In search of answers The mystic would suggest To look within and everything can be known to us, I find this erroneous, When I read the book within What is shown is just A lonely question.
The question resembles the answer Like the lock resembles key Necessity is the silhouette of a solution And as the Chasm is also the shape of what is yet to fill it It chooses to call rather than announce Emptiness is a gift Not one given But that it allows to be taken
Silent questions are the emptiness of the wise A philosopher stoned turns silence golden Pontificating only in questions Responding only in wonder So speak less Or declare your emptiness As fools do. Attend to your ears And let the answers in.
Everyone’s ex is crazy Including your ex’s ex. And maybe your next. She has received harsh names But Karma is nothing but elegant With a fierceness you could call regal Karma is a stern and kind maternal Who’s patience bleeds through Whether she is taking or giving.
Karma fights my battles With violence like silent poison The judgment of the hunting hawk Confident, she denies validation She needs no believers No congregation Neither can you pray for her favor.
Karma weighs and measures But she is not justice She just is. She is not the package But only the postage.
I see you Karma sees you, too When your package arrives The kind get kindness and the cruel, cruelty Consider the name you’d offer Karma Is your own
Because she only gives you what is yours And you’ll get what’s coming to you In the end.
At an after party and I’m mingling around Kareoke contest women all singing aloud Ain’t nobody knowing what a single thing’s about Barely even spit a word of English from my mouth Potables are potent and they’ve been since seven shots ago State inebriated, call my Uber, I have got to go Tapping on my shoulder, I look over and I nod the host Called to be a speaker, it’s the spotlight I’m about to toast Climbed a straight ladder Just to place my mind over my grey matter Stay scatter brained prattle lines lame chatter “Cheers!” Look away, glass of champagne shattered People gather rather fast. Faces worried Safe enough to say that I was celebrating early Pedastel descending like an elevator, surely Always make a scene. Actors, places! Hurry!
An embrace is a tragic reminder That I can hold on to love But never possess it. Phantom limbs leave a numb tingle where they used to surround me And I chuckle when it occurs to me I can no longer juggle your emotions Without your arms.
Loneliness feels like the texture of sand grains flowing through amputated fingers. It has the same hollow rasp as the last breath of hope.
I defy my parents decades too late I stop making the bed I don’t wear my scarf in the cold I stand in the puddle during the rain I sit too close to the TV The more childish the tantrum the deeper the wound must be But you are too far now to chastise me like in my daydream.
I hurt myself when I lose someone because if I sense pain it means at least something is still there. I hurt someone when I lose them because if they hurt me back it means at least in some way they are still there. But you stop responding You’re the bigger person It stings but not the way I want I can’t cry when you won’t let me.
I keep forgetting that you keep what you hold on to Until you let go And I let you go Now I can’t let go
Again I have been running from my fear And for a minute there, I lost my self From darkness did the terror swiftly near Unsettling as night, my path engulfs A stumbling escape on weary legs A chariot by motored wheel brings death The road before obscured both dark and vague And panicked air left hanging on my breath My hands upon the steering wheel stay My feet pound pavement just to stay alive For I am both the man who runs away And also I’m the man who crue’ly drives Now I have naught to fear from enemies Because the fear I run from is named me
She called me a poet To what do I owe this Because when I speak other’s notice? That my verbs stray to word play? That I’ve recited what you’ve heard me say? That when my pen and pad are in separate rooms I feel a sense of doom As if a sentence soon Will be sent that I’m meant to remember And I’ll never get the message I’m intended to? Is it that my mind is rent in two? That I speak in dreams Saying secret things And still seek to bring Without surcease a string of lyrical meaning as clear as a shriek that sings?
No, these don’t make a poet They are evidence that I dabble in words Or that I babble absurd But not why I am what I am
A poet isn’t made by words By definition, words are made by the poet Meaning that my essence lies in precedence To the premise that I pen my pensiveness Something pushes me over the precipice
Three factors remain preeminent
one
I produce my art for art sake Lyricism is simply the way that I breathe breath Metaphor the way I seek sense Publishing the way I cheat death I write or else I keep tense You see, poetry is just what happens When I’m left around paper My fingerprints when my fingers print
Poet, you must write for the art
two
I present my art for heart sake God gives gifts to be re-gifted I must write so your soul will be lifted I bend meaning to make the way you see shifted I open rifts with words riding perfect fifths asking the question maybe if It is not for me, nor from me, but through me Poetry is my compassion, meant to be heard Create for your audience
Poet, you must write for the heart
And finally
three
I produce my art for … For-saking the label For-giving the critique For-going the recognition Fore-stalling the question What’s my for-mal title Or my for-mer career Because these “for”s make it forced
Poet, you mustn’t write for the part
To be a poet isn’t to fulfill a role but to fill a hole To feel whole No one can name your art Or genre Be authentic
She called me a poet And I never needed her to I was always what I am
I need a minor second of your time Because if we don’t have harmony, You’re no friend of mine Because me and my friends align At least three quarters of the time So we ought to be just fine. It is instrumental If we couldn’t be in a band together We certainly couldn’t stand together How did we even land together? Must have been we were fans together Maybe then we should make plans together Because if you rock with me at the concert Throw the horns up like we’re rams together You and I can be just fine Like we’re touring in the van together My friendship is like rock stardom It looks real good until you have it It looks like glamour but it’s havoc If you can survive it I’ll be your groupie And we could make it through anything We both give zero damns together I don’t care what your beef is Cause I don’t want to butt heads What’s said is much less than the music I don’t want to hear it if it isn’t a lyric So let’s do what’s best for us Be the hook on my chorus Write the words like a thesaurus And while you’re at it Look up another word for “bestie” And find your name there.
A god that needs my defense has lost my belief, while I will advocate the Devil and not abdicate my seat so long as I strike at his head and he at my feet.
A saint is one who can fight for rectitude, disdain the sin, and still accept the two.
Testimony carried on a woman’s voice rejoiced. She became a Christian when her fiance proposed, for which she prayed of him. And now with praise for Him she swears to her God by love’s own seal that He is real.
Sooner would I swear on the waning moon than would I on waxing love, for the former will remain and loom, while the action of the latter’s not the same at noon as it is at one.
Love is always certain and often wrong and while the lover is lost in song love becomes lust and longs to feel in touch what’s turned to dust but was once was felt within like gust in lungs.
Your paramour was not the one. And if not then your proof you’ve got is gone. For gods are like the faithful, many are called, and you choose but one. Even false gods seem graceful, shining like gold under a ruthless sun and later are culled by the truth and shunned.
Your paradigm was not the one. And if not then the ruse of God is done.
Or is it only just begun?
If there is no soul mate? Would it sow hate if there’s no fate and it’s all for show sake? Does that diminish love or the lover?
I think that love remains enough. Love does not need a name. It feels the same whether it heals or reveals a pain. The force of falling fills the veins with a coursing rush of will that isn’t ever all in vain.
Love does not exist for the lover. The lover exists for love.
Love empowers our lover. Our lover is the one. Our lover is the only. Our lover rules our heart. Our lover commands us. Our lover can do no wrong. Our lover is always with us. Our lover is worth defending. Our lover is better than your lover. Our lover is a lot more like God than God.
What is it we fall in at all with our gods that powers God? If lovers are only lovers though love, does falling into it place God above?
The woman was wrong. Her love did not prove God. Her God proved love.
Love does not need my defense. Love can be sensed and perceived. Love earns its belief.
