words

it's not really passion.
there is little yearning.

a test. if you will.
to reassure myself.

that i am who i strive to be.

poetry.
craft, art and trial.

i write to push myself.
to show myself.

that i can.
to flex the mastery i ought to grasp.

it doesn't matter if there is no symbolism.
no pathetic fallacy. no wondrous literary constructs.

poetry isn't about that.
it's about shaping the words
so they call to the blood.

they invoke it. conjure it. caress it.

they make you feel.

i make you feel.

play

it's an empty room
sprawling with chairs.

you're alone in the lobby
hammering away at that old piano.

you have no audience
except yourself.
and even you aren't really listening.

it's not about the sound.
music isn't about what's audible.
it's emotional.

pure. powerful. primal.

your eyes are closed.
you've got salt on your fringe.
but the only thing you feel are those cold ivory keys.

and you play.

poetry

it wasn't at all like i imagined.
it wasn't tense, it wasn't staccato

it was if you were writing on the keyboard
a languid legato of notes
hesitant, lost, tentative.

i had dreamt of more anger.
more power. of thumping keys and jerking shoulders.

but your fluiditiy was jarring.
it was almost.
identical to when i play my words out on paper.

if i closed my ears
and felt my way to that thinnest of whispers
carried by the notes you played,

i could read your words
as clear as any poem.

you're as much a poet as me.

that old mold

he's got an old mold.
all curves and sharp edges,

cast from that one girl,
that one from long ago
the one who slipped through his fingers

he knows what he's looking for
he's looking for someone who'll fit
but

his hands are bleeding from trying
cut on the razor edge as he's pushed and prodded
various misfits

he doesn't mind the blood
only

each time he tries, and fails,
the mold gets that little bit slicker

each time he squeezes in a hope
the mold gets that little bit bigger

he can feel it's shape changing
though it's not really discernable

he can smell it's evolution
despite how he tries to hammer it back into shape

he's frightened by how each misfit
seems to mis-fit by that little less

it's become a race
to see if he can find a fit
to find that right someone
before his mold is a mangled memory

to find someone to love
while he still remembers what he's looking for.

or maybe.

if he just stopped looking. searching. trying.
and kept his precious mold deep in his embrace

maybe

happiness will just happen.

just like.
that.