Sami Does Poems

[samiholloway]

Today's writing report!

Three pages of Birdsong over two breaks!

This book is probably not actually named Birdsong bc I think there's already a book with that name, but I like single word working titles

A poem about coffee making me sad and conflicted!

[samidoespoems]

#93

I crave a structure I can't build myself,

But I can't live in other people's cages.

Let me live a life of books and study, of tiny experiments

And daily devotions to whatever calls me, in whatever way.

I'll light my candles, bless my icons, polish the old paths

Of my own walking ways, a history of myself, and echo

Of all the places I've been and all the people I was,

As I wandered slowly, delightedly, into the lap of the divine,

But lit my own light to get me there.

[samidoespoems]

#92

How do people

Just saunter across the road

Like no one has ever

Been hit by a car?

Like nothing strange or violent

Has ever happened

In the no man's land

Between crosswalks?

[samidoespoems]

#91

If I could just live somewhere where the light is never too bright

I think I'd be okay.

If there were flowers in the spring and lemons in the summer,

I think I'd be okay.

If I could close the door and still be loved

If the air was light and the work good

If summer never crushed me and winter never made me cry

If

If

If

Could I be okay?

[samiholloway]

#90

Let me be the mystery

You spend your life puzzling out

–god knows I’ve tried

But maybe you’ll make it all

Make sense

[samidoespoems]

#89

Let's run away, my love,

Pack up our demons and the cat, all my books you haven't read yet

And the leftovers of all our wild-inspired hobbies

And just go, you and me hand in hand

Over the horizon.

There's always another horizon to cross

If what we find doesn't make it better, the restlessness, the discomfort in our bones,

The goblins whispering in my ears and the monsters chasing your heels,

My late-dark-fears, your needle-sharp-pain,

Always another horizon,

Always you, always me, always us.

Let's run away.

[samiholloway]

Time for another month’s sample poems! I’m keeping a notepad page open behind my browser (and my browser a little narrower than the full screen so I can see it) and just plunking down a poem whenever it strikes me, and it’s letting me write So Many Poems. In August 2017, I wrote 34 poems. I’m not sure, but that’s got to be a record for me, for anything other than that time I wrote five haiku every day for a month. Here’s a sample:

maybe i’m an eastern child wandering lost in the west, a unicorn without a forest :i wandered too long and someone took the trees one by one.

BULLET JOURNAL: THE POEM Tracking the small things to prove the big things: today’s mood and tomorrow’s and next week’s, a flow of electrons and chemicals through the spaces in my brain, notes on a history no one knows but me, a facet of the world everyone knows now but one day, no one will remember. We’re the ones who write history, really, one small personal experience at a time, a note on a calendar, a sentence in a planner– all the clues historians will stitch together to draw the world we have now, when they’re in another and we’re the mystery. It’s a mystery now, if we’re honest; we’re not birds to see everything from above, but we can try, we can plan and note and jot, decyphering our own codes even as the world invents another. We make our own meaning, and one day, other meaning-seekers will find it and the details will fall together and the victors, whoever they are, won’t have the only say in the way we made sense of it all.

I feel like I can give you something, but damned if I know what. I’ve never been good, the way other people are good, at identifying those slippery feelings that slide from one person to another. No one tells me what they need unless we’re at work and it’s safe. Life, real life, the life I’m not fond of, doesn’t have those frameworks: “I need this, will you do it?” “This is your job, be great at it.” “You’re more than qualified, welcome aboard.” Everyone makes it look easy. It’s not easy. I feel like I can give you something, but it’s always been a struggle between what you take and what I have to give and I never know what I have until it’s gone and you’re still taking. How do I know what to give? How can I stop you from taking too much? I’m practically illiterate in the vague language of hints and expressions, and I can’t find the guidebook that might translate for me. But I want to give you something.

you speak into the heart of me the void and the stars there, the glowing nebula of all my sins and insecurities: how do you hold all these words inside you? how do you choose which ones to send out into the world, looking for me?

I feel like I’m made of knives but everyone says I’m soft and kind and I don’t know what to do with the differences in translation.

- August was a bit…emotional.

- Today’s change: Turn your wilderness into a garden–that is, turn your pain into art.

You can get my books on Amazon here!

You can find me around the web here:

Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest - Incidental Twin Polish Shop - Gumroad - Tumblr

And on Youtube myself and with Joy for (un)Professional Fangirl

[samidoespoems]

How about some end of the month free poetry?

I'm constantly writing things, regardless of if anyone ever sees them*, but I wanted to start sharing more stuff, so here's a few poem...

I just posted three poems on my actual real-life blog! 

Did you know I have a Patreon? Starting in July, more poems will go up there, too!

[samidoespoems]

#88

Every day is an apocalypse and somehow we got used to it-- the bombs, the knives, the bad men with their bad ideas all of it coming at us all at once. How do people still go out in the world? How do schools stay open and concerts stay scheduled and no one even worries that going out to the store could be the last out they go? I want to lock my doors and board the windows and shrink until I'm as small as a mouse-- things the size of mice survived the asteroid that killed the world the dinosaurs ruled and maybe they could survive the world we're tearing down without even realizing that's what we're doing because our leaders tell us this id fine this is normal everything is the same as it's always been even though we know it's not.

[samidoespoems]

#87

Everything is ending and all i can see is the glass falling shards like broken light, glittering, stars against the rest of the noise that won't leave because endings are always so loud. I'm more afraid that there's nothing left of me already, nothing to end with everything else, so i'll be left here, alone, empty as a bell, ringing in the absence of anyone to pull the cord, not even a single black bird to pick at the bones of everything we destroyed.

[samidoespoems]

#86

I'm not a person, I'm a light In a clay jar wired together with hope The shards shark edged but contained Most of the time-- But sometimes the balance is off, The orbits shake loose And lances of light pole out in weir places: I hug too much Or laugh too long Or get lost in a daydream and can't find the door Or the words won't stop coming And all I can do is ache and scribble And try not to cave in. I'm broken, but I'm not ruined yet.

[samidoespoems]

#85

Inside my head is a rose garden.

and a bottomless cave

and I’m balanced in between

on my own two tiny feet:

I can hardly find shoes to fit,

let alone make a whole life that fits around them.

Each petal on each rose is a perfect, terrified day

and each stone is a fear, a hope, a broken dream

scattered like crystals over the floor.

I want to be loved, I have so much love to give,

but staying in the light is exhausting

and everyone I’ve ever tried on

has felt like a yoke and shackles

dragging me into the pit.

It’s never like it is on TV, and I’m tired of trying.

No one wants to be alone,

no matter what they say,

but what if Alone is easier

then Drowning In My Own Gentle Fear?

[samidoespoems]

#84

All I want is silence

more than noise: why is that so hard

an ask to give?

I’m a screaming harpy in my head

a thousand thousand days 

of Truth Coming From Her Well To Shame Mankind

and the world will not be shamed

because there’s so much noise--

trucks and fights and bombs and assholes

with too much to say and nothing in their heads--

so no one listens.

Can’t I get a minute?

Can’t I go a day, just one day

where no one yells at me

and no one picks a fight over something stupid

and no one defends bullshit with assholery

and no one destroys the world?

Can’t I just get one day?

[samidoespoems]

#83

Crust me in crystals and dip me in silver

till I shine like the moon--

I want to sink my feet in her dust

and breathe ionized starlight,

living on photosynthetic biology I don’t have yet.

This is not me, this body that doesn’t work

and refuses to shimmer at my mere thought,

this brain that can’t be trusted

and gets blurrier every day--

this isn’t me, and it’s rage-making,

being trapped here in the dark hole of history

in this slow, achy cage of a skeleton made of chalk,

when all I want is to skim between stars 

and walk on other worlds

and glow through crystal crowns

refracting alien lights.

[samidoespoems]

#82

Do you remember what it was like

before the pain settled in my ribs

and burned there, embers that wouldn’t go out,

just bright enough to keep me awake at night

and make me fall asleep randomly in the day,

because of it?

Do you remember what it was like

before the anxiety flocked into the cage of me

and got stuck there, like the little birds roofed over

when big high-ceilinged buildings get built,

the illusion of freedom but also

a lot of smashing fragile bones 

into windows no one sees?

Do you remember what it was like,

because my memory gets fuzzier every day

and I need someone to hold them when my hands ache;

I should have started writing memoirs before I lost them,

and now I fear it’s too late.

[samidoespoems]

#81

What does it feel like

to want someone to stay?

My own wandering feet don’t even want me

to keep a place, no matter how much

my roots want the earth.

I’ve never loved someone so much

that I didn’t want them to go,

and give me back the corners

of my life I cleared out for them.

Why is it always me who has to make room?

Space is precious when you have none

of your own, and everyone I loved

had a home when I have none. 

When will someone make space for me?

Will that be what staying feels like?

Will I love without leaving?

[samidoespoems]

#80

I think the world has it backwards:

Light is bright and burning, a fire turned up too high, 

and just because it bakes away the shadows

doesn’t mean everything white is pure.

Dark may hide a thief, but also quiets the noise, 

and moonlight is gentler and sweeter than any noon.

Meet me in moonlight, is what I mean,

when I can be soft and gentle,

not beaten hard like steel in a forge by day,

all sharp edges to keep the world back.

If I’m a knife, I’m one not meant for you,

and the light is so strong to make sense of the world.