Nicholas Popkey

Writer / Narrative Designer

[nicholaspopkey]

A Billion Drops of Water

Passing through cities in various countries, I scatter myself, living multiple lives, entertaining different versions of myself. With a healthy detachment, I allow and accept each life that I live. Not, as I learned does not serve me, with an obsession, by which all the eggs in the basket break at once, and the city sours, and the friends I had feel like phantoms, and the only light ahead is from the torch of a night train I don’t have a ticket for, and I must leap onto it as it is rushing by, throwing my bones to the wind for the sake of landing elsewhere. I have learned better.

Somewhere, away, there is always is another sea of phantoms, but they cannot cause me anxiety because I do not yet know them as friend or foe, and so their unknown shapes are fitting and acceptable.

To build a life somewhere and have it fall apart can feel like the greatest tragedy.

But if I can love myself unconditionally, knowing that at the deepest level of consciousness, I am all I will ever have (even in relation to others), then it should not bother me to begin again. Those fresh phantoms can be trusted, must be trusted, because without hope, there is no life at all.

From city to city, I find myself expressed in separate pieces, pieces which I can only sometimes give names to, but mostly they are flashes, like the truth in dreams, drifting out of comprehension when the first thoughts of the day replace them.

These pieces of self cannot commit to a subject or object or knowledge of self, and instead, by their very existence, are more akin to a billion drops of water; they can only take shape as independent entities brought together by a serendipitous fusing. Wrapped up in a net of indescribable energia that is entirely of the moment, buzzing at a point of focus that is not created, affected, or controlled by human effort. But it wraps up these moments of clarity all the same.

[nicholaspopkey]

Seafaring

On the open sea, truly it is wide open—the land loses the battle to the horizon, and there can be nothing more than what you’ve taken with you; freed from the chatter of quicksilver desires. Out here with no appointments, no prisoner to our moods. We are magic, in the half-calm between broken waves, we are so tired we sleep as we lie awake, cutting through a sun-spotted mirror to the clouds, we are disassembled. Not broken like the waves by the bow, but disintegrated, leaving behind a spray of images we had thought that we wanted, while the parts of us we need are put back together. Not even birds fly out this far. But we do. We fly as the time does and yet it creeps, each second fuller than the last, and the kiss of salt is a message from a planet that’s made of water, and we are fluid too, letting go of gratification and I’ll-be-happy-when. We slide down the surface of ourselves, putting trust in the wind and the captain to bring us home.

[nicholaspopkey]

Meditation for the Morning Rain

When I remember to breathe, I come back to myself, To the one who is deep inside, Who is lucky to be alive.

The one full of gratitude, Eager to smile, To eat delicious food, To move with fluidity.

The one free of judgment, Free of desires that make things complex, The one who loves simply The sound of raindrops.

Birds chatter, waking up the sky, Parrots flying two-by-two, Calling to each other With a great ruckus of noise.

As the rain slowly falls, The earth still dark enough to drink it, The sun hidden well below the hills, The one who doesn’t think begins to rise.

The thoughts I entertain Take their place in the wings, Giving their space to the one Who is full of patience.

The one who never needs To say anything at all.

[nicholaspopkey]

Whereplaces

I'm 20 I'm able I'm ready I'm stable

My breath has felt heavy, Roaring out of my chest With the tempo of 10,000 rapids Crusted over In winter whereplaces

Scaring the bones off meadowlarks.

Looking south, Eyes batting at crystallized Tears from a cumulus, flapping, Churning the air currents, Whipping, whirling intangibility To a path of least resistance.

[nicholaspopkey]

Belonging

Does this body belong to me? I wish it were yours And this heart in a cage of my ribs? I wish you'd take it

Does this tongue, longing to sing of you Belong to the roof of my mouth? If it were yours I would tumble with your words

Are these lips condemned to belong to me? If they were yours I would laugh as you do Flutter to a stop in a dying conversation And lay open, sighing at the edge of sleep

And if this mind can be shelled by no other I should hope to empty my thoughts And you would spin gold From their meek-and-pettiness

Into oblivion, then I could wander Without burden of body or soul

[nicholaspopkey]

Never Really Here

I am the thinking you do at the end of the day,

The monster who speaks before spoken to.

I will be heeded, or buried,

Depending on you.

I am the deepening, the softening, the serpent.

I am the rolling of tongues.

I am a language you learn in your sleep,

I am never gone,

I am never really here.

[nicholaspopkey]

Poetry of Passing Moments

This is the way the wind rustles the treetops. 

This is a stack of books in the afternoon sun. 

This is directing a delivery-man to the right apartment. 

This is a nod to the neighbor. 

This is greens from the garden. 

This is a sweet text message because someone crossed your mind. 

This is paging through a magazine with no priority of what to read. 

This is the taste of coffee with your eyes shut. 

This is the variety of love between the heartstrings, 

the space between wood grains and gaps in constellations. 

This is watering plants. 

This is taking a picture because chance made something lovely. 

This is filling your gas tank and not checking your phone, 

just watching the numbers spin, or the orbit in the world around you. 

This is the little smile you get from the barista, 

the one she doesn’t share with every customer. 

This is spinning a mug on the table so the graphic faces you. 

This a pen going dead and finding a new one. 

This is when the kettle boils, when the microwave chirps, 

the drip of the shower when you’ve just turned it off. 

This is tossing tissues in the trash. 

This is scratching your nose, when you get to the itch right away, 

and the curl of the toes around the barstool, barefoot. 

This is the last sip in the glass, the single cigarette per week. 

This is saying no to an impulse because you’re already happy. 

This is the easiest to expect,

And what we have forever.

[nicholaspopkey]

Winter Coals

Fear chokes the roots, I've bloomed in despair before, Put your writer hands on my back, The winter coals of repair Is my least-worthy madness.

Vastness unfolds in the bile Of backroads, Viscera tumbles where I've Watched you sleep and the roadkill Brushes like rain on the automatic panes Pecked of a crime The kill, and the killers remain in remains, And strapping the pavement in headlights, I'd fry on the fissured blacktop, If you'd split your lips and laugh at it.

Country of uncommon security Provoking temptation, And timeless In the sense that a river runs dry To the bones over here.

[nicholaspopkey]

Benny

Benny the steel-man Stooped in his youth, Lovin' the steam And it's whistlin' toot, Lost a wee pinkie Pushin' the blade, Lost him his job Before he was made. Now he's a bookie, Sweet-talking shark, Said something' fast In indulgence of heart. Holden got hold of him, Brandished a dart And Benny fell back, A' dying his art.

[nicholaspopkey]

You're such a talented writer, I'm jealous :p

I can't wait to see more from you!

thank you! excited to check out your writings as well ✍🏻

[nicholaspopkey]

Cobweb

Today I set my Soul adrift, Letting it float like a cobweb on the breeze, Catching wherever it should happen to snag, On bushes, trees, mailboxes, stop signs, Fences, outcroppings of people, Austere banks, boardwalks and carousels, Drifting along with a softening current, Into the next presumption of a moment.

A day with no deadlines, To act as example for all time that follows, When doing something is always Exactly where you're meant to be, And the thick rope mooring you To all your attachments begins to creak In its sprockets, loosening its pull And its tangling heaviness.

Sitting in the soft window light is enough, Watching the pen gallop, Muttering scratches along the lined paper, That's enough, and this is enough for now.

I think I'll sit awhile and do a bit of thinking, For the sake of itself, To see where it leads me, The cobweb of Soul still blown by the wind.

Remember, you are loved, in all your iterations, In all your noble and faltering moments.

[nicholaspopkey]

Never Too Early

You want a corny Christmas Cookies and cider Dust on the palm trees We're going to find snow.

When you look at me that way Like a famous, broken mirror I want things I gave up a long time ago.

You have a friend in Jersey I can almost see the lights.

I won't have to protect you But defend me if you want Don't let me tell you How to search for yourself.

Ask me again what color to paint your nails And I swear, If you ever get those blues I'll be in love.

[nicholaspopkey]

Yesterday's Coffee, Today's Ambition

Pages I turn, until I reach the spine Cracking my own, I feel a death-murmur Tongue like a brillo pad Raspy and parched It calls from the end of these rattling tracks.

Sixteen years, gone in a snap.

Patience is prey to a sorrowful pack When hope is a whimsical error. Desolate dreams in a traveling bottle Minute meditations, more pills to swallow.

These days are just like the others, I fear Losing my edge with the trappings of health A paintbrush stays in a dark wooden drawer Smothered in shortening hours.

[nicholaspopkey]

A Room

I had a room, littered with books, Without a language, I had a heart, riddled with nooks, Without a way to fill them, I had a head, full of dreams, Without interpretation, I had myself a few words, And no one there to read them.

[nicholaspopkey]

Except You

Everything was too good to be true,

Except you. 

You've been in a city your whole life, 

And you taught me how to move again, 

Like the traffic in the veins,

Like the strollers on the sidewalks, 

With the beat of a bloodline that's brotherhood. 

While I watched you behave, 

I saw how you watched yourself,

We became voyeurs to each other’s double-mirrors.

And while you were teaching me to move,

I taught you to breathe in the other world, 

Where the wind is the only way

To ever reach the treetops,

Where the fingers of dawn take hold of the evening air,

And the silk curtain of nighttime

Is pulling itself back,

Where the city-life we run with is silent, 

As if it had just remembered something

Before it was too late.

[nicholaspopkey]

Eternal Sunshine

I don’t need to know if she replied,

The right one will.

I don’t need to know the color of the sky

For its tender expanse to be felt.

I don’t need you to gratify me,

Because

Your approval can never measure up to my own.

I don’t need to know who cheated first, 

The pain is behind us;

Children of a time-bomb marriage.

I don’t need to wonder what staying together

Would have looked like.

It would not have been my life.

If “Eternal Sunshine” taught me anything

It is this:

Things which are meant to start again

Restart themselves.

Without a hand to sway the tiller,

Without a worry whatsoever.

[nicholaspopkey]

Incorrections

Soft window frame,

Like a cookie sheet for sunshine

The summer light behind it

Drowsy in all eyes.

A cousin of that first, simple star,

This burst of light in a mother’s bedroom:

In the morning after a child is torn to be handcuffed,

In the morning after a funeral

From a trickle-down poison,

A white collar crime that was bailed out

Instead of corrected.

In the morning of a mother whose son was snatched to a cage

For addiction

A disease we view as a crime.

But this sort ‘justice’ does not protect us,

Instead it normalizes the American caste system,

And perpetuates the social contract,

That criminality equates to being expendable.

We can all see it, even in the warmth of a tender morning.

We all feel the same love,

We are shattered by the same pain,

When the soft square of light does nothing to comfort us.