#poetblr

[lovinintheloft]

Fall and Winter: a lesson on the coldest seasons

haven’t wrote in, what feels like ages, but has only been a month

lower case is intentional

[iris-alder]

different ways to imagine the soul

a watch made out of a rich mahogany, which you wear on work days and

take off when you get home. the mechanisms

are protected and waterproofed, but the wood

is wood so it isn't. when it rains,

you carry both a raincoat and an umbrella

because watches aren't the cheapest and

you care about your wooden things.

a group of five crows who are frequent visitors

of your yard. they seem to like lazing around

in the sun, and will spend a half hour

hopping between the trees and the grass.

you feel like they could be your family, like

each has a connection to one of you, like

in your brief acquaintance you have grown

in the same direction as them,

and you wonder whether the death of one

of these birds would be a bad omen.

some part of the body, somewhere, about

the size of a nut. in the search for the soul,

everyone was right that it is, in fact,

a discrete part of the body. we just hadn't

found it yet. we still haven't, but now we know

to look harder and feel like it isn't in vain.

nobody has gotten approval yet to begin

trial research on consenting terminal

patients, and you don't know if anyone ever will.

you and a friend have a bet on whether

or not it's in the neck.

even if you can feel it, you can't ever

see wind. the leaves rustle and the grass

sways and you feel a chill and a push in

a direction, and you walk in the direction

of the push like a sail. you can only ever

think of wind through analogy. one time

in a canoe you had a tailwind, so you held

your paddle up instead of paddling and

faced the blade against wind. you held your

arm strong and let the paddle drag the boat

along.

old cathedrals very often were founded on

the relic of a saint, locked

in a reliquary as proof of a holy presence.

you think it'd be cool for others to have

relics of you after you die. you wonder if

you could have a reliquary made of a rich

mahogany, inlaid with precious gems.

you don't consider yourself a spiritual person.

the soul is but a rhetorical concept,

an evocative, compelling notion

that people use to anthropomorphize themselves. at least you think so.

it's hard to tell sometimes whether someone

earnestly believes in the soul.

you find yourself believing in it when

nothing else conveys quite the same idea.

there's no real shortcut to breaking in a pair

of shoes. you kind of just

have to be okay with your feet stinging

for a little while.

you forget to bring your phone

to the bathroom sometimes and decide to

make patterns out of the patterns in the tiles.

the one side of the chair you keep

by the window in your room

that's more sunbleached than the other.

a number of words - all words

potentially - which after hours and hours

of stewing

have developed in your mind their own

connotations. now you have two secret

words that have moved in the same direction away from others.

you wait at the mall for some friends and until

they arrive, you endeavor to slip

into the wallpaper like a lamp,

ingressing into and violating it with

your wires and cords, only to release

your spores from a gorgeous bulb that people

only see when they look for it. you can

experience emotions again once your friends get there.

every room has a flow and you realized

a while ago that you move in the same direction

as the women. you don't know the extent

to which others can read the wind, though,

because you can't tell how well

they see currents.

every location you've slept at once

and only once.

sometimes you hear a straight tone waver,

or see a straight line sway, or feel

a straight board bend out of the way

of your hands, and you understand

everything is always moving, especially

the things that aren't moving.

[pencilshavingsandmatchsticks]

A House You Can Call Home

Some things are too big for one person to help

For one person to hold and fix and form something better out of

Sometimes the house you grew up in can’t be saved

And we have to watch it cave in

Sometimes it’s kinder to light it on fire

and watch it burn away

I don’t have the words to say to make any of this better

But I can still offer you shelter

A new place far away from where you broke your arm

and they broke your heart

and your mind stopped counting the offenses

I cannot promise you much but I can give you picket fences

I can plant you a garden and hope it brings you some measure of comfort

I can give you this helpless love, this love without solution

This love that has no way of giving either of us absolution

But it is a warm love

It is a real love

And it is strong enough to blanket yourself and keep out the cold

I hope you’ll keep it with you till you grow very very old

I hope by then it’ll have softened the ache between your bones

And you’ll smile in your sleep and rest easy

[heartsystembeats]

Welp, I have done my semi-everysooften submission of poetry to a paying magazine. Will update if it is accepted in 3-4 months. 🫡

[jackrabbittingz]

vestigial (unfinished work)

four hundred years ago, i lost my teeth

i lick over the replacements with sorrow

the negative space makes me reminiscent

of how i used to break bone and marrow

three hundred years ago, i lost my claws

i push them into the mud with despondency

demure nails with a lacking curve or length

will never be right for treking

two hundred years ago, i lost my tail

i sit on hardwood floor with an urge to bawl

they didn't like when i showed my gratitude

with a thump thump thumping on the wall

one hundred years ago, i lost my ears

[n-ghtiingale]

Patience is a Virtue.

Everyone says it,

But no person I know follows it.

Patience is a virtue,

But people choose to speed through life.

If patience is a virtue,

Why does no one seek it out?

If you want to cross an old wood bridge,

You don't run.

You don't stop,

But you don't run.

It's patience.

Patience could save you.

Learn it.

[pencilshavingsandmatchsticks]

Forgiveness

The funny thing about time is how easily it slips by

Slow, like molasses,

Yet a blink steals decades

And suddenly old truths don’t hold the same weight

The landscape changes

The topography around becoming unfamiliar in a way that isn’t bad,

Just strange

Old grudges fade like the words off a road sign

And everything softens into the muted color of coexistence

[theeroyalblu]

Delayed

Gray skies tumbling from the west. Rainfall warm against my skin Summers, joyful and temperate like a hearty laugh, feels cooler this day. The suns unfamiliar absence leaves me deprived.

Still you remain as if resting only for a stint. Laid there, surrounded by blue. Recessed, as if behind foggy glass, outside of notice or feeling.

Awareness hasn’t left me yet. Defiant, confrontational, calls me back to the present To force adjustment to this new reality. To meet you now.

Too stiff.

Tears do not find me. Fact, briefly impermissible. Until awareness returns and confirms the evidence in front of me. Pulling me back as my gaze reaches the bright blue casket, And I reread your name.