Wordle #125
I shift my answers
To the center,
One must have magic
If one is to take heart.
I split the avenue like a bell
Footsteps echoing,
Belligerent as a stain
Always announcing
My whereabouts,
My mutability, as I skulk
From place to place
Desperate to remain unused.
–
In my dreams there is only me
Though I wear many costumes
I appear most often as a house.
What intrigues me most
Is that we pay for our mediocrity
However, profound our gifts.
(the secret to genius is sweat)
–
We want to possess,
To change without struggle,
To validate without work.
Scarred and encumbered
I have wept and waited
I have withered and illumined.
But the most profound role
I have ever portrayed was man.
Name
It’s not a rift that a button can conquer
It’s not a matter of fashion or posture
My body is a starched linen
My face a wide-brimmed hat
My hands, two monkeys stirring
This island is eroding
Tame next to the sea’s wiles.
The boulder no longer commands
My exits nor presumes to waylay guests
I am not the same surplus
The same angel, the same grail
Immortal, nirvanic
Content to equip my enemy
With both ammunition and gauze.
When I die please do not consider me
A victim, know that, I went fighting,
Know that, the cave grimaced in sunlight
And that I took those yellow tendrils
Into myself as one takes a mirror
Willing, if inadequately equipped,
To embrace a truth superseding ego.
I can no longer justify my trips to purgatory
The poverty that follows each extraction
Some days I leave my face unmade.
And set out to conquer the extraordinary
I was given but one heart
And none but she can pronounce my name.
I Dream
I never yield to intimidation
In comparison to my own
All incendiary critique pales
*
I know who I am
Though sometimes
I lack the means
To reap potential
*
If a sickle I’d be a moon
Half undressed
So I could indulge
To my heart’s content
The poetry
Of interstellar passage
*
The ghost of metronome
Relinquishes my steps
I am borrowed and blue
Elbow deep in the yellow pages
Sometimes a girl needs help
Defining her priorities
*
I am not the sensible sort
I’ve always sought
Instinct over provision
Love is everything
It’s the epoxy that holds
My molecules steadfast
*
I dream, I dream, I dream
Were I a writer others might
Know my heart as I have
Always known her,
In opposition to intellect,
My mind is unwilling to suffer
For the sake of accomplishment
She is content with her gavel and scale
Content to judge and measure
In complete isolation
*
My muscles twitch indignantly
But rationalization objects
You’re sick, you’re tired, you’re lazy.
Sometimes I resent homeostasis
To move through wind showers
And arbitration because I felt
Inspired by the presence
Of a disembodied voice
Welling up artlessly within
That is my highest ideal
That is the poet serving
Virtuously as vessel
To the muse most adored
*
Lately I’ve written without a single thought in my head. It’s not that I don’t have thoughts, it’s not that I’ve stopped feeding my intellectual curiosity, and it’s certainly not I’ve stopped picking at my scabs. It’s simply that when I write I am unscrewing all the valves and letting the words pour out uninterrupted. I want to see what happens when I don’t judge and criticize myself relentlessly while composing a poem. What happens when I just let my heart speak for itself? At the moment writing it very Zen and very liberating.
mindlovemisery 