They (we) meet in a small basement bar filled with old B-movie posters and grandfather clocks, on the last Friday of every month and each month there is a new prompt for poetry. Each month I am impressed by the quality and variety of poetry/prose/comedy/music that is brought. The community is warm and supportive and it's been a wonderful place to try out a new form of expression.
Below are the first few poems I have written:
Transmuted Commute
The masses move through prescribed pathways,
synchronized and sedate,
off to fulfill their societal functions.
Lotus eaters, loath to break free from conformity,
lest they be the proverbial nail that gets hammered down.
As the disembodied voice of cotton candy warns, Gochuii kudasai!
Through 2210 station via 159 lines we ride
40 million daily we pass through the gates
leaving no trace, silence, but for the sounds of the machinery by which we’re surround.
I’m relearning the lessons I learned as a teen
wary of the stares of my peers.
Best to listen and not speak,
to observe and not be heard.
So, obediently I observe.
I observe the blur of the station lights as we accelerate
toward our respective destinations.
Informative LEDs and the soundtrack in my mind coordinate to transform the mundane.
The LEDs freed now float off the screen,
unseen but by me;
a private show they perform, bouncing about the car.
One is swallowed whole by the yawn of a girl in striped shoes.
She accepts the light, and sits straight upright, widening her eyes in surprise.
Around her the bobbing heads of soporific suits seem to sway in time to my music.
A woman above our heads serenely stares at something in the distance.
Following her gaze I find a man and woman entwined.
She lifts her searching eyes as the buzz in my ears hits a crescendo
It’s as if she knows.
I feel the slow rumble of the tracks as they pass beneath my feet,
providing the bass with which my 900 yen earbuds can’t compete.
I’m enveloped in this magical concerto – until the song changes,
and in an instant the LEDs zip back to stacks on a background of black.
No one reacts.
I’m afraid to paint you a picture of my world
seen through rosy half full glasses.
Afraid you’ll judge me naïve,
easily deceived,
by those who prey on the unsuspecting relentless optimists.
We refuse to view the world in hues of gloom,
Instead focusing on the beauty of simple pleasures and mindless moments,
gaining treasured perspective from our fellow humans;
through open eyes and patient ears,
we see the commonalities among our peers.
Silly Superstitions
- A transcontinental collaboration with Natalie Doud
Many of us have lost our religion,
In it’s place a void.
of certainty,
of structure.
A generation
Believes in nothing
No thing
Some things
All things
We believe in nothing
No rules about bacon
No books with thin pages
No oaths to be taken
On Sundays we sleep for ages
We no longer adhere to those rules, that magical thinking.
We’re more sensible than that.
We believe in something
We believe in black holes
We might believe in aliens
We believe in equality
We might believe in gender roles
We believe in love
We might believe in wedding rings
We believe in all things
We know there is matter
We know there is time
We might know what matters
But it's a pretty thin line
But of course, you really shouldn’t talk about the weather if you don’t want it to rain.
It can’t hurt, right?
And I don’t really know what would happen if I didn’t hold my breath while driving through that tunnel,
but do I need to find out?
Step on a crack you’ll break your mother’s back. (It’s true, it rhymes).
Crazy drivers come out under the full moon, and wishes come true at 11:11.
Pennies found on the ground will make your day.
Knock on wood, in this concrete world?
Routine becomes personal dogma.
Because if I believe it and you believe it, who would ever know?
The truth.
Or what is it.
Or if it even is.
When placebos cure headaches,
And mountains are made of molehills.
Who would ever know.
The Me You Don't See
The me that you don't see,
at least until you're an established character in my story,
Is Full of vulnerability,
She questions each word choice,
Requires editing through 3 drafts in any messages to boys,
Afraid if I speak you might hear my voice.
She doesn't apologize when she runs into you, afraid a conversation might ensue.
I used to believe, being naive, that I was an open book.
And superficially, my world is yours for the purveying,
my doors unlocked my home yours to share,
But when uncomfortable emotions provoke inner-world retreats,
if my book is open the pages are pretty sticky.
My mask is a microscope
With it I step behind the curtain that conceals your inner world.
Sometimes I find it’s where the Wizard of Oz resides.
Almighty and magical on the outside, but just a man there hides.
But more often than not, as I walk the yellow brick road,
deeper curiosity swallows me whole.
With dopamine pumped focus I see into your soul.
I am a hostage of my own creation.
I searched your eyes for lies
And came up empty, too intricately wound,
I was bound by your pupils, in rapture of your story
But when I awake, it's a good morning of faded Glory,
I no longer hold to any ideal version of you,
with widened eyes I see through.
Unshakeable confidence, that thing I lacked, was once the sole trait
by which I was easily bait.
Kindness I felt was undeserved,
Who was I to receive your praise?
Now it takes a subtler touch, true intention and a spoonful of humility.
The patience to seek that which is not laid bare.
I hide in plain sight
And yet somehow you don't see me
You fell into my unintentional spell,
your diary I've become.
Yet sometimes when I dissolve it's the blissful loss of self I feel in dance,
time stops, thoughts dropped, all in the world is right,
other times it's summer romance in harsh daylight,
and we find ourselves entranced in substanceless intimacy.
When we part I’m thrown deeper into my mind,
the pathways so familiar I walk them unconsciously.
It's a pity, for in me lie complex structures, some the same as the ones in you.
untold memories of beauty that made me cry, passions unfettered, but measured, to you.
I hide them not to keep them hidden but for you to find them
I seek to be sought. To play the infinite game of becoming and changing into something new.
Finding new treasures, forever hiding and finding again.
