by Mike Czuchry
And this is now
You are but a mere reflection
In a distant sea
And I long not for you
Never again will I wish to explore your ebbs and tides
Who is new that I will love again
I know not
Who will make me shine
Who will make my toes curl with excitement
I hope for it
I fear finding it
I yearn for it
I don’t know if I will ever be ready for it
When thinking of who I am in totality
Which time within me truly matters the most
The past, the now, the future
Life is all the moments that well up in our beings
No moment, no time
Is more important than the last
No kiss that has ever touched our lips
Is less than those still undiscovered
No stranger means less than those that love us
And even the ones who break our hearts
Still claim shattered pieces throughout our bodies forever
In life all of it matters
Everything matters
Everyone matters
The past, the now, the future
All woven together
To create
Thyself
BENT
I lost myself
Within you
From the very first moment I met you
My life slipped into you
And I bent my existence
Far too much for you
I admit
It was all me and not you
I let you do all you tend to do
Because I desired you
I simply lost sight of what was what
And who was who
Now
I wonder if I could bend time
And twist the rules
Could I begin again with you
And yet not be owned by you
Because
I do want you
I still want you
But just the right amount of you
For that awkward thirteen year old within us all.
LETTERS
When you are near
I wish I could
Speak
But I can’t
Your beauty
Is too much for me to bear
Please keep megaphones away from my lips
I don’t want my vocal cords to be tempted
Tempted by you
To scream out
All the love I have to give you
Trust me
I feel my heart bursting for you
Through my chest
And on to the floor
Every single time
I see any little piece of you
I promise you
One day
You will find
A thousand letters
Strewn across my floor
All revealing
Everything that was felt for you but never spoken
Music from Queen on in the background.
CAPSIZED
Adrift
In a sea of emotions
Waves pulsing through me
Sometimes wishing they succeed in breaking me
Is there more admiration for he who clutches on until saved
Or he who pushes off into uncertainty
Even if we desire our endings to be magnificent
Our demise may not capture these wishes
Whether it’s this wave or the next
When feeling capsized
Water will always take our last breath
IN THE MOURNING
I see you in my dreams
Even in my fantasies
I can’t escape us
I continue to live a lie
I belong to you
Yet I live as if I belong elsewhere
And I know you too are lost
Nowhere
Like Eleanor Rigby
But I will be there
Mourning us
BETTER BY YOU
Maybe I could have made it work
Some fools do
Regardless
I know I could have done better by you
PATHWAYS: PROLOGUE
February 20th, 2011, 1:30 a.m.
Listening to John Lennon’s “Mind Games.”
PATHWAYS
Many of us wish
We had more than one life to live
Even a million
Because each storyline we changed
Or failed to follow
Could have been seen through
Even better to rewind and reset buttons
Correcting our imperfections
While contributing to the well-being of those we loved
Felt ambivalent toward
Or even hated
But perhaps
Life has meaning
Because we must live with all of our faults
And the bittersweet reality
That none of us
Got it just quite right
ACT III
EXPERIENCES
Only in having the courage
To taste
To feel
To try
Can you know
What it truly means to live
FLUSH
Flush
Through your veins
The rush of your most perfect day
Don’t judge it, bask in it
Leave it
Untouched by that sour part of you
Let it
Slowly baptize
And convert
Each cell
Each atom
That comprise you
If only for a moment
Innocence remains
A BEAUTIFUL LIFE
A beautiful life
Is many lives
Led within one
So choose
From the gut
And
Move on
And
Live
Over and over
Again and again
BLISS
When things
Are most dim
Touch your skin
Trace slowly
Over your nerve endings
Then realize
No one else is feeling this
It is a unique experience
So tickle yourself to bliss
CONNECTED
Atoms twirl in tune with the universe
I sense I could tune into you
And expand myself a step closer to eternity
A cosmic blend of you and me
To relish a reality beyond comprehension
To know that we are really one
And the craziest idea is we are separated
By distance, by thoughts, by beliefs, by skin
All we need is to tap into the never ending surge of energies
Where atoms and planets and the entire universe
Weave together and connect like inseparable threads
Creating a grand tapestry
Blurring the lines of identity
No you nor I, just we
BOTTLE IT UP
Bottle it up
This moment to remember
Tangled up in bliss with you
We lie in peace, full, perfection
The madness around us simply echoes
Echoes that reverberate off the skyscrapers
And then stop still at the foot of our bed
This quiet you instill
Makes me see
The world is more beautiful when you are near
With every beat of life
You make me feel the joy of living
No doubts in me now
Love is everything
All that matters
And will prevail long after my time has come
For we are from
The same earth
The same sun
The same God
The same soul
Bottle it up
The beauty
Passion
Touches
Scents
My enlightenment
Scoop it all up
Our love
Fill all the glass bottles along the mantle
Fill every last one
Fill them to the tippy top
Our love will spill over
Unable to be held down by the rounded plastic caps
Let it
Let it
Trickle down the rippling glass sides
Down the fireplace
Into the cracks in the floorboard
To reach Hell below
Turning all those devils with horns and tridents
Into angels with halos and wings
I need not believe in God
To know
You are love’s answer to evil
NEW DRESS
The way you wear that dress
I must confess
I am powerless
I thank the sun
For revealing
Everything
That little gap that brings in the light
Is such a wonderful delight
And breasts
Ridiculous
All I ask is
Wrap me up with a kiss
I LOVE
I love every freckle on your skin
I love how your red hair turns golden in the sun
I love how you snore in the night
I love how you wear those jeans with nothing underneath
I love how you embrace me with your body wrapped around mine
I love how you smile or cry depending on any animal’s well-being
I love how you like the oddest looking things
Like me
I love how any imperfection becomes perfection in your eyes
I love how you make me appreciate me
I love that you have given me this chance to know you
I love how you have helped me conquer my fears
I love how you hug me even when my tears are random
I love you
Loving me
MAGNIFICENT
Sometimes it takes facing death
To finally listen to life
To know today
Is my only chance
To shine and be magnificent
THE DREAMCATCHER: PROLOGUE
I wrote this for a father and daughter. The daughter has gone through several major surgeries and on each occasion her attitude has always been through struggle comes strength.
THE DREAMCATCHER
Kisses on foreheads
Kisses on hearts
Kisses on wrists
Kisses on palms and on the back of hands too
Holding hands
We walk
Together
Bound
By everything that may come our way
Walking through the twists
Stumbling through the turns
Nicking our toes on pebbles
Scratching our knees on tree limbs
Bandage us up
With cartoon Band-Aids
And finish us off with warm lips to the skin
All raising the hairs on our tiny little arms with joy
And we move on
Through struggle
Comes strength
I once was told
And even though the blood seeps
Ever so slightly through the cartoon faces on our bandages
We move on
Hand and hand
So bandage me up
I am ready
I say it aloud again
I am ready
Bags packed
Armed with
Kisses on foreheads
Kisses on hearts
Kisses on wrists
Kisses on palms and on the back of hands too
Armed with
Your hand clasped in mine
THE LIGHTHOUSE
I don’t have many moments left to spare for these thoughts
Lingering over words will only delay my emotion for you
So quickly I gather my quills, my wits, my limericks
All bound up together and etched across the accents of burnt paper
I move swiftly with the ink
For these hours creep up on me
These fingers, these bones, these tendons grow tired from my demands
As the hands of time do not move backwards
In time
Cities will crumble
These lights will flicker, one last burst before the dawn
And silence will prevail
But now
As in the beginning
And in the end
You are a lighthouse
When the fog blurs your pupils
And the rocks cut your toes
When the darkness covers your soul
And doubt prevails
When the ocean tumbles over the walls of your heart
And people around you betray you
When the ground sways beneath you
And welcomes intended are instead quite lonely
Remember
You are a lighthouse
You are
A light and a home
Glorious
And guidance
Hope
And comfort
For me
For yourself
And for others
You are a lighthouse
Even when the beams from our eyes dim
And our souls rise
When looking down from above
We will see
Still existing below
A lighthouse
Shining
Bursting
Lighting
Guiding
Teaching
Loving
Smiling
Igniting
And as waves crash around me
Quickly, I force the burnt papers inside my cloudy glass bottle
Send them across The Atlantic
For you, to you, about you
And reaching
You
Reaching
Reaching
Reaching
The lighthouse
THE DOC: PROLOGUE
New York City, June 2011.
This is written for a dear friend, a deeply spiritual man, who is facing open-heart surgery today.
THE DOC
If I never said it enough
I say it all now
With silence
Simply
My heart is open for you
To see
That beating life is precious
And one ought to be generous
With time
With people
With love
Coins are not currency
They are blessings
Beyond value held in this world
And honey
Shall not be taken for granted
Each drop shall be savored
For it is the sweetness of life that matters
I may weep
My eyes will soon dry
I may fall
I will rise
And it is life
That we must truly live
Not because of death
But because of life itself
With each beat of our hearts
We must live
With each movement of our souls
We must know there is something greater than us
Charleston, South Carolina, 2011.
SWEET TOOTH
And for birthdays
Candles
Cakes
And icing on my fingertips and lips
Sugar cones and orange soda
And all the innocence of youth spills throughout me
And for age
Over time my heart and bones ache
It’s okay
My older hands slip around the curves of your body
And I remain a child always in your embrace
Still tangled up in the buzz of my youth
And for tongues
So many things left unsaid
If I could I would say it all
Enough said
And for love
Just give me five hours
A beach
A touch of salt water sprinkled on your skin
Some whiskey
And the sweet smell of flowers in your hair
And I will find a way to dance my way into your heart
MY THINGS
All these material things
I have collected
Are indeed immaterial
You can pile them up
And float them to the sky
When I am gone
My mark will be left
In hearts
In sand
In the eyes of my children
When my body slips into the earth
Others will stay
To collect my things
My many things
You can pile them up
And float them to the sky
All these things
These many things
We can do without
THE CLOCK
Tick tock
The time you have left
Isn’t much
No matter how hard we push against the clock
Eventually the cacophony of heartbeats
Will clash like a rusty tambourine
Seize
Block
Bleed
God and nature working together
Both busy
Little by little
Erasing us to dust
So armor up
Ready your souls
For the battle of life
Tick tock
The time you have left
Isn’t much
END TO END
I have high hopes of getting older
Most say life gets harder with age
But it also gets grander, more real
Real at both ends
On one
Fear
The other
Peace
End to end
Every bit of it, all of it
Real
Will the fear tear us apart
Or will it birth humble perspective
I have high hopes
Of getting older
That as we move closer to the end
Life will become clearer
As we rediscover the peace of that child within
SHEDDING TEARS
I am shedding tears tonight
For dictators and heroes alike