Up in the trees

It’s in my hair way up in the trees

Way up in the trees I can see it all

The couple arguing in the sunshine and making up in the rain

The poor boy scared shaking

Under a gazebo in the breeze

The people who suffered and strained

I can see this all up in the trees

Walking along the sidewalk

I can see the new family out walking in old rain puddles as the sun breaks and shines

The church across the street

The park goes

Enjoying the new spring and the falling leaves

I can see all this way up in these trees

Void noise

I remember being in a car with my mother and siblings

Driving and the radio was on

My mother screamed at us

SHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

She shouted and we listened

The radio blathered on

My siblings and I tuned it out as if it was static on the radio

Void noise from which our ears would pick up

An empty station

Just as we were empty

Without knowledge of war

Without knowledge of tragedy

We sat in the car quiet as my mother veered off the road and stopped just as many others did

We heard as the buildings smashed into a fiery ball

Depictions of debris and people falling were retold

Over and over again

Over and over again

We heard something

In which

We should have cried

Wept for the others who had died

Yet we laughed and giggled like any other day

Too young to know of the horrors

Of an event too far outside our car

The station went dark and my mother gasped and turned

My siblings and I were laughing and playing

Our ears closed off from the empty station playing void noise

Loneliness

Loneliness spreading

Fast like a gas fire

The more I breathe

The more it feeds

My heart pumping fast

It feeds

Tears fall from eye

Lost lovers and failure all too familiar

It feeds

Its covering all of the house now

On the blinds and couches

The walls and picture frames

It feeds

Melted plastic toys

Slowly falling to a pool of nothingness

It feeds

The ways of an ant

I don’t want to be an ant

Neither do I want to be an ant talking to a branch

Unable to communicate back

Walking from place to place

Plugged in and plugged out

To an electric guitar or some profound blues

Passing people by like ants do

To school

To work

To anywhere

The people all pass by

Blurred and foggy

I cannot see faces

Like ants moving to their own

Single-slotted-pre determined place

I don’t want to be an ant

I want to be seen

I want to be heard

I want to be felt

I don’t want to be discounted

As ants are

When I go to each place that I go

From school to work and back home again

An uninterrupted schedule

I want it to be disturbed interrupted

Distract me

Send me on a detour

I am so tired of living in the ways ants do

Electricity bouncing off the walls

I saw its beauty

Leather bound and wrapped

The wooden knob

Pulled tight against

Its skin

The tree covering the cover

Engraved roots and branches large

Intertwining in each other

I can feel the indentations in the leather cover

I open it

I can feel its pages sticking together

Like a boy grabbing onto its mother before it leaves the nest

They part

And the page is crisp and pure

My palm drapes down its surface

I christened it with precious words

I have chosen intentions of adoration to its wonder

Its mystifying nature

That leaves me outside of time

When I indulge in her whims

Seduced by her

Into long evenings of timeless electricity bouncing off the walls and back again

Poetry spoken with friends

There is this idea in poetry

To write as you would speak to your friends

Say fuck if you say fuck

Say pussy if you say pussy

Say whatever you wish

But do it your way

Do not

Deceive self of courage

When cowards only do so

Do not

Do as my words say

If you yourself would not do them

Much in poetry’s language it your clay as it is for a sculptor

You must contort it to your purpose

Just as you would in conversations with your friends

If you are to be a romantic

As I am

Say what you would do with your lovers and do it with the passion that you make love

Make you words count

Make your poetry count

Make your life count

Silence and solitude

I walked in from a good smoke and deodorized for these other whiny cats

You can hear their hallowed half moans throughout the night

It is like a bad memory that you wish was a dream

I sat down to write

Only when silence and solitude would allow

True silence

True solitude

These kinds of luxuries

Are not common enough

Where influence or any other man made thing

Can make me

Not me

These thoughts are my own

Just as these words

Are of my keeping and my own volition

This is the time to think

Only then can poetry be done

Can life be done

No, existence can be done

It is just a matter of silence and solitude