trust funds and punishers

man, i wish that i could say the same

i swear i'm not angry, that's just my face

a copycat killer with a chemical cut

either i'm careless or i wanna get caught

who i'm not

what if i told you i feel like i know you

but we never met. it's for the best

i can't open my mouth and forget how to talk

cause even if i could,

wouldn't know where to start, wouldn't know when to stop

[latextwin]

this is no great illusion.

when i'm with you i'm looking for a ghost.

or invisible reasons

to fall out of love or run screaming from our home.

because we live in a house of mirrors.

we see our fears in everything:

our songs, faces and secondhand clothes.

but more and more we're suffering

not nobody, not a thousand beers

will keep us from feeling so all alone.

but you are what you love,

and not what loves you back.

that's why i'm here on your doorstep

pleading for you to take me back.

and the phone is a fine invention.

it allows me to talk endlessly to you

about nothing disguising my intentions,

which i'm afraid my friend are wildly untrue.

it's a sleight of hand, a white soul band,

the heart attacks i'm convinced i have

every moment upon waking.

to you i'm a symbol or a monument.

your rite of passage to fulfillment.

but i'm not yours for the talking.

but you are what you love

and not what loves you back.

i guess that's why you keep calling me back.

i'm fraudulent, a thief at best,

a coward who paints a bullshit canvas.

things that will never happen to me.

but at arm's length it's tim who said

"i'm good at it, i've mastered it.

avoiding everything."

but you are what you love, tim

and not what loves you back.

and i'm in love with illusions

so saw me in half.

i'm in love with tricks so

pull another rabbit out your hat.

[latextwin]

friends are warmer than gold when you're old and keeping them is harder than you might suppose lately i tend to make strangers wherever i go some of them were once people i was happy to know mounting mileage on the dash double darkness falling fast i keep stressing, pressing on way deep down at some substratum it feels like something really wrong has happened and i confess i'm barely hanging on all my happiness is gone it's all gone somewhere beyond ten thousand afternoons ago all my happiness just overflowed that was life at first and goal to go me and you and us and them and all those people from way back when all our hardships were just yardsticks then, you know? it's not the purple hills it's not the silver lakes it's not the snow cloud shadowed interstates it's not the icy bikechain rain of portland oregon where nothing's wrong and no one's asking but the fear is so strong it leaves you gasping no way to last out here like this for long because everywhere i go i know everywhere i go know all my happiness is gone it's all gone somewhere beyond /purple mountains david berman

[latextwin]

*turning | Annie Guthrie

Dec. 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 PM redcliches I can’t sleep. I feel the globe making a rotation, and I’m not supposed to be, but I’m awake for it. I’m at that age when everyone is talking about the kinds of love they’ve been using to get by. It’s a very dark late. The sound of a towel dropping off the rack into the bath carries my name with it. I get up to turn on the dryer to block out all possibilities of ever hearing anything else so fall.

[latextwin]

what does it matter whether God speaks to us from amongst the thorns or the flowers?

[latextwin]

i’m not that nice, i’m mean and i’m evil

[latextwin]

they say the house isn’t haunted but light touches every wall when you split the heart open what comes out isn’t blood

[latextwin]

some things you lose and some things you just give away

[latextwin]

it's time the feeling fades

[latextwin]

i wake up alone real early & i’ll be coming home real late i get a little lonely, sure we all do sometimes, when every damn day’s the same… all these shooting stars i wish on all i wanna find is someone who can tell me, tell my future baby tell me where the bells ring all i see is stars & gardens tell my future baby tell me i’m so lonely

[latextwin]

i learned a lot about myself today and i don't like any of it

i don't know what to do

[latextwin]

it doesn't fool me, no one else is watching. this is not what privacy looks like. this is what a thinly veiled attempt to hide narcissism looks like. we do not share a mind, but i know what you're thinking. it makes me want to hide everything inside of myself. because you take away what is being offered to you for free/ i can't see you when you cover up the mirror

[latextwin]

your face is sad, i’ve kissed your mouth about a million times only wish that you could see together we’ll be fine. i like your voice when it growls & hisses yea, it’s beautiful.i like you you disappear in the sun i melt in two…… you’re a werewolf from waist down i’m in a different town, just a different town no spell that i can use and all i feel is bloom, all i feel is gloom. i only wish that you could see together we’d be free i like you you disappear in the sun i melt in two but i like you, we could howl at the moon (don’t repay me with a bruise)

[latextwin]

it’s such a strange ache in the chest,like its been scraped empty but the stain won’t come out. it feels like trying to remember words from a dream, when you have a hard time remembering the entire dream itself.i’m not lonely. i don’t think tgis is what loneliness feels like. a cold face snarling and saying theres nothing to be sad about…. i’m ljke the lady that lost her keys but can’t remember where she was.i dont think this feeling is real. & i don’t think other people experience it either. because i haven’t seen it,so it must not be real

[latextwin]

rage is the purest of emotions; it cannot be faked or tamed

[latextwin]

death will give us back to god, just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean