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Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012

Page 9

by James Welsh


  love that hugs closer

  at the tides –

  and we wonder if we’re

  Ophelia and if this moment,

  this house, these screams

  and these shouts husked

  in the limelight of the dying fire –

  we wonder if this could be

  our Hamlet, the sound

  drowning us down.

  Over The Pencil Breaks

  As a child, I could captain my hand

  steadier than ships through

  the midnight. Forget those

  New England superstitions –

  nighttime is little

  more than a cloudy day.  I wrote

  with jeweler’s hands

  back then, even my

  glasses standing in for

  the magnifying lens.  

  But now my fingers quiver with hunger

  in the waves of hellos and goodbyes.

  The knuckles are a contortionist’s

  soul, collapsing inward into

  a weak and brittle-haired pebble.

  And I know a pebble throws the

  world’s longest shadow like an outfielder

  given the right light.  I know, because

  I lost count of the times I’ve

  been told.  Still, some nights

  I throw my pencil across the room

  longer than that shadow.  

  Even then, though, I refuse to let

  my hands die quicker

  than me.  Because I will only live as

  long as each of

  these ten fingers breathe.

  Jan 18, 2011

  Rorschach Pantoum

  One time I accidentally bit down on my tongue,

  drawing blood in all its shapes and sizes –

  first, as a house, then as an orange

  and it was at such falls that I was an artist,

  drawing blood in all its shapes and sizes –

  whether as swimming elephants or bitten onions

  and it was at such falls that I was an artist

  whose failures served in place of his cunning.

 

  Whether as swimming elephants or bitten onions,

  my art lives in the blood, sweat, and tears I give – I am a man

  whose failures served in place of his cunning

  and whose pains and hardships served as his pen.

  My art lives in the blood, sweat, and tears I give – I am a man

  trying to live inside the imagination

  and whose pains and hardships served as his pen.

  But really, nothing comes close to

 

  trying to live inside the imagination –

  first, as a house, then as an orange.

  But really, nothing comes close to

  one time when I accidentally bit down on my tongue.

  Pantoum – Those Two Years

  For those two years, she never stopped talking.

  She spoke the human tongue, stuck between

  two loves – “I love the art of wishing

  and him with his eyes…it’s like swimming two deep seas.”

  She spoke the human tongue, stuck between

  pushing dreams across the canvas with a pen

  and him with his eyes…it’s like swimming two deep seas.

  There I go, speaking like her again,

 

  pushing dreams across the canvas with a pen,

  wishing on stars that fell like saints years ago.

  There I go, speaking like her again

  with that dreamy smile that never wakes up. Although

  wishing on stars that fell like saints years ago

  is no way to live, it somehow still is

  with that dreamy smile that never wakes up. Although

  me wanting nothing more

 

  is no way to live, it somehow still is

  two loves. I love the art of wishing,

  me wanting nothing more than

  for those two years she never stopped talking.

  Papercut

  Love is the papercut’s sting,

  winning me back to this. If

  it’s just for moments – the pegs

  and gears all groaned awake –

  it’s moments enough. I

  thunderclap the fantastic

  close like a book, watching

  dust fly and thrive from

  the pages. The dreams live on –

  picking at the trash sunbaked

  on the boardwalk.

  The papercut talks as I curve

  my writing hand, breaking

  ground on sonnets that would

  work better as songs I think.

  I blink out words too big for

  my mind. I have a brain for haiku

  thoughts. I guess no space on the

  lifeboat for you, darling. The

  papercut’s already dragging

  me in the waters –

  if only I could swim.

  April 11, 2010

  Papyrus Revolution

  In the streets they whisper screams.

  Reams of yellow pads, all recording

  the words of this revolution.

  This revolution will

  not be trapped in

  the evening news.

  This revolution will

  be scribbled in riddles

  we will not understand

  until ten years from this

  point in time.

  The revolution will be

  Glass muscles already

  beginning to crackle

  and shrink

  beneath the world

  that Atlas

  could never lift

  but we thought we could.

  We thought we could do

  many things – but one

  thing we never thought

  we could do was think

  outside our heads.

  We never thought

  a piece of paper

  could think for us

  like a robot,

  like an origami robot

  we write instructions

  on with pens and pencils

  in hopes it could read itself.

  And they say the world

  is not flat, yet when I look

  across a sheet of fresh paper,

  I can see the world at my

  fingertips and it’s a flat one.

  And it’s a flat one.

  The pencil touches the paper

  like lightning lights the ground,

  burning away the old

  and bringing around the new

  rush.

  The revolution will

  True, a touch of change

  is always needed.

  Like fingers hopping from bar

  to bar on a piano,

  our hands can make sounds

  when we write.

  Each curve and twist of my writing

  hand makes a word, and each

  word makes a certain sound

  when spoken aloud,

  yet each mind that hears it

  will react different.

  The revolution will be written.

  The revolution will be scribbled.

  The ripples are as certain

  as the fact that my writing hand

  will not wobble.

  The revolution will be written.

  Paradelle Per Lei

  I read your name off the page like music.

  I read your name off the page like music.

  Each letter a note that sounds like skipping stones on water.

  Each letter a note that sounds like skipping stones on water.

  I read off the page, skipping like stones on each letter that

  so
unds your name – note a music like the water.

  I get lost and swept into the corner.

  I get lost and swept into the corner.

  I feel rushed by my trembles, the stutter in my voice.

  I feel rushed by my trembles, the stutter in my voice.

  In by my corner, I lost the rushed feel –

  my voice, the stutters and trembles I get swept into.

  You are all soft smiles and softer eyes.

  You are all soft smiles and softer eyes.

  I grow wings, fly through the blue clouds of your eyes.

  I grow wings, fly through the blue clouds of your eyes.

  Your blue eyes are softer and grow wings.

  You and I fly soft through all the clouds of smiles and eyes.

  You rushed off on your wings, and I

  read your note that sounds like my voice, all a stutter,

  skipping stones through the letter. Each page of

  music and the like all lost. I grow wings,

  fly into the corners in blue-name clouds – the soft smiles are softer.

  I feel my eyes tremble a soft blue, get swept by the water.

  Pecking Order

  Confusion sprang and rang

  amongst the lilies –

  and with the wind

  weaving the dust into

  the setting sun,

  I could taste riot in the air

  for the first time and I liked it.

  I will right this,

  though, to show

  the world I own it,

  but know this,

  that I do so with

  the most utter

  of reluctance.

  I could let the petals fall,

  and stand above

  and watch them hit

  and compose the ground,

  each composer writing notes

  that gently wheeze from dying throats.

  But no, I will blow them kisses

  into the wind, give them a future

  to rustle off to.

  In due time, they’ll speak

  of me as an oddity…no, as an oddity

  who makes the leaves

  turn themselves over

  and lets the wind

  move them forward…yes.

  Penelope’s Lament

  He’s late again – Odysseus is. Zeus!

  I spent (or tried to spend) this afternoon

  in feathers that I plucked from some old goose

  while baking wings like Icarus (too soon?).

  And now I’m sitting here with empty suit-

  ors, only sure that if (and not when) that

  Odysseus comes walking in with boots

  in need of twenty years of repair, that

  I will go up to him and say to him,

  “My love, you better have some really grand

  and truthful reason for why you’re late.” “Hmmm,”

  he’ll say, “Believe me, love…I lost my men

  to Scylla, that Charybdis, and wretched Cyclops…”

  and that is when I’ll smack that liar with a pot.

  Pygmalion's Still Life

  I've built you up enough to breathe,

  but still you're ink atop the page -

  you're not alive if no one reads.

  Your audience has marked your age.

   

  But still you're ink atop the page -

  you seem to move when I tell you to.

  Your audience has marked your age;

  their clapping's spun your heartbeat too.

   

  You seem only to move when I tell you to,

  ink blotches scotching your high heels.

  Their clapping's spun your heartbeat to

  a fevered pitch, believer's steel.

   

  Ink blotches scotching your high heels

  always follow me into my dreams.

  A fevered pitch - believer's steel - 

  will keep me asleep while sunshine spills.

   

  Please follow me into my dreams - 

  you're not alive since no one reads. 

  Will keeps me asleep while sunshine spills.

  I wish I built you up from the reams.

  August 5, 2010

  Red Wine Mathematics

  Although I may have

  a limp in

  my walk along

  this garden path, I

  know no limp in my

  handshake as I add up

  the math, walking

  past old friends,

  subtracting wispy embers

  in old lovers’ eyes.

  I dry my wet lips with

  a few sips of wine

  as I rewind the clock propped

  up amongst the coffee

  cups which stand at

  attention along the

  summer kitchen wall.

  Redbird Pillow

  We’re swimmers in the bed’s pacific

  covers, legs slowly kicking,

  floating on springs dried with salt

  and staircase creaks. You squeeze

  the pillow hard – like harvest cherries

  between finger and thumb. You

  became blushing reds in our bed of blue,

  a burning ship sailing across the

  only ocean we ever knew.

  You squeezed until I thought

  the goose feathers would burst out and tar

  your arms. If they did, I wonder then,

  would your arms become wings?

  Would they flap instead of hold?

  Would they whisk you from my world?

  Have I tarred you enough that, if

  we walked in the dark, you would

  camouflage against your shadow?

  August 25, 2011

  Rest is Silence

  I’m the idiot who deserves the ink

  washing my fingertips – this cleanliness

  coming from holding a pen so close it breaks.

  I hold it close the way I hug my

  shadow in the middle of the day.

  Keep close, shadow, I want you

  to haunt me like a ghost.

  The ink drips like a faucet on the pages,

  rusting away the empty poems I write

  simply to keep me awake. At times,

  the jet waters rise and flood

  my eyes shut and that’s when the

  nightmares drown me down.

  Please keep me awake.

  Right Hand Slip

  The pentrail slips the page

  easy as grease –

  the drop drips jumping

  in skillet like

  hot dogs for leftover

  biscuits.

  Sea: Columbus proved his

  world was robinround enough –

  for him. The oceans and the

  billows in their sheets dreamed

  on even after the

  bed is made.

  But when I leave paper –

  walking out through the back

  door corded between

  the lines graffitied straight

  and bored – I’m outdoors of

  myself.

  And though it’s (gr)easy

  enough to lunge

  off the page, it’s

  magic trick to puzzle

  piece together the pen

  and pad again.

  May 23, 2010

  Rose Bicycle Pedal

  “She loves me, she loves me not,”

  I said, picking petals off the rose,

  watching them fall like autumn winds

  amongst the whistled willows.

  I am the sail before the wind -

  I move wherever it wants me to,

  the wind giving me shape and purpose,

  filling in my pockets and

  my grooves.

  The petals trip like fallen heroes

  until t
here’s only one that stands.

  I know which side this man

  will be on; he will be

  a soldier – not a romantic.

  He alone will win the war

  and rumor my awful flaws

  to the seagull flocks

  that rock the midnight air to sleep

  while high above they talk.

  They talk of so many things;

  they say, “the petals on the rose

  undid the love you loved

  with all of your heart

  and pumping blood.

  Did you not stop to think

  why? Because such things

  were not meant to be.

  So that leaves you here with us

  so we can rock you deep to sleep

  as you swim in the flood of tears

  that you tear at with your hands

  and we hope you sleep and drown

  before you reach the riverbanks.”

  I’m not done picking the petals yet though.

  Let me finish what I have started.

  Then once it’s done, let the seagulls feast

  on the blood that pumps me, the deep-hearted.

  Rose in the Snow-Garden

  Remember December’s embers

  were always raining down,

  coating our world with silver dust?

  Like then, we have to keep up

  now – we must. No matter if

  the weather blasts away

  our hearts or not.

  But I remember then – how

  the evergreens always seemed

  to glow that golden green,

  so bright that they seemed

  to scream the spring – even

  in the night. Then, there were

  still paw-prints in the snowdrifts

  and remember what we wondered?

  Not what animal walked there,

  but why an animal walked there.

  Why? Because no life deserved

  to be there. The smoke in our breath

  was all you expected – and what

  I wanted – to hear. Even then:

  Life. Has always. Persevered.

  Remember how we kept walking

  until our feet slipped, until we

  were standing on the cracked

  and chapped lips of some frozen

  ocean? No – we were floating –

  we stomped our flag down like

 

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