Compilation Poem: A Jessica Love Fest
Compiled by Alyssa Wolf
Super Kickass Poem for Friends and Lovers (AKA I think its good; that's why I want to read it)
Last night at a checkstand
Jacob came in late and
I'm looking at the price of cabbage
He asks me, "Don't you believe in serendipity?"
He didn't want to miss anything, but he missed so much.
can't go home anymore, wherever that is, or ever was,
I want to touch your soul
flammable like a dry savanna
a wildfire
Like a lighter touches paper
A few minutes later it burns out and you laugh
I stand, then sit
the words are orbiting me, just out of reach and out of order
it all feels like rotating
rewind, rewind, rewind
I must breathe and take a vow of silence
because I failed kindergarten
I'm always the last to know
I have already had too many takers
Be normal!
Let your bald head show
My scrambled egg words come from a mind
that breaks down life into greasy fries
like a paranoid meth head with bottled-up emotion
my scrambled egg words come from a mind
bound to embrace the storm or die
I can't get the words beyond the roof
I drip down off the ceiling of my own mind
my bones are breaking
the struggle of breathing
Can't get my prayers up to heaven
even those with a stutter can sing
I think I know what I'm saying
"Sorry, man, my dad's chicken farm is up the mountain"
when I wake the metaphors work
Maybe I am because I think . . .
We should have been cooking
In the heat of Milwaukee, Cream City
breath in the clouds, feet in the ground
But one sacred jar of plums in raspberry sauce left in the pantry.
it's not enough. It never was
There are moments when I beg to dance
a never-ending dance
with room to make mistakes
my feet are planted in two separate places
I'm split down the center
and sometimes anxiety is my dance partner
high above a gravel path
He's passive aggressive tomorrow
Rushing into the world when least expected
with no one to note the time of arrival
I can feel the surf swirling around my ankles
a large predator chasing prey
one must be careful about this wildness
I'm scared I'm gonna mess this up; I'm scared of YOU.
My courage is not a wild dog with yellow eyes--it won't just come
through the marrow in my bones
when I call it
Revelation writing
I will bear the weight like a verse
push the winding roads into the sea
You have to be pretty late to miss the sacrament
a relationship with God
I'm sick of falling in line
missing the sacrament means a total breakdown
of the morning/the mother
A long week of repenting
my imperfections, my scars
my body, this holy ground
an open book in the hands of my maker
Maybe God knows how to be a friend better than I do
He moves through time like my life is a room
God can straighten the furniture no matter how many times I knock it down.
This is me, overcalculating EVERYTHING
But really, I just can't waste any more time . . .
Like a lighter touches paper
Leave no indelible thing behind you
no concrete slab to sweep
You will be the hope I thought you'd be
to slide and glide and qualify
I hope you remember my name
because if you don't, who will?
And where the kites fly
I'll invite you for a cup of chai
bonded molecules
savoring the moment
sitting cross-legged for as long as we can
I hope you remember my name
in the palm of your hand
because wherever I'm going, I'm already home.
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