New Old Days

Composed 6/29/14
Description: After I moved back home after completing my last semester of college, I began to have a hard time writing. I feel like this has something to do with the change in atmosphere. All the things that inspired me as I truly began writing poetry are now gone. I’m much more isolated here in my small town than I was in a larger city amidst a college campus (obviously), and everything is just so… routine. So quiet. So familiar.  And yet I don’t belong in it like I’m supposed to.  And somehow this has robbed me of my words. Even this poem came out with a lot more work than my poems usually do.

My muse let go on the ribbon road
And clings to pink leaves and iced cotton snow
It hides in phantom walks and rains
Sleeping in joys and old heart pains

Now vibrant colors halt at my eyes
While silence surrounds these small town country skies
And even as storms blow gray and wild
My voice shrivels up as a weak frightened child’s

I cannot speak in this peaceful calm
In the lull of unknowing I write no songs
There’s nothing to see, nothing to say
I’m alone and muted in these new old days

In solitude I think myself blind
And meaning hides in the shadows’ bind
It’s all too familiar and a tad amiss
Like a soon ex-lover’s first sweetly forced kiss

This place drains life from my body and words
So I sit, a stunned and silenced bird
And like the red leaves that showered me
So too my words have been crushed to seed

I cannot speak in this peaceful calm
In the lull of unknowing I write no songs
There’s nothing to see, nothing to say
I’m alone and muted in these new old days

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Last of Days

Composed about 5/8/14
Description: A poem composed around the last few class days of the last semester of my college career.

What am I to say on these last of days?
as I write the last words on the last chapter’s page?
I feel no elation or intense sorrow
about the events taking place in the morrow.
I hear voices – bright, awed, and reserved –
but I stare at bare walls – quiet, undisturbed.
What should I think as I rest my head
for the final time on my four year bed?
It was a good time. I hope I remember
the laughs, the facts, every spring and December
I feel different. Have I changed for the better?
In some ways I’ve got it down to the letter.
But I’ve also learned of my imperfections
and falter to swing in new directions.
But as I leave I know I understand more –
of friendship, myself, and future doors.
I owe so much to my friends and my Lord,
And now He says it’s time to move

Forward

Dandelions

Composed 5/2/14
Description: Today is my last day of classes in undergrad. While walking to my class, I noticed that the bright yellow dandelions that I always found so charming and friendly on the shaggy green hill had all turned white. And they had just been so bright yesterday. I couldn’t help think this was meaningful.

The dandelions turned white
Overnight
An ominous way to say goodbye
Fly with the wind and multiply

Transitions

Composed 4/23/14
Description: (Day 23 of NaPoWriMo) I was struck by everything I saw blooming today. Everything suddenly seems to be bursting in color as if to shout to me, “Yes! It really IS spring!”

And yet, despite the vibrant joy nature demonstrates at the moment, I still feel a little fuzzy and… disconnected. I should be as happy as the scenery around me, but… I’m just not. I’m graduating in just a few weeks, and, while that’s wonderful, it’s forbidding and sad too. And that’s when I noticed that the beautiful, freshly blooming trees already had petals scattered all over the ground.

This spring I am
The magnolia trees
For
Even in their silken white splendor
They weep

Need a Jump

Composed 4/16/14
Description: (Day 16 of NaPoWriMo) Today’s poem was inspired by my car, which wouldn’t start thankyouverymuch. However, the sputtering of my ailing car battery did speak to me.

I
rush through the rooms of life
and slip on facts, theories, stats
snorting knowledge up the nose
and packing BS in the gaps
I stuff some sense inside my head
and pick up, stack up fun and friends
and push it, pump it to my heart
then rip it out as life begins
Guzzling advice at every turn
for schools, for jobs, fashion, and men
never thinking of my loves
but only where I could get in
And still I swipe up all the keys
that they say will lead to success
and now as I hit the door
I’m dragged down by this collaged mess

And I’m
stomping, sliding
round and round
down the stairs to destiny
And regardless of my preparing
I’m still rushed, naïve, not ready

I
unlock the door
I
jam in the keys
and I spuh-spuh-sputter
sputter on

And no wonder
‘cause I’ve been on
and never ceasing
and yet all you are expecting
for me to just continue racing

Won’t you just let me
recharge?