telling you I love you—
trying to pour the ocean
into a thimble
Posts Tagged ‘words’
One Impossibility, But Still I Try
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, words on July 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »
One Transmutation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, words on May 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »
sending you these words
to wear like a scarf, only softer
than that, more like song
Future Imperfect
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intentions, poem, poetry, words on April 1, 2017| 2 Comments »
We’ll catch up soon,
I say, and I actually believe it—
though after I say them
the words stare at their watches
and rush off, late
for their next sentence,
their letters shaking their heads
their sans serif heads,
as if they know
I’ll never learn.
Candor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, words on November 16, 2016| 2 Comments »
That’s when the words
arrive barefoot
and not in the tight laced shoes
we set out for them
by the door,
and they surprise us—
perhaps because
they appeared on the lips
via tiptoe,
perhaps because
they bypassed the brain
with a leap—
so that before
we have a chance
to stop the rogue words,
they bounce
off the tongue
and out into the air
where anyone,
even we—
despite our horror—
are astonished
at their pluck,
so naked and
going for it
anyway.
Two Nearlys
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emptiness, poem, poetry, wanting, words on June 14, 2015| 1 Comment »
Two Nearlys
these empty hands—
there was a time
they grasped for emptiness
*
just before the words
there’s the chance to say nothing—
trees don’t have this problem
Bet We Come Up With Something
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, words, writer's block on February 3, 2015| 3 Comments »
I spent them all,
every single pretty word
I’d meant to give to you,
spent them on the moon,
on a dozen dozen flowers,
on the long drive home,
but I did show up with
these lips and all
this extravagant silence.
I wonder what else
might happen?
What Might Happen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, not speaking, pandora, poem, poetry, words on March 9, 2013| 4 Comments »
As a bundle of hay, when carried,
becomes heavier and heavier,
so it is with words we swallow.
They begin, light as the leaf
of a forget-me-not, light as
a golden straw of hay, just a hair
heavier than breath. But the longer
the words go unsaid and the more
of them we swallow,
the more they gain weight,
the more they cripple us unspeaking ones,
and soon it is as if we had swallowed a bed
of river stones. Sometimes
we can no longer move at all,
so burdened we become. Sometimes
it takes a complete falling apart
to release all that weight, all those
pent words. No one wants this, of course,
some great spilling. The gaping wound.
The chaos. The words, and the fear
wrapped around them, exposed.
But it is not so bad as we think.
Sometimes, once bare to the sun
and clear air, the words break out
of the calcified layers
and we see them for all they are,
tiny boxes into which
we pack our worst fears, our dreams,
our anger, our desire, our bliss. We open
the boxes and whatever inside has not
turned to dust grows wings,
and our mouths open, perhaps in awe, perhaps
wishing they’d fly back in.
