by James Welsh
love that hugs closer
at the tides –
and we wonder if we’re
Ophelia and if this moment,
this house, these screams
and these shouts husked
in the limelight of the dying fire –
we wonder if this could be
our Hamlet, the sound
drowning us down.
Over The Pencil Breaks
As a child, I could captain my hand
steadier than ships through
the midnight. Forget those
New England superstitions –
nighttime is little
more than a cloudy day. I wrote
with jeweler’s hands
back then, even my
glasses standing in for
the magnifying lens.
But now my fingers quiver with hunger
in the waves of hellos and goodbyes.
The knuckles are a contortionist’s
soul, collapsing inward into
a weak and brittle-haired pebble.
And I know a pebble throws the
world’s longest shadow like an outfielder
given the right light. I know, because
I lost count of the times I’ve
been told. Still, some nights
I throw my pencil across the room
longer than that shadow.
Even then, though, I refuse to let
my hands die quicker
than me. Because I will only live as
long as each of
these ten fingers breathe.
Jan 18, 2011
Rorschach Pantoum
One time I accidentally bit down on my tongue,
drawing blood in all its shapes and sizes –
first, as a house, then as an orange
and it was at such falls that I was an artist,
drawing blood in all its shapes and sizes –
whether as swimming elephants or bitten onions
and it was at such falls that I was an artist
whose failures served in place of his cunning.
Whether as swimming elephants or bitten onions,
my art lives in the blood, sweat, and tears I give – I am a man
whose failures served in place of his cunning
and whose pains and hardships served as his pen.
My art lives in the blood, sweat, and tears I give – I am a man
trying to live inside the imagination
and whose pains and hardships served as his pen.
But really, nothing comes close to
trying to live inside the imagination –
first, as a house, then as an orange.
But really, nothing comes close to
one time when I accidentally bit down on my tongue.
Pantoum – Those Two Years
For those two years, she never stopped talking.
She spoke the human tongue, stuck between
two loves – “I love the art of wishing
and him with his eyes…it’s like swimming two deep seas.”
She spoke the human tongue, stuck between
pushing dreams across the canvas with a pen
and him with his eyes…it’s like swimming two deep seas.
There I go, speaking like her again,
pushing dreams across the canvas with a pen,
wishing on stars that fell like saints years ago.
There I go, speaking like her again
with that dreamy smile that never wakes up. Although
wishing on stars that fell like saints years ago
is no way to live, it somehow still is
with that dreamy smile that never wakes up. Although
me wanting nothing more
is no way to live, it somehow still is
two loves. I love the art of wishing,
me wanting nothing more than
for those two years she never stopped talking.
Papercut
Love is the papercut’s sting,
winning me back to this. If
it’s just for moments – the pegs
and gears all groaned awake –
it’s moments enough. I
thunderclap the fantastic
close like a book, watching
dust fly and thrive from
the pages. The dreams live on –
picking at the trash sunbaked
on the boardwalk.
The papercut talks as I curve
my writing hand, breaking
ground on sonnets that would
work better as songs I think.
I blink out words too big for
my mind. I have a brain for haiku
thoughts. I guess no space on the
lifeboat for you, darling. The
papercut’s already dragging
me in the waters –
if only I could swim.
April 11, 2010
Papyrus Revolution
In the streets they whisper screams.
Reams of yellow pads, all recording
the words of this revolution.
This revolution will
not be trapped in
the evening news.
This revolution will
be scribbled in riddles
we will not understand
until ten years from this
point in time.
The revolution will be
Glass muscles already
beginning to crackle
and shrink
beneath the world
that Atlas
could never lift
but we thought we could.
We thought we could do
many things – but one
thing we never thought
we could do was think
outside our heads.
We never thought
a piece of paper
could think for us
like a robot,
like an origami robot
we write instructions
on with pens and pencils
in hopes it could read itself.
And they say the world
is not flat, yet when I look
across a sheet of fresh paper,
I can see the world at my
fingertips and it’s a flat one.
And it’s a flat one.
The pencil touches the paper
like lightning lights the ground,
burning away the old
and bringing around the new
rush.
The revolution will
True, a touch of change
is always needed.
Like fingers hopping from bar
to bar on a piano,
our hands can make sounds
when we write.
Each curve and twist of my writing
hand makes a word, and each
word makes a certain sound
when spoken aloud,
yet each mind that hears it
will react different.
The revolution will be written.
The revolution will be scribbled.
The ripples are as certain
as the fact that my writing hand
will not wobble.
The revolution will be written.
Paradelle Per Lei
I read your name off the page like music.
I read your name off the page like music.
Each letter a note that sounds like skipping stones on water.
Each letter a note that sounds like skipping stones on water.
I read off the page, skipping like stones on each letter that
so
unds your name – note a music like the water.
I get lost and swept into the corner.
I get lost and swept into the corner.
I feel rushed by my trembles, the stutter in my voice.
I feel rushed by my trembles, the stutter in my voice.
In by my corner, I lost the rushed feel –
my voice, the stutters and trembles I get swept into.
You are all soft smiles and softer eyes.
You are all soft smiles and softer eyes.
I grow wings, fly through the blue clouds of your eyes.
I grow wings, fly through the blue clouds of your eyes.
Your blue eyes are softer and grow wings.
You and I fly soft through all the clouds of smiles and eyes.
You rushed off on your wings, and I
read your note that sounds like my voice, all a stutter,
skipping stones through the letter. Each page of
music and the like all lost. I grow wings,
fly into the corners in blue-name clouds – the soft smiles are softer.
I feel my eyes tremble a soft blue, get swept by the water.
Pecking Order
Confusion sprang and rang
amongst the lilies –
and with the wind
weaving the dust into
the setting sun,
I could taste riot in the air
for the first time and I liked it.
I will right this,
though, to show
the world I own it,
but know this,
that I do so with
the most utter
of reluctance.
I could let the petals fall,
and stand above
and watch them hit
and compose the ground,
each composer writing notes
that gently wheeze from dying throats.
But no, I will blow them kisses
into the wind, give them a future
to rustle off to.
In due time, they’ll speak
of me as an oddity…no, as an oddity
who makes the leaves
turn themselves over
and lets the wind
move them forward…yes.
Penelope’s Lament
He’s late again – Odysseus is. Zeus!
I spent (or tried to spend) this afternoon
in feathers that I plucked from some old goose
while baking wings like Icarus (too soon?).
And now I’m sitting here with empty suit-
ors, only sure that if (and not when) that
Odysseus comes walking in with boots
in need of twenty years of repair, that
I will go up to him and say to him,
“My love, you better have some really grand
and truthful reason for why you’re late.” “Hmmm,”
he’ll say, “Believe me, love…I lost my men
to Scylla, that Charybdis, and wretched Cyclops…”
and that is when I’ll smack that liar with a pot.
Pygmalion's Still Life
I've built you up enough to breathe,
but still you're ink atop the page -
you're not alive if no one reads.
Your audience has marked your age.
But still you're ink atop the page -
you seem to move when I tell you to.
Your audience has marked your age;
their clapping's spun your heartbeat too.
You seem only to move when I tell you to,
ink blotches scotching your high heels.
Their clapping's spun your heartbeat to
a fevered pitch, believer's steel.
Ink blotches scotching your high heels
always follow me into my dreams.
A fevered pitch - believer's steel -
will keep me asleep while sunshine spills.
Please follow me into my dreams -
you're not alive since no one reads.
Will keeps me asleep while sunshine spills.
I wish I built you up from the reams.
August 5, 2010
Red Wine Mathematics
Although I may have
a limp in
my walk along
this garden path, I
know no limp in my
handshake as I add up
the math, walking
past old friends,
subtracting wispy embers
in old lovers’ eyes.
I dry my wet lips with
a few sips of wine
as I rewind the clock propped
up amongst the coffee
cups which stand at
attention along the
summer kitchen wall.
Redbird Pillow
We’re swimmers in the bed’s pacific
covers, legs slowly kicking,
floating on springs dried with salt
and staircase creaks. You squeeze
the pillow hard – like harvest cherries
between finger and thumb. You
became blushing reds in our bed of blue,
a burning ship sailing across the
only ocean we ever knew.
You squeezed until I thought
the goose feathers would burst out and tar
your arms. If they did, I wonder then,
would your arms become wings?
Would they flap instead of hold?
Would they whisk you from my world?
Have I tarred you enough that, if
we walked in the dark, you would
camouflage against your shadow?
August 25, 2011
Rest is Silence
I’m the idiot who deserves the ink
washing my fingertips – this cleanliness
coming from holding a pen so close it breaks.
I hold it close the way I hug my
shadow in the middle of the day.
Keep close, shadow, I want you
to haunt me like a ghost.
The ink drips like a faucet on the pages,
rusting away the empty poems I write
simply to keep me awake. At times,
the jet waters rise and flood
my eyes shut and that’s when the
nightmares drown me down.
Please keep me awake.
Right Hand Slip
The pentrail slips the page
easy as grease –
the drop drips jumping
in skillet like
hot dogs for leftover
biscuits.
Sea: Columbus proved his
world was robinround enough –
for him. The oceans and the
billows in their sheets dreamed
on even after the
bed is made.
But when I leave paper –
walking out through the back
door corded between
the lines graffitied straight
and bored – I’m outdoors of
myself.
And though it’s (gr)easy
enough to lunge
off the page, it’s
magic trick to puzzle
piece together the pen
and pad again.
May 23, 2010
Rose Bicycle Pedal
“She loves me, she loves me not,”
I said, picking petals off the rose,
watching them fall like autumn winds
amongst the whistled willows.
I am the sail before the wind -
I move wherever it wants me to,
the wind giving me shape and purpose,
filling in my pockets and
my grooves.
The petals trip like fallen heroes
until t
here’s only one that stands.
I know which side this man
will be on; he will be
a soldier – not a romantic.
He alone will win the war
and rumor my awful flaws
to the seagull flocks
that rock the midnight air to sleep
while high above they talk.
They talk of so many things;
they say, “the petals on the rose
undid the love you loved
with all of your heart
and pumping blood.
Did you not stop to think
why? Because such things
were not meant to be.
So that leaves you here with us
so we can rock you deep to sleep
as you swim in the flood of tears
that you tear at with your hands
and we hope you sleep and drown
before you reach the riverbanks.”
I’m not done picking the petals yet though.
Let me finish what I have started.
Then once it’s done, let the seagulls feast
on the blood that pumps me, the deep-hearted.
Rose in the Snow-Garden
Remember December’s embers
were always raining down,
coating our world with silver dust?
Like then, we have to keep up
now – we must. No matter if
the weather blasts away
our hearts or not.
But I remember then – how
the evergreens always seemed
to glow that golden green,
so bright that they seemed
to scream the spring – even
in the night. Then, there were
still paw-prints in the snowdrifts
and remember what we wondered?
Not what animal walked there,
but why an animal walked there.
Why? Because no life deserved
to be there. The smoke in our breath
was all you expected – and what
I wanted – to hear. Even then:
Life. Has always. Persevered.
Remember how we kept walking
until our feet slipped, until we
were standing on the cracked
and chapped lips of some frozen
ocean? No – we were floating –
we stomped our flag down like
