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GodGod is in her rocking chair,
wood creaking as she hums back and forth.
I want to climb onto her sun-warmed lap,
breathe in the smell of air dried dresses,
May breezes caught in her floral-print skirt.
Her hands are gentle as they stroke my hair,
her knitting going still when I rest my head
on her knees where her yarn was.
She holds me as I cry.

Papercuts and RecollectionsI had forgotten your love letters
until they cut my finger when I
grazed the bottom of my drawer.
Folded crisp and neat,
some of the ink had smudged like
the crimson filling the whorls of my thumb.

I could hear your voice clearly,
saturated in the scrawling script.
You promised me forever,
now forever's gone.

Lost in that rush of reanimated feeling,
I could almost remember
the way your cheek felt resting
warm against my hair,
how you smelled like home.

The traces of you lingered like
the last hours of yesterday
before turning to the smell of dust
and the feel of paper too dry
to write on again.

EasyWas there ever a girl so strange?
Smoky hearted, grabbed at the waist
by the next passing breeze.
She keeps one foot stuck in
the wrong side of her conscience,
the other grounded in nothing.
She replaces men like lipstick, she
wears her promiscuity like
last night's perfume.

A Cold RenewalMake me pure,
like today's unmarked snow.
Windows are glowing with warmth,
soft amber lighting that casts itself in
stained glass fragments across these
glittering wastes.
I want release to color me
in that same way,
relief washing me out and
re-painting me in golden tones
that only letting go could understand.
And so,
I unclench my tired hands and
trade bitter sighs for peace.

Blink and You'll Miss ItThe wind reminds me of
the empty space to my left,
which I swear you filled
only minutes ago.
But if I rested my hand
where you were sitting,
it would be just as cold as
the realization that you're gone.

Honorary Sun SpotI'm going to tie a string
around the new dawn
and make the sun my balloon.
I won't let go as it keeps rising,
I just need warmth and this seems
like the best way to find it,
the day taking me with it
round the world.
Take a picture of your rooftop,
and I'll wave as I go by.

HeavyWhen you let me go
by the side of the road,
please remember the string
that you tied to my soul.
I'm the balloon you inflated
just to let go;
the night is too cold
and I'm sinking so slowly down.

Why'd you have to cut this
delicate cord,
the thin wire trailing
from my heartbeat to yours?
Remember the science of
the desolate sky,
because the night is too cold
and I'm sinking so slowly down.

Since When Did You Surrender?You hold your breath like
there's a knife at your throat,
and your eyes hold nothing but
stormy resignation to this end.
Dream-chaser,
who murdered your spirit?
Were it a lover, a sister, a father killed,
you would run screaming through the thunder,
but you sit like a monolith in the living room.
Your heart and mind are flint;
your imagination sparks when they collide,
and I miss the blazes you created.

Whistle at my Window if You Find Your Way BackFrom your feathered hair to
the way you pursed your lips
as if they were a beak,
you were tawny like the owl.
It was midday but
it could've been the night for
how large your eyes looked
under the two o'clock sun.

We flew through the fields
to the crooked old barn,
and we sat in the hay like
we belonged there.
Our spring-time nest I called it,
and you laughed with the swallowtails
gracing the lilacs.

Somehow, you disappeared when
adulthood dawned,
and when you left it was like
you took off without any hope of landing.
I make believe I hear you calling, but
it's just the wind dancing
like we would in the hollow.

SleeplessBack pressed against the wall,
I stare into three o'clock nothings.
Left with watered-down thoughts,
exhausted, mumbled musings,
I have little more to do than
mutter myself down from
whatever fight I'm losing against myself
as the stars grow all the dimmer.
What about sleepless exhaustion
destroys the barrier between
stream of consciousness and the
structured mind?

AwakenedPaint me silver,
to contrast the dawn,
and open my eyes to the twilight.

In this moment, I am the hills.
I am the mountain with his
white-brimmed hat cocked just so.
I am the breathy mist on the lake.

With the sun framing
my westward-pointing shadow,
the morning is my vestment,
and new warmth makes my crown.

I shiver with the bristling pines,
shaking off last night's frost,
creaking as we stretch into the wind.

It's Not So Bad When The Ceiling Stares BackIt's almost five and
when the sun takes her
olympic strides towards
the westernmost curve in the horizon,
I find myself lonely.
But I know my shadow will hold my hand
as long as it doesn't get dark again.
So I brighten my room with an electric click,
shut the shades to keep out the night,
and search for myself to the tune of
nobody sitting next to me when
I harmonize with an empty bed.
I can almost feel our mutual heartbreak
when I stare into the ceiling cracks.

The TimekeeperI am the hour-counter,
collecting time like water caught
on the bottom of a glass.
The wasted minutes you exchanged
for blue-sky dreaming,
the seconds on the porch with
your song-bird smile,
they're all here:
sand-grain moments
stuck to the sides of my hourglass.

MeltI prayed for rain because
once you told me
that it was your favorite thing.
The sound of it,
the way it smelled on the concrete cracked,
how it felt on your skin
if you were to step outside and
let it soak into your tired shirt.

I told you that I liked the snow,
and for me it was because
nothing was more symbolic
for how cold I am when compared to you,
how rain fights with itself when it
races down the window,
but snow is distant, aloof,
floating easy.

And if I shared that thought with you,
I know you'd tell me that
I'm just the clear sky, a blessing,
because you love me in ways
that I want to love you...
but can't.

So

How Cold the WindHow cold the wind
that rattles my bones,
as they creak across the wastes.
I have been wandering
these thousand miles,
and the grave is my only home

The frostbitten rattle
that's caught in my throat
is the only life in my lungs
Would that I could,
I'd thaw by the fire,
but the grave is my only home.

I stagger alone through
the frozen hills,
keeping time to my
clacking maw.
I never keep much company,
as the grave is my only home.

Tired am I, but I get no rest
as I haven't slept in years.
But I never intend
to warm my bed
in the grave, my only home.

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Unlit CandlesYour spirit curled with the smoke
towards the ceiling of the funeral home.
This image brought me closure,
and relief that your soul could escape
from the open casket.
When you turned ashes to ashes,
I imagine the release was the same
as when our voices caught
on the hymn's last note
and we all blew out our candles.

The GarageYou are objectified nostalgia.
Behind the tools that father rarely touched,
beneath the spade that birthed the roses,
lies a jumprope coiled around the remnants of childhood.
As it rests by nubs of pastel chalks,
caught in rusted tricycle spokes,
it reminds me of a happiness
too often left to dust.

Half-Past a Different Kind of BrokenTrauma looks like my kitchen clock.
The hours,
minutes,
they are dead
and the second hand stutters,
heartbroken.
I imagine every inconsequential twitch
is a plea for the freedom
it will never see again.
When its futile heart finally gives out,
I won't try to fix the timepiece
because after all its wasted sufferings,
allowing again such a disjointed tic
would be a deeper level of cruelty.

Shapeless CloudsI suppose you feel ugly.
Left to "miscellaneous" and perfectly discarded,
you are aimless.
While lovers press their backs against the world
and ignore your existence,
you shift into a different nothing
and float onto another purpose.

HangnailCatch on the fabric of my memory;
painful,
you perturb me.
Would that I could,
I would chew you off and spit you out,
but you twinge,
draw blood,
and evade me.

PostageThe sideboard drawer is full of promise,
twenty-cent whispers of correspondance,
lest we forget we are social;
creatures of communication.
Catch on my letters,
crookedly affixed,
the promise my words
will be read,
held,
and heard.

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Strung Out

by *callerofcrows, Jan 25, 2012, 7:30:12 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Consider me hanging on the line,
a dress without a body waiting for the sun,
vibrant when she's not heavy, waterlogged.
As a child, I enjoyed making orange smiles,
while wondering why we didn't have
a clothesline stretching from tree to tree
like I'd seen on the television.
I admired the way skirts became birds,
picked up by the wind they adored,
while sheets grabbed the wind like a sail,
and the clouds were always made of cotton,
and the denim sat like lead.

Now every time I put myself out to dry,
the sky gets heavy and breaks on me.
I am halfway towards being ready,
and then the rain rips me down again.
Maybe that's why we bought a machine
to wring the water from our clothes,
because there was no risk of bad weather inside.

Strung Outby *callerofcrows

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Still on that roller-coaster.

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Mood: Love

~dweckie Jan 28, 2012 Student Writer

Beyond beautiful, as always (:

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*callerofcrows Jan 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Aw, thank you!

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Mood: Love

*LetsSaveTheUniverse Jan 25, 2012 Student Digital Artist

The lines "I admired the way skirts became birds" and "The denim sat like lead" are so simple and so powerful.

They really stand out for me.

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*callerofcrows Jan 25, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

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*LetsSaveTheUniverse Jan 25, 2012 Student Digital Artist

Pleasure.

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