Thursday, April 26, 2018

Escape

I sweep my cheek across cold cement
languishing in a search for hope
beyond the slit beneath the door.

The window is blocked by thick metal bars.
Everything is dark. The night is colder by the second.
The tips of my fingers press against the thin cracks
inspecting the frightened scribbles for any imperfection
anything that can help.

I swing my fists wildly against the door.
I yell and cry and shriek
until there is no force that will coerce
resonance from my raw throat.

But... what's that? A light? Could someone have heard me?
Bobbing up and down, it approaches.
But there is no hand grasping the handle of a lamp.
No figure illuminated by the light.

The mote is a pure white glow with unnerving
weightlessness emitting a light that overexposes the trees.
The leaves are scattered black smudges easily disintegrated
by the light.

The trunks are slowly enveloped from both sides.
Then it's as if they're gone.
There is no form visible with which to declare it exists.

With the mote's continued approach
the once thick bars of the window become thin
as the extreme light wraps white around the black edges
until the solid black lines are nothing but toothpicks.

I push against them and they snap.
Then crawl out into the soft gradient of dark
becoming light.

From outside I can see that the forest is flecked
with a multitude of these motes.
As if an absent artist dropped a paint soaked brush
and the flecks multiplied into a cosmic starscape.

But I have come too close to the stars.
I am becoming thin.
Now they are stealing away my edges. 
Perhaps the room was not a prison.

I reach out with what are now black skeletal hands
attempting to claw out an existence in the consuming white abyss.

My canvass is painted white.

The Mountain

The rope hanging
The 8 track playing
On a loop and caked in dust

The voices they hate me
Judge me and berate me
Their words I should not trust

A voice perched on my shoulder
A nothingness the weight of a boulder
Motivation is a wasteland

Hostile critic, grief, rejection and anxiety
Quilting blankets of disappointment from society
A mosaic stitched into my skin by my own hand

The layers pile up with distorted faults and failures
Is that a mound of unwashed clothes on the floor
Or is that me?

Nerves frozen shut
So I'm too bundled up
For joy to find my skin

And did joy just not care enough to come into work?
If the ticket doesn't get punched
Is the card so full of holes that there is
Nothing left for the metal teeth to rend?
How do you find something if it's so chipped away
That there is naught a crumb to defend?

The layers pile, till I am one with the floor
And more will, alone, join this moor
We are hills that were once plains
Not much, but what little remains

Will flowers grow on these living graves?

Flowers of public smiles that mask the pain
When we turn away, then comes the rain
Overburdened petals droop like lips bending
Tired of holding high, their edges pretending

Every blanket accumulates till the force is miles high from freedom
Yet so many find their own escape, why so many we must discuss

The mountain we have to climb is not on the horizon
The mountain is crushing us, on top of us, apart of us

Friday, February 12, 2016

Crocodile

Some sailors rowed north
to poach some ivory
They slapped at the water
for what they could not see

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Heart of Snow

I carved its form into a heart
from gathered crust of snow
And to my daughter I impart
this image she shall know

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Invitation - A Christmas Poem

 

Invitation


The crunching of crystals
underfoot in the night,
bells to hang,
and candles to light.

Ten thousand cards to copy out
before the season even starts;
so this is where we mass produce
the muses of our hearts.

Each store has gifts
of every sort of twinkle,

Audio Reading for "How Do I Say Goodbye?"


How do I Say Goodbye? - Poem Read by Karla Doell

Audio Reading of "For the Rest of Us"


For the Rest of Us - Read by Karla Doell

Friday, September 12, 2014

A Word Sonnet Everyone Can Write


Everyone who posts on Twitter or Facebook can write a poem.
My wish is that people come to a better understanding of poetry as a result of my book. Here is an easy structure: A non-ryming word sonnet. 14 words, one per line. 

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Burning Poetry


     What do you think of when I say poetry?
     I used to exclusively think of high school English class. There were the kids who worked to meet the requirements, the ones who groaned when we entered the poetry part of the curriculum, those that gained praise from the teacher but told their classmates they just threw in random artsy words, and the kids who forever swore to loath it. 

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Behind the Scenes: Publishing Kindling the Light


     Preface part 2. Didn't read the preface? Don't worry there's more. Here is a retelling of a major event that affected the printing of KTL.
~~~
      I smile and duck my head at passing employees in the hall so they feel secure at their workplace. It would be awkward if one were to give me assistance or run in panic at the sight of me.