Demons stroke my face
There, there now – that’s not so bad
As I lay here, shaking
Pushing all the stuffed animals
Onto the bed, in a pile
To somehow try to compensate
For the lack of you on the futon,
Because you’re not here
You could be anywhere
But the demons are,
Those old familiar fears
That you always smell first.
Posts Tagged ‘Fear’
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St. Michael and I
Posted: December 8, 1994 in PoetryTags: Angel, Bear, Fear, God, Lucifer, Michael, Science, Sword, Wings, Zodiac
Scales and a sword and a pair of wings
Is not what I have —
I look at St. Michael,
My namesake Angel,
And I want to hug a bear in fear
Of being capable of such judgement:
Fair and exacting deeds.
I find I’m wrong or mistaken
Many times a day:
My own carelessness
Or oversight, usually.
St. Michael has no forethough to him,
Just perfect scales,
The means to weigh is science of judgement,
And a flaming sword to enforce the verdict.
Keeping the Garden of Eden
And throwing Lucifer from the vaults of Heaven:
St. Michael — it is he “who is like God”;
my tenuous relationship:
a shared name,
a Zodiac sign,
and a fascination with blades.
Untitled Poem #173
Posted: November 9, 1993 in PoetryTags: Dark, Fear, God, Heart, Scorpion, Untitled
sometimes I finger the scars on my heart
in the dark, all alone,
rough ribbons of hardened tissue;
they are braille lines of poetry;
railroad tracks to remind me of my innermost fears.
They feel almost skeletal,
and read like the scriptures of God,
and sting like the scorpions of God.
I wait with the irrational fears.
I’m packed in the same elevator as them,
standing shoulder to shoulder;
they’re all in business suits and
they look almost friendly.
but it is just because they recognize me
from my frequency in riding the lift.
my relationship to them is this:
we see each other on the elevator,
which can take a long time
to decide which floor it is going to
let me out on.
The Decay of a Cartoon
Posted: July 28, 1993 in PoetryTags: Blood, Bluejay, Fear, Flesh, Mother, Story, Tree, World
The poet sojourns
to the real world,
concerned with education and finances,
too busy with real matters
to watch his own walk
like a bluejay on a telephone line
assuming it is his,
too bust to enjoy
the glances at his jester clashed clothing
and his odd squatting posture,
recounting endless stories
of dubious origin.
The decay of a cartoon
into another weary act of flesh and blood
is done through weight,
self-inflicted,
burdens of soggy peat responsibility
and the yokes of limiting your own strength.
I fell from 20 feet up, from a tree branch
and I landed on my head;
when I should have been dead,
(I was 10)
I walked into the house
to bandage my gashes
so that Mom wouldn’t worry about me.
I tell myself I can’t do that now
because my weight has quadrupled
from all of these woes I balance on my nose
trying to smile around them
everyday at other people,
and their circus tricks;
jugglers and mimes and tightrope walkers,
sometimes the fear of falling shows as plain as day.
It’s getting heavier and higher and
we’re all being thrown more things to juggle.
So if I fell from that tree
would I end up worrying so much on the way down
that I’d break my neck?
Or could I bounce like the balls I juggle?
Salvaging Laura from the Trash
Posted: February 28, 1993 in PoetryTags: Death, Dolphin, Fear, Laura, Love, Trash
you tried to throw your poetry away
but I have discussed it thoroughly
with your own Dolphin
and the conclusion we came to
is: no way.
we found it together
in a pile of papers
sticking out of the trash
that I casually looked through
to see if you’d done
just this type of thing.
love letters I never saw,
things you never spoke of,
I never knew half of what you thought.
I see that you fear just like me.
I see that you think of death as a seductress.
I see that you feel; you’re a poet unrivalled,
and
I
see
you
think
it’s
trash.
Interview With an Angel
Posted: February 22, 1993 in PoetryTags: Angel, Dream, Faith, Fear, God, Halo, Hate, Libra, Love, Man, Wings
no wings, no halo,
no beatific expression
of heavenly rapture.
on interviewing an Angel,
he scratched his head
and was most like any other man.
I’m five foot eleven,
one hundred and forty pounds
(give or take five for the season)
no, there’s no particular reason
I should be renowned
as an Angel from heaven.
by the way, I’m a Libra.
I just do the best that I can.
that is angelic.
I love and hate and fear,
I learn and hurt and feel.
but to the best of my ability,
with the tools God has given me;
other than that I’m just a man
struggling with the rest of my kin
to keep faith with the Angel within
and to dream.
fears I have are like children;
crowding around me, beneath me,
tugging on my arms and clothes,
pleading with me to kneel down to them,
or to pick one darling up
so they can be closer to whisper
their candies into my ears
through their flushed smiling faces.
The Testament of Plymouth Garibaldi
Posted: December 20, 1992 in PoetryTags: Drink, Fear, Ghoul, Sleep, Street
I try to keep awake and watch the street
While Alan, friend and roommate, tries to sleep.
We take turns every night and sometimes treat
Ourselves to tugging off of something cheap.
I wake up in a sweat because I think
My turn to watch was now, when I had slept;
And Alan knows, he hands me a stiff drink
To chase away the ghouls from where they’ve crept.
Some lonely nights we both stay up and wait
To see if one is hiding ‘round the store,
Or walking past our window with that gait,
Or crouching with a whisper at our door.
Six months ago – it seems as many years –
I didn’t dare believe or know to fear.
Bishop Speaks Only in Riddles
Posted: November 30, 1992 in PoetryTags: Bishop, Fear, Flesh, Friends, Ghoul, Story
What secrets do I have hid up my sleeve
For careless players thinking it’s a game?
I warn them that it’s easy not to grieve
When their persona is alive and sane.
Nightmare of sewers made of rotting flesh,
The ever present threat: Nathaniel’s ghouls;
These horrors from the past, they still impress,
But blind the future to these witless fools.
Your characters will come and go my dears;
They never perish like the one before.
Just tally up your growing list of fears;
The ones that really scare you to the core.
And every time you think the story ends,
I’ll introduce one more of many friends.
if you come to me,
I will be whatever you need.
I will kiss your tears,
I will be your strength,
you just need to call on me.
I can’t tell you
what the answers will be,
but I’ll hold you tight
against all your fears,
you just need to call on me.
Breathing Pains
Posted: October 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Birds, Blood, Eye, Fear, Flowers, Night, Pain, Salt, Spider, Water, Window
waiting for you to arrive,
I close my eyes for the birds that rise,
flowing over my skin,
baiting the thoughts that cruise like fish
within.
I sink deeper into my steel water trough
to wonder when the night
will roll in.
the flowers I brought you have wilted
from the sweat on my brow,
but I am waiting, still alive,
waiting for you to arrive.
I count the turns of the fan and
stir the last of my ice
with my hand,
watching them dance.
I taste the water from the ends
of my fingers.
the salt and the cold comes
with chills of your eyes
if you tried to lie;
you’re coming here sometime.
I think of what I can’t see
past my reflection,
through the window’s glass;
where you said you were going,
where you might be instead.
these spinning spiders cobweb my head.
everything slow, slower, slowest;
these breathing pains.
a record skips on its label.
I’m watching these wilted flowers.
cut, they glower back at me,
slowly.
I’m wondering when blood will
run out of my ears
with the weight of all these
anthological fears.
I pluck a melting cube from the water
and send it sliding along the table
as I lay, my head on the back of my arm.
a cold green fire simultaneously heats
my uncomfortable forehead and
roots at the pit of my stomach.
I will wait with my breathing;
you’re coming here sometime.
I will wait for you to arrive.
as a poet I tell you
my dreams and what
I think about,
and certain selected fears.
I write to tell you these things,
and I pretend
that you are listening.
not so different
from anyone else.
I lurk.
a leviathan under the surface,
battling with dreams
and limitations,
darkly, silently.
I lurk,
therefore, I am
Kraken.
massive,
fear-inspiring.
awesome,
horrifying.
I lay at the bottom
watching my bubbles
swim towards the grey surface
around the unfortunate.
I flap my big leathery wings
slowly, far above the sprawling metropolis
and grin in rubbery latex.
my shadow eclipses city blocks;
down below, people run in fear.
the atmosphere is cold this high.
the sun is bright on my black skin,
so I will go eat a McDonald’s.
Oh, what can I do?
Ah, distracted again
as I leave quickly to the night
on my mind:
signs of you,
sleeping peacefully in dreams,
fears gone.
cheaper than anything,
even free
have and hold you forever
tears gone,
rarer than the blue magic moon
even you
grow thoughtful,
aching for someone you should have.
I grow somewhat sober.
Saddened jesters
never paint honesty:
tears, tears
over my bent wings,
fallen angels
plummet past sparrows.
fears, fears,
waking dreams;
dreams of
half-parted lips.
spilt milk from many things
ah, do you mean no?
oh, all my trust!
fears, fears
rarer than honesty;
even angels
grow sober,
cheaper than sparrows.
have to earn wings.
ah, can I say no?
tears, tears
as I gather my things;
even jesters,
sleeping dreams,
aching for kisses…
signs of…
oh, do I trust?
No-one’s Watching
Posted: November 20, 1990 in PoetryTags: Believe, Death, Fear, Forest, Sleep, Spider, Tree
the universe is more fragile than you think.
let your billiard ball physics take note of it.
Things just outside paper thin partitions;
madness overwhelms the left-side brain
when the Right is given free reign.
don’t try to explain away the phenomenon —
your senses will rarely betray you:
listen, smell, touch, believe.
patterns are infinite, on and on,
beyond those boundaries we teach;
deafness we teach blindness we
handicap those who are gifted.
beware that which is just sleeping
the sleep of the age-old which may
be mistaken for death, the calling
of nothing. even awake
we sleep, dormant and helpless.
in dreams we pass away for a time
to roam the realms of memory;
dark forests of fears and toadstools,
a thousand and one nights I have
lain awake counting spiders’ webs,
drinking water that glazes frozen pools.
the pulse that lies beneath
the rough-edged bark of a weathered tree
to the precarious balance of an acorn wreath.
never are you quite alone enough
to say that no-one’s watching.
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