Word, April 16, 2o15

An ex-girlfriend lives in L.A. and is (from what I can gather) a really committed activist. Almost all her posts have to do with whatever's going on in the civil rights. Tell you the truth, I admire her will, her courage. Recently, she posted  a link to a site featuring "slam" poets in Los Angeles. This little bit of a poem was inspired by that post.

Word

 

I hear poets. The wind whispers them.

Angry poets. They can find the words,
but the storm still makes the sky dark.
The rumble of blacker thoughts
hurry the sparrows home
and all the angry word mongers
seek shelter in coffee shops,
inside cancerous shadows.
Surrounded by bar stools
that rock dangerously close
to the ending of an iambic verse,
the poet opens his mouth
but no sound comes out.
Woodie o4-16-15

Five in the Morning, April 13, 2o15

Well, if you have kept up with me, you know I have these Heap Trip attacks every now and then (mostly NOW than then) and I don't get much work down on my blogs. I turn into a blob of emotional instability, which sometimes can be a bit scary to me and my friends. But no, worries. My friends seem to understand that every now and then Jekyll's gotta let the Hyde guy take charge. I bounce back pretty fast. THIS time I even got a bit of a poem out of it. See? Even the worst of times can get you something.

Five in the Morning

 

Five in the morning and I'm not yet

feeling the need to sleep. But that’s okay.
It's been a weird night.  Full of black things.
You think everything is going along alright
and then all of a sudden they're not.
Early morning has its ways with you.
Those ways aren't always kind, congenial ways . . .
But you know how to ride it out, shake it off.
Soon the darkest morning will dry itself out,
the sun will smile up a dawn full of birds . . .
happy, contented  birds that have no reason
to ever sing out of tune. And we all know
a tune must never be unpleasant.
Woodie o4-1o-15

Velocity, April 1o, 2o15

A Facebook friend (Helema) posted a poem based on the poetic style of Maya Angelou. Her poem moved me enough to write a little something inspired by her writing:

Velocity

 

I wonder why the sparrows weep

so early in the morning?
I suppose like me they just can't sleep
and use the darkness to complain,
to shout, to cry away their worry.

 

The white moon listens with a deaf ear,

stars are far more comforting.
Listless whispers float across the ceiling,
putting off the crawl into a dream,
instead of shrugging off this consciousness.

 

Twin black labs wrestle in the shadows;

an amber street light argues with the lawn.
My crow-feathered spirit stands alone,
a barn owl drifting somewhere high above it all.
I envy his detachment.

 

And sometimes in times like these
I pray for freight trains barreling through

the dark blue night, wheels screeching
grinding night into dawn. Iron sturdy gods
they be, enslaved to blind addiction for velocity.
Woodie o4-1o-15

Leaving, March o4, 2o15

Been a long while since I wrote a poem. This is another one that I started but for some unknown reason never finished. When I feel as if I'm really in the writer's headspace, I start to really rewrite with abandon and specificity. I feel as if I've done that here. Still, is it actually good enough to be called poetry?

Leaving

 

My apartment, west wall, a window, nailed shut.

Not a big, gigantic window, just enough space
to squeeze through and out onto the  A-shaped roof
that covers the decaying front porch.

 

Spectacular view from out there, our sun setting.

Twilight, a sprinkling of burnt orange light
on the horizon; It always surprises me.
I'm never ready for the days to leave.

 

It makes me smile, though,

this dying tome of day.
it always seems to say to me,
“We’re moving on
within a brilliant flash of light.”

 

And we mourn the loss.

Since the beginning 
we’ve wept the passing day,
the fading rays,
the quiet darkness brings.

 

But what a way to go, if I must go,

“. . . within a brilliant flash of light.”

 

Everyone will know: I was here.

That I lived and then I left without regret,
no hesitation, no goodbyes
to those few friends who might—

 

No, my friends will certainly mourn me

in the same sad silence that I’ve mourned
the end to every single moment I have known.
Woodie o4-o3-15