it is ever a race through the routine,
without time for the little considerations.
I never finish a book, but I’ve read them all.
I never remember who said what,
but can remember the entire conversation.
I can’t sleep and have 24 hours to think a day,
but waste every one of them on wild fancy.
It’s strange, I am not lazy.
I would just rather sit idle at this time.
Maybe the world didn’t forget about me,
maybe it was I who forgot the world.
A Face in Wax
A face in wax.
A candle which burns at both ends,
Burns with the heat of passion,
Or fixes its sorrow into a mold-
Each night a new sleepless blemish,
On the white pearl porcelain- entrapped.
Like the tears in the wells of your eyes,
Pretty and blue eyes that shine.
Or your lips full of voluptuous desire- that sweat.
The liquid with the end of youth,
Pools around your bare little toes.
The sensual not to be admitted by touch-
As you try to explain away the loss,
Of every year of eighteen,
With the crest of your hand-
And the waves are like they swell,
When a tremor shakes them.
I would find it so easy to love you,
your corresponding soul- as we correspond.
If you’d not abandon the abandoner-
But, like Shakespeare to accentuate me with words.
A long conversation is my sweet succor,
Should it come from your heart to mine-
I am charmed.
The tears cascade down a pretty little cheek-
Gathering in beads, like heated little gems-
On the soft sultry crests of ruby lips.
If I would impart a kiss to where it gathers,
I’d share the tears and the sorrows-
Forever and tomorrow.
Widow’s Walk
Reading upon my book of poems,
The lines are desperate songs of prayer.
No father through the silk gale gazes,
Back at my fair forms laid bare.
My child is fatherless.
And the creaking old house,
With longing from the widow’s walk.
The bell tolls and the fog is thick.
I keep my silent vigil, with candle.
My prayers remain behind a black vale,
My depths impenetrable.
My voice an appeal for an answer which-
Is lost out to sea.
I am this woman,
with a child, who now is fatherless.
Wet Damp Mule
I have discovered the essence of the beaten mule,
The one whom the tragic story surrounds,
With whom the poet commiserated,
And wrapped his thin arms around-
To keep the whips from ripping his wet hide-
To split the yoke between his shoulders.
To be eviscerated like the prowling cur,
Damaged by the wagon wheel,
Ripped into his soft belly,
Like a spinning violent flail,
A death so unknown- a carrion song.
I have heard all manner of stories,
Written for the lonely man-
In the icy breath of deepest night,
Under the blue moon, round, high-
Gathered, but alone,
Beneath the wooden roofs- nigh unto midnight-
Alone- with our collars on our overcoats turned up-
Our chins turned into our chests.
While outside blasphemies the ripping hail,
Like providence-
Dancing, shattering, enthralled.
The windows streaked with rain, like tears-
And the cold suffering quiet like footsteps.
A silhouette of a beautiful woman,
With the white wavering curtain- she sighs.
Bathed in the light of the moon.
A cross of the window, above my dampening grave.
No lover’s shadowed arms wrap about her,
She lingers there- and no thunder lullabies.
Like the lonely man who hung a noose over his wooden chair-
He dangled there, with the creaking rope.
They cut him down, disgusted with him – carrion song.
The ceiling fan, the soft breeze rippled the yellow note-
With his toes scraping the chair.
So often he had sat and looked out- no words to represent-
For the heavy dampening.
Buried in a grave on a wet day,
And at night a light from a yellow lamp-
Would aid you to trace his silent marker-
Trace his name as the wind howls.
I have fixed my sight upon the huddled, mangled together-
They surround, but the sound is like the rain.
Loneliness is here, and in all those windows-
And the wet damp street, and the wet damp mule-
My arms closed about me- commiserating.
Chirping Bird
Run and hide.
The lesser from within me.
From fame and fortune-
To a mind of ruined prophecy,
To my pack of scattered cards.
A disturbed expansive progeny-
An incomprehensible rapid litany,
Creatures of the rhapsody-
Music of my mind.
Cast out and transformed,
From the deepest inner-agency,
Of self-loathing piteous ignominy,
To the most grandiose re-creation,
Of the world’s wicked entity,
In the image of my father-
His high minded idolatry,
The sermons of Deuteronomy-
The serpent eel, and the slug mind.
Run and hide.
The more loving within me,
Little resentments behind me-
With a motley chirping insanity,
The perched pecking hurtle jumper thrush-
Active in a cage in front of my mouth gust.
The stoned, drugged, debasement,
The spells of worms and tunnels-
Slipping through the swinging casement,
Of my mind blown eruption.
Longing for the sutures,
To close my gaping wounds,
My lonesome sultry moods,
And a Christian’s streak of poverty.
Spit in my dust, laugh in my face,
Eat a junk wasted grace.
A parochial chocolate kiss confectionary,
your cards gathered greedily,
Stacked up high and neatly,
Disturb my chirping bird.
Becoming
This evening I sat at table with a lovely child lady.
A blonde headed meager thing, and eager of energies.
She listened as I spoke-
She made slight smiles and small leanings toward my voice-
(My vehement condemning voice which both cries as it denies,
And throws flames about to burn the spectacle.)
My voice curses as I despise- my weak fellows,
and the reluctance of their fellowship to man.
But tonight unlike other evenings of the selfsame touch,
One not small burden was uplifting,
For only my own meagerness did I lust-
And not her blonde and eager energies.
I thought not of destinies
or conventionality,
Or wedding bells or vows.
I spoke not for her impression,
or with abhorrent exhortation,
In jubilant exhilaration,
And cared not should she linger or allow,
- my lingering,
And I
felt my heart had lightened,
To follow my voice which had all the while,
- been calling for such.
Tempest Toss Me
Tempest toss me! storm surround me!
Give me rain and thunder, a great bellow in my ears,
massive waves which endanger my ship.
I want the crash of thunder!
I want the flood and torrent to wreck my boat-
A gust and swell, a perfect whirlpool-
break all the windows majestically.
Let the tree branches bend in the firm wind-
Let me be soaked with water, and scatter the leaves.
I want to be your lonely sailor, just one in an ocean largeness.
I want to raise my little sail and have it blown around the mast.
Let me never see the land, but always to be carried away,
Let my house be shattered on the shore.
I want the flood! Bring on the flood!
I want to be taken by the storm.
Contact Information
John Christopher
Email: [email protected]
Blog: manofopposition.blogspot.com
Selected Poems (2006 - 2012) Page 11
