Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012

by James Welsh

I knew could never grow on me.

  And even now I’m thinking

  if I could go back to those

  black-and-white times, would I

  be the lazy strokes of a dull

  pencil, grayer than even my best friend’s

  face as she trembled the vase

  of her last breaths in buttery hands?

  Or, if I could go back, would I

  be the sting of a sharpened

  pencil, scratching initials

  into trees, digging into

  the bark the shorthand

  for you and me?

  I think, though, if I fell back

  in time, I wouldn’t hit the ground

  as some lampshade of twilight –

  I would fall as a dripping black of midnight –

  a surface that glass

  could never scratch, even if it tried.

  The Night Brought Rain

  I imagine it must get lonely

  behind those sunglasses sometimes.

  I see them and I think

  of a crowd of alleyways that

  see my way home in the evenings

  as I’m leaving work or school

  or any of the other hurts that pest

  at my heels.

  If I’m lucky, I sometimes

  see you peering over the

  sunglasses, your blue eyes

  water lapping over like some

  thirsty dog at the bowl’s rim.

  Sure, you may still be

  the smiles I knew last year

  but not even sunglasses

  can cover up the rogue

  tear running your cheek,

  looking for the nearest

  ocean to dive in.

  The Night Wears Black to the Morning

  I will, I will

  guide you by the arm

  and walk you

  through this darkness

  drawn from a pitch sky

  alive with snuffed

  stars frowning through

  death masks for faces.

  I will blindfold my notes

  in half and pass them to

  you as we sit through this

  crumbling lectern of a class –

  with the blinds pulled

  closed as shadow puppets

  grow wings and float at the

  mere change of the

  puppeteer’s hands.

  I know the room’s too dry

  of light and that my writing

  is hard enough to read at

  times – especially in this

  dark room of frozen tears

  and frostbit lips splashed

  across negatives. So

  I strain my hand and spray

  the paper with a pen until

  each word sloshes with ink,

  until each word is a Black Sea.

  Let your fingers swim through

  the inky waters, learn to read

  the calm songs I sing

  as sticky words like love

  dry against your palm,

  as black drips down

  and stains your sleeve.

  North Wind

  “Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I

  but when the trees bow down their heads,

  the wind is passing by.”

  -Christina Rossetti

  I’m growing old,

  I’m growing old,

  as the day wilts petals –

  as the night’s might

  revels – while the moon

  rises up to say it’s bold.

  I have begun learning

  to pronounce the lines on

  my forehead. I have begun

  learning to read between

  those lines, waiting for my

  life sentence’s period to rush by –

  although I hope it’s a comma instead.

  As the days drag on,

  the clock-face sags down.

  We can tell from its frown

  that it’s 7:25 in the evening,

  leaving us to find candles

  to handle the load that

  the sun pulls. And still

  this north wind rolls as

  the world freezes and folds.

  But although I know my heart

  stops at the tick-tock of midnight,

  I know that the clock’s pendulum

  still rocks to a 1 o’clock,

  a 2 o’clock,

  a 3 o’clock,

  4….

  The Rubicon Through London (Eliot)

  “We had this rather lugubrious man in a suit, and he read a poem…I think it was called The Desert. And first the girls got the giggles and then I did and then even the King.”

  -The Queen Mother, describing a reading T. S. Eliot gave to the Royal Family

  Pendulums knock the hours between the

  orchestra sections – all those different

  tongues, all greeting the same morning.

  They’re all earthy voices, rising as Babel fell,

  like sunflowers that rose as the moon fell in mourning.

  The sun is wrapped in her sooty blanket of midnight –

  it has suited her rather well in her frostier years.

  Meanwhile, Ben counts down the hours, his face

  atlantic blue as he trumpets from atop his tower.

  All any of us ever wanted was more time and time

  and that was what we got as the day dragged on,

  clinking the minutes behind it like chain links.

  I remember being younger, how we would jump

  around on the smoky stairs of the city,

  the chimney tops laughing ink for steps

  that we stepped like the kings and queens

  we pretended to be. The kings and queens

  we were supposed to grow up to be.

  We would push our toy trains through those

  underground rails, flicking miniature boats

  beneath those bridges, all before Ben called

  us to dinner deep in the Abbey’s shadows.

  As we grew older, the city grew older,

  as we grew, the city grew,

  as we grew older, the city grew.

  Little did we know our homespun city would lose itself in its ambitions –

  to the point that when we looked back at the paths we carved in the streets,

  we asked ourselves, “Are these still the streets that we remember?”

  The Sun Rose from Our Sinking Boat

  The sun rose from our sinking boat,

  the light rising like candles tossed up at the sky

  as if Grandpa wanted to catch

  the moon on fire. But Grandpa’s sun

  fell quicker than lumber at

  the lumberjack’s hands. We

  watched our sun dive down and drown

  in the night waters that chopped our

  balsa boat down to wars and peaces.

  “Get another flare ready,” said Grandpa,

  “and be ready to fire.”

  Another morning came

  a few moments later.

  The Whales Sung

  It’s a modern world we live in –

  I can dance my eyes

  across this universe,

  seeing stars that burnt

  out years ago yet

  I’m still learning to

  wash the day away

  as I stand out at sea,

  wreathing my legs in barnacles.

  I always wanted to hear

  the whales sing their

  whale songs and I always

  wanted a violin so that

  I could hum my fingers

  on the strings and play

  along

  and I always wanted

  to run away from my office

  mind that I’ve divided into

  little cubicles, each

  of which never seem to mind

  their own
business.

  I have

  a wish list of loves I want

  to hold like music on

  the phone – yet all

  I have is a want to run

  the shores of some island

  or world that we’ve never

  seen before.

  So I cried wolf

  and grew blankets over my

  head and slept in the river

  bed for the evening.

  Their Deaths Held Roses

  Their deaths held roses which

  winged their hands with blushing feathers –

  each feather rusted – each feather

  a phoenix climbing the steps

  of embers the

  setting sun drenched

  this world – our world – with.

  All the sleeping hearts lap

  up the sun to keep warm

  through these blindcane nights.

  But while we crawl

  and thirst on a fickle trickle,

  their deaths become

  a phoenix and climb the water of

  the sun falls.

  There’s No Reckless You

  I always thought that you were

  a barnstormer’s climb – two, maybe

  even three steps at a time –

  far from a careful Icarus. They

  called you reckless, but I should

  have called you humble. Why?

  Well, the Father always called

  heaven a home for the meek.

  But the Father never

  said there was anything

  that heaven looked up to –

  there is no modest heaven, just like

  there is no reckless you.

  September 9, 2011

  Third Rail

  A railroad is like a lie; you have to keep building it to make it stand.

  –Mark Twain

  Our spirit was laid before us like train tracks

  that stitched steel into the bleeding cracks.

  Those tracks will carry us on its back over

  the valleys and gorges, speeding up to

  show us the gorgeous tomorrow for

  just the price of today.

  When night falls and bruises her palms,

  we lay our heads on the

  open windows and gaze upwards,

  pretending up is down and down is up

  and that we’re bouncing between the stars –

  this time, the tracks follow our lead

  as we trace out the constellations,

  our fingertips for pencils.

  We fill the stencil in with a shine,

  the spilt ink dripping up

  and pooling in the overhead lights

  of the train car.

  And sure, you’re the third rail –

  although you make me run,

  you could kill me simply

  with a little hug.

  February 3, 2010

  This Denmark Still Smells like a Barnyard

  Pushed against these spine-tingled masses,

  I see defeat seed its way into the

  chipped lookingglass, which ripples with

  cries and gasps. I see the mentor’s slap

  give way to the banker’s greed; I see

  the bullwhip lapped up while the

  chained world gets catscratched up in

  the acid rainfalls.

  The tide is turned,

  the fire’s burned,

  yet this Denmark still smells like a barnyard.

  This Green is Golden Now

  This Green is golden leaves now –

  each of them fallen like crimson saints

  or fainted Victorians – rotting

  their way into the soil

  while the oily maple air flames its way

  through the grasses. Those

  snakes beckon us towards

  the syrup bleeding from the trees.

  The creaking of the branches

  mention the bench we’re

  sitting on, the legs cackling

  as we lean forwards and backwards.

  Our words mute the

  brittle old man legs as they

  count down into splinters –

  the dreams of being matches

  is somewhat gone but not forgotten in its

  lingers.

  This Is The World

  This is the world that confused you.

  Here’s the me

  that loves the world that confused you.

  That’s the too-short life

  of the me

  that loves the world that confused you.

  Here’s to the simmered winters

  of the too-short life

  of the me

  that loves the world that confused you.

  This is the point where all makes sense.

  This is the picture in the hole in the fence

  of all the simmered winters

  of this too-short life

  that splinters the me

  that loves the world that confused you.

  I write with erasers smudged with ink

  to point where all these things make sense.

  I draw out the picture in the hole in the fence

  that simmers in winters, trying to stretch

  this too-short life

  that sheds off the me

  that loves the world that confused you.

  And with other hollow followers beginning to think,

  I spill world into words with erasers of ink

  to point out the word that makes all sense.

  Can’t you picture the hole in the fence

  of the winters that shiver and all makes sense?

  True, this too-short life

  flower petals off me

  but still I love the world that confused you.

  This World Is Too Large to Contain Me

  This world is too large to contain me –

  these vast plains fenced in as

  backyards – the picket fence

  bending in the wind –

  these seas called lakes

  I only wish that I could

  swim– all this I get

  lost and caught up in,

  a massive empty that

  I cannot measure myself

  against.

  Thunder Through the Valley

  Sound waves whip and trip

  through the sounds of time,

  filling empty hands

  with a five and six of spades

  to give us a full house

  to sing our hearts

  to.

  We whirl and wind

  the microphone cord

  in a whirlwind

  about our finger’s spine

  as we try

  as we try

  to find the best way

  to stray from common minds set

  to stone.

  The tears we’ve wept are stone-

  cold, swept across our cheeks

  like storms that thunder,

  like worms that wander

  through the center of an apple

  grown from the earth,

  an apple that is the Earth

  for a lack of better word.

  Everything is tempting –

  even this microphone looks

  like a slice of heaven

  mentioned only to those

  who know how to flip the switch

  and turn it on.

  We are poets, drawn to the words

  we spawn from muses that have

  long since died or moved on.

  We are what we build upon.

  And when – or if – you applaud,

  your flick of wrists can make

  my house of cards

  fall down harder

  than any crisp glare

  or fist can.

  So when I hear you clap,

  I know I must b
uild my house again,

  but this time, I know I will build it stronger.

  So please, I beg of you,

  please clap harder and longer.

  Tonight as the Beginning of Always

  Remember tonight as the beginning of always,

  the end to wilted flowers,

  the trickling ticktickticking of

  that clock of ours – the one that

  was beginning to forget the order

  in the hours – the end to green

  Mays that gave way

  to crackled summers –

  the sonnets that ended

  a line too soon – the bread

  that fell as it grew in swells –

  the days that drifted as clouds

  between us and the loud stars of space –

  remember tonight as the beginning of always.

  Too Short To Play Your God

  You’re too short to play your god,

  even with your trembling.

  Still, you try so hard in rehearsal.

  Although your words can only

  dream up some deity – they’re still

  too wild with forgotten commas

  and rushed speech that seems

  as if you want the troubles

  to end as soon as they begin.

  They’re human in all the wrong

  ways – the mistakes

  fated to be too deep

  a stain for your rugs to cover up.

  They aren’t human with the

  love that, in theory, the

  centuries have drummed into us.

  They aren’t human

  with the heartbeat sympathy –

  not the swollen cheese that

  sweats in the greeting cards –

  but the sympathy that we

  are we. This is something

  you’ve forgotten – that you’ve

  wanted to forget – and so

  you are just you now,

  dripping alien to the rest of us.

  November 14, 2010

  Trading Postcards

  She painted my mail with postcards

  and put the whole world in