Out

I'm a messy daydreamer
a sleepy wanderer
the sky is gray
the trees all break
I'm already half asleep
it's only eight
window is open
wind is whispering
wish I was whispering
to you
I'm not cold
yet I'm all covered up
my lips are closed for the day
no kiss for my love
my hands ache
I'm hungry for something
that don't fit on a plate
I'm looking for something
don't think that it's here
wish you were here
can you forgive me
I'm perfectly out of line
I sleep to escape
I sleep to waste
time
this white pasted version
they demand of me -
well on paper I'm impossibility
but I hope that you're happy
better clear up this darkness 
I never tell you about
it's too easy being
what everyone doubts
I only want out
I'm not sorry I love you
just that you can't see
how fractured I am
wish you could see
I'm too good at hurting
to be good at anything else
I'm just an old movie with
an old laugh track
passionate in blue
there's no escape
no going back -
No out 


When you hurt for everything you ever loved, for everything you ever lost there are those who never could understand how simply trying to live from a true place in this world will bruise your sensitive soul -  Vanessa

Never Ever

buried deeper in
the softest parts in
attic beds, our summered hearts
replicated, repeated 
but
"was it ever love?"
she wonders
or just temple of imagined
girlhood dream 
an uprooted fantasy

sweet oblivion of youth but
when time makes us pay
and our eyes grow iridescent from passion
"will it ever change?"

with determined resignation, he said
"it'll never change"
"never ever?"
"never ever my love - never ever"



Immortal in words, the love of all our never ever. 

June Afternoons

I used to live there
in the weave of his sunlit eyes
slept on his fine blade of shoulder and dreamed
in honeyed light
that has died away
now to a low glow pattern 
a fragile spiraling of fireflies
escaping to edge of night skies
no other lover ever dared inspire
me to abandon caution this way
I knew across his room in a glance
the warmth of belonging
the lilt of the world turning
champagne kisses extracting breath
Fingers brushing, a suggestion 
of June afternoons to idle in all the ways
happiness can be held
what a wonder of a time
when your soul was a glimpse into my own

Some people come into our lives so briefly yet rearrange everything from how we look at the sky and food tastes better and we don't need as much sleep and for a short magical time life feels wonderful and love is in everything around us. And when they go they have changed something in us we can't put a name to, we just know we are not the same person we were before them. We are better, we were loved. 

Imperfect Narcissist

you hold your matches like they are your finest weapon
oh you lover of fantasy
tell your living room guests how you've no more faith
in frail love
descend into the room as your most incredible vain loving self
with your limp mind and apple sliced fairy tale dramas
you are always hungry for beauty, looking for perfection
the curved full painted lips, thin arch of back and lull of sensuous hip
go on now
make their mind spin with how you make that strawberry moon
sigh
a lopsided testimony, changing up the speed limit of their hearts at your will
but you always leave out how you hold the candle closer when you're alone, getting comfortable with your fearful ache
becoming happy with your lonely

you don't go looking for safety in lovers
or God - neither will be
where you're sure you'd find them

Second Thought

will you my love find a new rhythm to breathing
without me
will you saunter into enlightenment 
or into the vast wilds of nothing taking
space up inside your intricate ears
the months away
how will they change you love ?

if you call my name will I hear you 

in the restlessness of the Summer trees dancing 

in the Carolina skyline

or in the heat of the warm cemented sidewalks

you strum silence together like guitar strings

leave me hungry for beauty, your laughter

I want to open my ceiling and stare at the stars

watch Heaven burn alive with night tapestry

that day swallows whole

I am a torn edge, longing to be just an itch 

in the hollow curve of your ivory collarbone 

or a tiny glint of light in your green eyes

hopefully I'm just a second thought away

hurry home love

Your fall

and sometimes I'm still trying to break your fall...

it's sad we never got to see the ocean together

but the sky was always watching, moving

and it was blue enough

we just knew something better was coming

it just never reached us

we talked through the night about small nothings

just happy we belonged beneath the same roof

and you always fell asleep first leaving me

to ponder the fires of a future truth

open ended conversations we never finished

well perhaps that's for another day

another place

when I catch up to you

wish I had just a spoonful of the hill 

we used to climb

wish I could sit in the barn we used to hide

we were wind chasers, star tracers

damn near choked on their indifference

but I was yours and you were mine

and your dark eyes were the only dark eyes

I ever saw my reflection in

and I would have taken your fall my brother

it just wasn't up to me

Still missing my brother Patrick whom I lost nineteen years ago and I don't think I'll ever stop. It's the unconditional, unromantic love of siblings that buries into our soul unlike any other love we encounter and anyone that has a brother/sister knows and realizes that sometimes this kind of love carries us onward and giving strength and fortitude

to keep carrying on when there's nothing left but revival of memories. 

 

 

Up to me

you were not a first choice
I wasn't looking for you
but you claimed my lips
without asking
and I made a dream from you

you brought blood

our first kiss

that should have told me something

I wanted love, I wanted you love

but I never knew what love

would want of me

you left my eyes full of clouds

slipped your name onto my tongue

and my soul's fire to raging

addicted to the midnights we consumed

pulled me across an ocean

into your arms

into you

I became ready

your lips stole me

your words buried me

I didn't wish to fly

stars disappeared - music seemed 

to belong to yesterday

our bed grew cold and lonely

you were drinking 

from another's lips, guilty

it was just time to

put our love to sleep

and it was up to me

 

Vacant Romance

all the elephant keepers
are invisible poets of course
writing love stories, of dark moons and
talking oceans
they are all love directed
lost shoe strings, birds shadows
and homeless, magnificent forgotten men
asleep on the fringe of a frozen universe
hands curling inward now
that used to curl around the hem
of their lover's dress

their dreams are a sweet addiction
crying doves and sharpness of broken wing
striking a haunted chord
nostalgic, for the future feels emptier
the past in its own language
longs to give direction
music its own dictation

you must follow the directions
fire building is intimacy 
you will surrender and dance around it
moonlight reflects on the water, a phantom -
a longing that pulls you out of yourself
to nowhere so don't stare at the water too long
please beware the hypnotic beauty of music
breaking free like sea gulls splitting the sky
pounding the want from heart
to lips
to touch
to heat

no-one can see what words mean to you
the manuscripts will never rust
they are safely resting within
the pearly shape of moonlight dripping
like honey on wild grasses-
a vacant romance
pulling us out toward the mystery of rain


I wrote this poem over several lunch breaks. I am a lover of words and miss just writing anytime of the day, when I get home after some nine hour days I am exhausted and creativity takes a hit. But for those that do read I can assure you this blog means so much to me, it allows me to lay heart & soul on the page. I will always show up to write here, maybe at a slower pace but I will be here. Thanks to all you that have been loyal readers I appreciate you, and you are my encouragement to keep picking up my pen. Love you all- Vanessa

You'll Stay Gone

how much of us
absent of things
make up a life
how far away do we
go, to return to the
sound engines of breath
the water bears the voyage
masks disappear, wrists
grow smaller
one harbor leads to another
love left on a shore
leaves behind
wild apple trees, infused youth
delirium of summer skies 

the books on the dresser
our coffee in bed, warm under
weighted bedspread
now, closed journal

I see you by the seashore
seasons pass colorlessly
like castles in gray rain
stanzas wait
pencil unlocks the unsaid
and frames us out
leave me that
the lilies will be beautiful
mist and fog
snow and frozen windowpane
winter will murder the day
you'll stay gone  

Wet Matches

my daily bread doesn't satisfy me anymore
the mocking silent moon that I pass the hours with
he won't choose sides
I am hungry for beauty, for a strange new love
that might cradle, might soothe and destroy
the panic that lodges
freezing me in hopeless Winter ruin

we would talk about how lucky we were to have met
talk about the heart, the whole madness that doesn't
quiet down or bed the damned tragedy that screams like a
sickness,
inner electrical currents flow
hope demands we break the darkness apart
until we find something that cultivates the existence
and wins the argument of love

somewhere in the Winter rain
I must mutilate my bearings that feel like
Earth and Hell renegotiated and formed an eclipse
beneath my feet
My dreaming feels uselessly whimsical
I must pass my time wisely to survive
and push toward the crystal light
that dismantles and settles this rumbling
resembling a street whore that's lost on East 14th Street
that doesn't exist anymore

I can't translate this desolate season like before
My matches are wet

Innocence or Something Like Silence

break a wine
burn a flame
dance in the darkness
until it fades

get drunk from a place
learn how silence flies
on wings of morning birds-
leave when you're ready

kiss your lover
like a desire that will
one day leave you
happier

imagine like children
whose only want is
mud puddles to swim in

be in love with the unattainable
drink in the moonlight on your loves face
stir clouds in the sky
with your thoughts

torment of heart won't save you
so put that horrible toy away
quiet your demons with purposeful
silence of your choosing
say everything
speak no words

Long Short Street or Hope in an Envelope

There's no more reason to burn the photographs 
the notes, no more room for the ache I carry 
Gone are the summer nights and moss covered trees, the scratchy green army blanket we shared
Long street was the shortest way to get to where I realized I can't fix me and maybe everyone isn't supposed to be fixed 
My mind is an ocean, rapid waves of heartbeat, oxygen in short supply, deep holes of darkness swallowing me
and I have been a fearless warrior 
I have mellowed in sunlight, drank the stars in the eyes of a most desired love 
I've hidden quarrels, buried their power in salty graves 
Slit my lips on on summer's devoted aphrodisiac of sugared plums, sent loved ones love and hope in an envelope 
I hid my madness in a mattress 
I faced sorrow that ripped my souls canvas and changed my place in this world and to most
I sometimes appear too alone 

I Don't Remember

Sometimes love gets lost
the love songs don't matter anymore
they don't rhyme
the light goes out
bulb is not replaced

We talk too much
saying nothing, nervous chatter
resisting silence
looking for escape routes

I empty inboxes of messages and
I send you one
saying "I miss you"
I imagine you've made new connections
and besides I don't miss who you are now
just who you were back then

Existence is long
continuity is cruel
what is closure???
50 poems later I realize
there isn't a way to start over
it's just easier to say
"I don't remember"

Conversations with Michael

Michael says he doesn't sleep at night
he likes the quiet and aloneness
Asks me if I'm afraid of him
and I told him the love I have for my brother
is weightless and there's  no fear
But maybe love is nosey and wants competition
Maybe love is deferred
until silence chokes on isolation
Michael says he loves me now

Michael says he loses his balance
and he's fell twice in a week
goes sockless now, feet swells out of his shoes
Pulls his shirt up, shows me his bruise

Michael still believes in fairytales
and wonders what I think
Misses what could have been

Michael romantizes the abandoned words
the dark hours, misses his brothers
Doors are closing, relationships folding
Older age approaching
But I never ask what he thinks of me

Michael remembers the November road to a past life

When he comes over we reminisce about our loved ones
and I say, "at least they're not in pain anymore, their heartache is over"
And he tells me, "well we don't know what the soul goes through once we leave here"
Now sunshine in the graveyards feel a little colder

Michael counts our parents sins
Goes for beer on a midnight run, has few close friends
he no longer trusts anyone
Misses childhood, still watches Captain Kangaroo
Says the hard life he had to live has made him hard this way
But I refuse to


I love you Michael - Vanessa

Winter Monologue

falling in love with winter is a habit
the forlorn blue skies
the torn edges of the forests grieving 
for the loss
not ready to embrace a new season yet
dormant like me

alone, captured in the winds relentless howl
getting its say
the silence of the night that beckons to be
be quiet
be
just be

words run away
notebooks wait
and the ticking of the inner clock
imitates outside
conducting its own orchestra 
the limbs of the white oak
dance
as their branches creak and grind together
the love that nature makes

hands waking memories
aren't lazy
pen is trailing in ash
sooty
stained
refusing to ignore
the kiss
the farewell
the love that stayed
and the ones that left
no longer mine

stories buried in the frozen forest
words must give it a pulse
because the forest will never tell
pen is executioner 


Winter is the season when all my memories seem to wake up. I thrash through them like a child with a bag of candy. Some things want to be remembered, some people refuse to be forgotten and they keep me company like a ghost living in my pen. It is a season for dreaming, for letting go and learning how at every age we are still growing up and acclimating to this very precious thing we call life. Happy Winter and happy remembering to all. And if you find yourself reading anything of mine thank you  -  Vanessa 

Lasts'

I am your last written word: tragedy

he is rained on firewood
sidewalks where heartbreak destroyed
mirage of safe shores
the prayer that never reached your eyes
out of time
hated unfinished sentences
the match
the kerosene and 
fire
the lighting up of your soul that began
years ago

you became a wasteland as he was
leaving
hungry January's white rose thorns
he was the mocking bird that was never quiet
the un-silent moving
the burning night
the smoke you can't hide from
terra-cotta Summers' escapes your imaginings 
an inescapable clinging to your skin 
begging for your purple fingernails kind of itch
you can't reach

the little voice of God nudges you awake at night
whispers, "do you remember the way back home to me?"
you don't but you say you do
rewind now-

the goodbye you never gave your mama
the last kiss you gave your daddy
the chocolate drop that dripped from your chin
the day he died
the way she rocked herself alone, the way she cried
the background spinning LP Joni Mitchell
repeating
repeating...

your thin non winter coat
and all your loyal lies, the taste of frost
unhappy lullabies - dashing bolts of color- muted daylight
wanting out
wanting in
and on your final day
when you finally go-
missing breathing