Filed under: poems, the mirror | Tags: Freewrite, freewriting, Poem, Poetry
Sometimes I wish I would drop dead
Not that I would take my own life
Just to end the suffering
Quiet the madness that echoes
The truth of it is, I have to go it alone
The ultimate fucking pariah
To be there for everyone else
Support in their time of need
When I fall apart, tearing at the seams
I look for some one to hold onto
But I’m alone
Life is precious, I get it
I know my kids would break without me
I know my brothers would grieve
But I don’t think anyone would care
In the long run
I would hope to be a pleasant memory
I’m tired of feeling this way
Like I just take up space
And let everyone down
A walking, breathing disappointment
Even to myself, I let myself down
I do wish I could close my eyes sometimes
Never to open them again
Wake up somewhere with no pain
No one to disappoint
No one to let down
No one to reach out to
Just me to myself
And maybe, just maybe
A presence of God
Or something greater
I’m tired of feeling utterly alone
In a room full of people
Sad in a room full of laughter
Broken in a world full of wholeness
Let me go, set me free
I’m tired and I’m done
Give me grace, give me courage
I’m worn out at the edges
Tattered on the inside
I wish I had to strength to hold my own head up from hanging to the ground
From falling into the abyss
I know I’ll be okay
But sometimes I fall to pieces
It’s only me that I can rely upon
These quaking hands
This bleeding heart
This miserable, broken spirit
To uplift my own sorrow
I go it alone, again and again
Holding up others closest to me
Hoping they would hold me up too
I know I’ll wake up tomorrow
Ready to face and bear it again
So prop me up like a scarecrow
Empty on the inside
Dead skin hanging loose
Hoping to scare away those
Looking to disembowel me
Arms spread open like I’m trying to fly
Like I actually believe I can take flight
I’ll hang my head and beat myself silly
Flashing lights from the impact
I’ll persevere because I have to
Because somehow I know
I was born to bear the weight
And have unwavering faith in the divine
That something unseen in the universe
Will look out for me one day
For I know, deep down, I’m a good person
I’m sorry that I get like this
Enticed by the shadows, I let them hold me
Enshrouded like a blanket
It gives me comfort to know
I’ll be okay
That even when I’m submerged in the dark
There is a light somewhere
A light that will never extinguish
A light that resides within me
Flickering and fading
But never dying
Filed under: poems, the ether, Uncategorized | Tags: freewriting, healing, healing through writing, Poem, Poetry
I’ve come to understand
These actions do not define me
I have faced their consequences
I have looked in the mirror
Felt the aftershocks
Witnessed the after math
Taken part in the healing
Been part of the rebuilding
I have wept profusely
I have apologized with sincerity
But somehow, someway
The swell always rises again
Crashing into shore
Raising the dead
Turning the world upside down
Murky waters and dirty under bellies
The beauty and decay
Floating and drifting
Crashing and twisting
An intimate dance of old and new
When the water recedes
Everything is scattered
Some are broken, some are not
All is covered in water and mud
Grime and sludge
All looks beyond salvation
If we only learn to let go
When we’ve known pain for so long
Hurt can be an old friend
Feel like a warm blanket
We greet it upon return
With open arms and violin hearts
But when we heal
When we truly free ourselves
From it’s grasp and grip
We need not fear
The pain will return at times
But we can look it in the eye
Acknowledge the existence of it
And keep walking
It may be tempting to curl up
To cry with an old friend
But we are only damaging ourselves again
Hampering our progress
Stunting our growth
I am more than my mistakes
I am more than my transgressions
I am worthy of love
Happiness and mirth
Filed under: poems, Uncategorized | Tags: birds, fly, life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, rush hour traffic, struggling, traffic poetry, writing
I was driving into work one morning in May of 2010 (I can’t remember exactly). I was on the highway, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic as it rained mightily. I was by myself in the car. I was stopped on a bridge crossing over the Credit River in Mississauga, ON. The winds were kicking strong gusts. I saw a bird, to my right, trying to fly over the bridge. It was flying low, probably less than 10ft above the vehicles, and it was having an incredibly hard time. For every bit of progress made, it was pushed back even farther. But it kept pushing. It kept pushing. Until it finally made it across. That bird and its struggle stayed with me. I got to work and immediately wrote this. I can always relate to this.
————————————-
a bird struggling to fly
a bird struggling to fly
he knows how to
but he forgets sometimes
his wings flap. they push
they pull with intention
but all for naught
the wind is too strong today
blowing away from his destination
his neck bows and protrudes
gyrating like a sound wave
forcing his body into
an awkward vertical angle
his webbed feet
are like two stop signs
spread open and flat
against the wind
his body is
wrapped in desperation
his wings never fully
spread outward today
his neck is on a chopping block
as the wind and the rain
act as an invisible force
holding him back
a bird struggling to fly
that is me up there
I know how to
but I forget sometimes
and I stop myself
time and time again
putting my neck on the line
spreading my arms thin
panting for air
but for me there is no wind
there is neither rain
only my own devices
my stop sign hands
my awkward posturing
and I flap and I flap
and I push and I push
myself down myself down
but I will fly I will fly
one of these days
when I unlearn
how to hurt myself
that’s why when I see
a bird struggling to fly
across six lanes
of rush hour traffic
I see myself
crossing my own path
…yet again
Filed under: poems, Uncategorized | Tags: Poem, Poems, Poetry, writing, writing prompt
My friend Cathy Charlie Petch will post writing prompts to keep the creative juices flowing. I occasionally participate. I should more often, and I’m working on writing more.
Yesterday she posted a Puscifer song that I could not resist. Here is the song and my unedited work inspired from it.
I hold something in my hand.
It drifts. It disassembles. Falls apart.
Turns to dust before my eyes.
I hold onto things too tightly.
Grip them to the chest.
Though I know better,
I hold on tight.
The way children hold onto stuffed animals.
The way they squeeze the necks of pets.
Out of pure adoration and love.
Without realizing they are choking the life
out of the very thing they love.
I’ve never out grown this in a way.
Grip tightly, slip through your fingers.
Leave me something beautiful in your wake.
Leave me a memory to behold.
To cherish and fathom.
I hold the breath of the universe in my lungs.
It is both invigorating and suffocating.
On the inside and outside.
I believe that there is more to life
than punching clocks and watching shows.
More meaning than watching
moving pictures on a screen.
More than books even.
Ingesting other people’s art and imagination
is a beautiful experience.
But what of the light
Reflecting in fractals through the atmosphere?
What of the oxygen entering our lungs.
The trees dancing in the sky.
The way our pores raise
when something grazes against
the deepest corners of our spirit.
The way our skin tightens
when we feel something
that cannot be quantified
by numbers or words or paper.
The impossible task of
capturing human experience.
As artists, we try to capture the impossible.
I keep a journal of these experiences
logged in my chest.
I close my eyes sometimes
and try to relive them.
The touch of her lips
on the side of my neck.
The first time my son wrapped
his tiny fingers around my index finger.
When my daughter stared
into my eyes for the first time.
The moment when you embrace
a loved one after a prolonged absence.
The way nature speaks to the soul.
I try to put words to the impossible.
To hold onto these fleeting moments.
So I press my fingertips
into the palms of my hands
in the hope that it will stay.
But it slips. It fades.
What remains is an imprint inside of me.
Never lost, always present.
Altered and existing in a different light.
The way it was always intended.
Filed under: the ether, the mirror, Uncategorized | Tags: performance poetry, performing, Poetry, poetry slam, purpose, spoken word, writers block, writing
A few years ago I was doing some solo grocery shopping at Fresh Co. I was in a hurry, in the zone wearing track pants and trying to grab some orange juice get home quickly. A lady walking with her daughter saw me and slowed down. She paused, half-tilted her head and grinned. She said “you’re a poet right?” I hadn’t performed in a couple of years and had all-but-forgotten about that part of my life. I said “yes, yes I am.” She said she saw me feature at Guelph Poetry Slam in November of the previous year (that was even almost 2yrs removed from performing) and loved my work. She said she bought both of my books and keeps them in her car. It left me feeling perplexed and very good. Wow, my words touched someone.
Last week I was at Starbucks ordering the closest I can get to fancy there, a Grande Americano. The cashier asked my name “Yogi, Y-O-G-I”. She paused, looked up and said “do you do spoken word?” I said “I used to.” Turns out, she used to manage a bar/restaurant where I used to perform at a lot in 2012. She knew my work pretty well. She asked me why I’d stopped. Truth be told, I put it down to focus on being a present father with my little ones. She paused again, “you were good, I remember. You should do it again.” I showed her my journal in hand and said I was working on it. It left me feeling confused. I actually said I used to. WTF? When did that happen?
Something happened in the years I stopped performing. I went through a few years of writer’s block. But I’ve gotten past that. In the last year I’ve been writing a lot, lot more. I’m not finishing anything, but I’m writing nonetheless. Good ideas, good wordplay. I’m getting back in the groove. I was in a really good place in 2012 when I stopped. I felt more comfortable on stage than I ever had before. I was churning out more new, quality poems. My stage voice had found legs to stands on and wings to fly with. But I wanted to be present and accounted for during bath time, story time, good night kisses and late night snuggles. I wanted to be there for it all and I didn’t wanna miss a thing. Spoken word/Poetry slam have been around for a while, it’ll be fine without me. It’ll welcome me back when I’m ready too.
What happened in the meantime was cynicism. It was skepticism. I began to wonder if words can ever really have an impact. Why bother? What legacy do these poems and performances really have? What are we really leaving behind? I still sit and wonder about it. You stand up for 3 minutes and 10 seconds, speak your truth and bare your soul and make some noise for a round of applause, some pats on the back, some much-needed personal release and that’s about it. It began to feel like it was just spinning wheels, like an exercise for the ego. Are we really awakening minds, or are we just another passing phase? Does what you say stick with someone when they wake up in the morning? I’ve been questioning the purpose and reason behind this spoken word thing for a while now and it began to make me jaded.
But then the universe had me cross paths with someone like I did that day at Starbucks or Fresh Co. Someone reminds me, hey your work really inspired me. I occasionally bump into a person who heard me speak my truth 4-6 years ago, and I’m still with them. My words uplifted them then and stayed with them. So I start to think that maybe there is some resonance. Maybe there is some staying power. Maybe there is something more to it than ego and glory and punchlines. Performing/Sharing poetry isn’t about immediate change. It’s about planting seeds. It’s about creating a spark. We may never see the tree take root or see the inferno blaze across the horizon, but it’s there. It’s a lot like karma, it takes time but it happens without fail.
Poetry, for me, has always been very personal. I never excelled at tackling “issue poetry” unless I was able to relate myself into it. Standing on that stage, just you and the microphone. Just your voice and the audience. Just your gut and their ear drums. There’s something magical about that. The butterflies. The feeling that you’re going to fall…but then you take flight. I’ve gone to a couple of poetry slams in the last couple of months on account of my wife encouraging me. She gives me gentle little pushes into it and I’m taking her queue little by little. I don’t want to make a team and compete on a national stage, but I want my voice out there again. Because I finally realized, after all this time, that I have something to say…and it’s worth hearing.
Filed under: poems, Uncategorized | Tags: Love, marriage, morning, Poem, Poetry, wife
Begin
Smile
Arise with the sun
Or just before
5am upliftment
Darkness settled in sky
Potential resting on branches
Coasting through the air
Pulsing through arteries
Twist the spine
Roll the hips
Turn face over
Across the pillow
Atop the sheets
Visit resplendence resting
Peacefully tranquil
Quietly dreaming
Eyelids twitching in rapid movement
Neck gently pulsing
Awake next to unparalleled beauty
I admire her
Basking in the dim of dawn
Pale light cascading
From cheek to lip
From eyelid to jawline
Breath giving life
She is a sight to behold
I am blessed
To share these moments
Before the day
Before the busy
She awakes
With a gentle smile
Cheeks swell
Eyelids creek open
Greeting as if it was me
Holding her presence
In her dream state
As if I was always there
A simple good morning
A simple I love you
And we kiss
The birds stop singing
The sun comes up
There is purity in the air
Palms resting upon faces
Breaths in synchronicity
The day is ready to begin
I am uplifted by her presence
She is arisen by mine
We give life
We live love
We are thankful
For another day
Bathed in blessings
Birds sing their songs again
The sheets release me
Sleep welcomes her again
The day begins
…again.
Filed under: poems, the ether, the mirror | Tags: artist, belonging, fitting in, performing, Poem, Poetry, spoken word
I was combing through some of my poems that I’d written and hardly ever or never shared recently and I came across this. I read this and remember so many things. The way I was feeling then was just that I didn’t belong. I felt torn. I wanted to be home. I felt like everyone was fake, like I was constantly being judged, like people had these expectations of me that I felt I could never live up to. I wanted to retreat into corners like I used to. To be invisible. That’s convenient. In a few ways I’ve done that. I haven’t completely because I haven’t been living some shadow-filled, dark, angry life of a loner. I’ve been being a father, husband and working on being a good human being. I’ve been re-calibrating my sense of purpose and re-tuning my creative muscle. Anyway (I digress), I’m in a much calmer place now and to re-read this brings back a lot of memories. It was also a time when I started reaching into the farthest of places for metaphors and those places ended up being a little dark and surreal……
The Company of Eagles & Wolves
I’ve never been part of a crowd.
I never fit into any one place.
I bleed blue blood in blistered corners
of houses dispersed with red-blooded hounds
and cold-blooded hearts.
I could never be part of the crowd.
Moments where I felt like I was
An eagle would come flying into the room
To pick his bones apart
So he could martyr himself in an effort
to remind me that I did not belong.
And I was bleeding myself dry.
Even here, on this stage, behind this mic,
I look some of you in the eye
I know you don’t understand me.
Or even worse, you misunderstand me.
You think you have me figured out
and you never took me our for coffee.
You never asked me why the sky was red
or why I have these horseshoes
hanging out of my pockets.
I get trapped in the entangled
expectations you have of me,
of what you expect me to be.
And I’m left running in my head.
Screaming at the top of my lungs
while ripping the smirks off of
your disenfranchised faces.
Fuck you. For ever standing
on a mountain while I cast myself
into long, winding trails where
only I know the way out.
For thinking you have me all figured out.
For seeing the disillusionment
in the back of my eyes and
recoiling into frozen stances where
I’m made to think that I’m the problem.
I wish I could know the way the gears
turned in that pretty, little head of yours.
You can see me trying to read you,
and it scares you. I can see it
in the way you stare back
slack-jawed with captured eyes.
You tell me to be myself.
But that is something
I wrestled with for 30+ years.
To the point where my fingers are swollen
and my conviction feels discarded
like chicken bones picked clean
by the mouths of the starving.
I could pluck my ribs out one by one
in an effort to be a beautiful display of decay.
So that when you look at me
you will see what I’m made of.
So maybe I can fit into the
crowd of corpses of collapsed creedens
who once breathed the same oxygen
that betrays my every breath.
Go ahead and set the wolves loose on me.
Cut the ropes and send their ravenous mouths,
open and hungry, at my flesh.
I will hold these beasts with my bare hands
and tame them with affection and understanding.
After all of the isolation and
persistent pauses that
plagued our every interaction,
I finally see that I was never meant
to be part of any crowd.
All of the eagles with martyrdom complexes
could fly into the crowded rooms
from the windows of my face,
it’s okay, I’ll befriend them.
I will set those magnificent creatures free
and they will come back to me.
After I snap my ribs back into place
my heart will be intact and
every place I was ever meant to be
will be inside of me.
Because everything I’ve ever needed
is here.
An endless ocean
that crescendos with every inhale.
Scattered with your bones,
my blue blood and our indifference.
Where I keep a pack of wolves
and a flock of invisible eagles as pets.
Where the hearts that understand me
will always be.
Where every ounce of conviction
that I possess will hold me
high enough to kiss the sun.
Where the only place I need to fit
is within myself.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 30/30, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Poem, Poetry
So by the 30/30 standard of NaPoWriMo I’m doing pretty terrible. But my goal from the outset of this thing was just to get writing again. I haven’t written a poem in almost a year, so this was an excrcise in getting the mind moving again. With that being said, I don’t know how much more I’ll accomplish, but I have some more in mind and will try to wrap up some old and unfinished poems in the coming 2wks.
Morning Commute
Each morning we arise
with the world at our backs.
We feed our hungry mouths,
wash our tired bodies and
adorn our weathered skin
with garments to face the day.
Before leaving our humble abodes,
without ever meaning to do so,
we pack all of our baggage with us
for the journey into life.
Our stories are scribed
into our skin and laced in our breath.
Every moment of heartache and triumph.
Our lovers, friends and enemies.
Our acts of betrayal and loyalty.
Our lies and infinite truths.
Every act that elicited an emotion
is hanging over our head
and sitting atop our shoulders.
So we walk, we ride and we drive.
We climb into giant metal boxes with wheels
and travel at speeds beyond our own potential.
We stop and go, we climb and we fall.
We march like little ants in single-file lines
to our places of work and learning.
Raging and smiling along the way
at all that we encounter,
enwrapped in our own little world.
Our lives intersect
and we don’t even realize
that our stories long to be shared.
Our triumph yearns to be experienced
and our history would love to be spoken.
I see lonely eyes at red lights,
hoping for an extended hand of sorts.
But all I have for them is a cracked smile
and my foot on the gas and I’m gone.
Onto the next lonely face.
Forward to silently cross paths
with another whispered tale
of human life and survival.
Filed under: poems, the sweetst thing, Uncategorized | Tags: 30/30, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Poem, Poetry
Little Lessons For Us Both
I’m not used to being admirable,
but he looks to me as if I were the sky.
My son sees my daily actions as models
for what he supposed to do.
My anger, my joy, my sorrow.
My draped shoulders and dragging feet.
He sees everything as a prime example
for how he should behave.
For now, I am his role model.
So I teach him without words
as best as I could.
I make my bed in the morning,
fold my clothes in the evening
and wash my dishes after eating.
But most importantly,
I try to pull my anger
back down and ground it
before it elevates into the clouds.
I do my best to bring my voice
back to earth
when I get frustrated.
For I want to teach him to
deal with conflict without anger.
For my son,
I am the model of a man.
So I’m trying to exhibit compassion,
understanding, patience
and so many other traits that
make a person adaptable to the world.
And I can see his head hang low sometimes.
I see his shoulders fold in as he mopes away.
It is those moments that I sit down with him
and talk him through his feelings.
To help him understand things.
And he wipes his tears,
looks up at me, hugs me tight
and tells me he loves me
before laughing and running off
to grab hold of his favorite toy.
a cork board 