sugar sky

you reached to pull the pink clouds down

and spun them into a

sugary mound

to balance on

a thin paper cone

and then present

to me

you told me to look up at the sky

and see how there’s sherbet

in the sunrise

you snuck a taste

of the creamy orange

and left the rest

for me

you wanted to bring me a sprinkling of stars

to see how sweet

the crystals are

but then you disappeared

into the dark

chocolate sky

and you never came back down

the clouds are thick like frosting today

but i don’t want a taste

Grave Digging

(wrote this on the garage roof a year or two ago) 

Dirt-caked knuckles

Earth-streaked palms

Bits of the planet under your nails

You dug the hole

With your bare hands

Scooping out fistfuls of

Crumbling soil

Scraping away at the

Rich brown sides

You formed your own little

Homemade crater

In the sunlit backyard

And when you thought it was deep enough

You slipped on your

Too-big gardening gloves

And lowered in

The corpse of the mouse

You’d found out by the fence

Matted fur

Tiny heart not working

Eyes shut against the world

You nestled him in

A bed of torn-up grass

A dandelion resting by his head

And you pushed the pile of dirt

Back over

Piled some stones

Bowed your head

And went to wash your hands

Outside poem: Christmas Sparrow, Billy Collins

I know, it's nowhere near Christmas, but this is one of my favorite poems right now. I love Billy Collins' way with words, and the imagery in this is just gorgeous. 


Christmas Sparrow

The first thing I heard this morning
was a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent—

wings against glass as it turned out
downstairs when I saw the small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat
who was hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap of a basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.

On a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a shirt and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.

But outside, when I uncupped my hands,
it burst into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms as I wondered about
the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark. 

--Billy Collins

Messages

You sent your thoughts sailing

Out your open bedroom window

Scribbled down

Folded into paper airplanes

Things no one else would

Listen to:

Fragmented lines of poetry

Comments on society

A description of the dream you had

At two o’clock that morning

You launched them

Out in the fragile air

And thought maybe if they flew

Far enough

They would find someone

Who cared

You wrote down your feelings

On the walls of buildings

Where everyone

Could see;

Rough concrete

Smooth white plaster

The scratched, shiny gloss

Of a bathroom stall

“BECAUSE I’M WORTH MILLIONS”

Scrawled high in spray-paint

On a plain brick wall

“Because I’m worth nothing”

In black marker

Lost among countless other words

You left evidence

Of you

Wherever you went

As if to prove to yourself

You hadn’t ceased to exist

You left your secrets

In library books

Folded into squares

To be tucked within the pages

You pretended you were writing

To a trustworthy friend

And you told them

Your fears

Your wishes

Your flaws

The contents of your heart

Laid bare

For an unwitting stranger to read

And you ended each note

With a hopeful “Write back”

Please

Write back

Write back

You wrote in bright chalk

In the middle of the road

“IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?”

You just wanted someone to hear you

Lightning

I used to run out into the rain with you

Thunder shaking the ground

Lightning illuminating our

Imperfect faces

We didn’t care about getting our clothes wet

Cracks of light split open the sky

Wind lashed at our hair

Rain streamed past our eyes

We raised our fists to heaven

And laughed

Like nothing would ever change

Even though you’re gone now

Lightning

Still makes me feel

Safe

Morse Code Heart

My heart thumps out a message;

A message in Morse code.

It tries to say “I love you”

But to you I must seem cold

For when you come into the room,

I back against a wall:

And my heart keeps thumping messages

To nobody at all.

Unseen Colors

I think that you have butterfly eyes.

They don’t seem special;

They’re just a plain gray

But you see things that others can’t

You find splendor in things called plain

You love things that others reject.

You told me once that

Butterflies

Can see more colors

Than we can.

There are hues in this world

That we’ll never imagine,

Snatches of beauty

We never will grasp.

The world is made of them

They’re all around us

Invisible lovelies

As thick as the air

But we walk right by—

We never stop

We never realize

We stick to our own little rainbow paint charts

Never looking for unseen colors.

People always thought you were plain

Nothing impressive

Nothing important

But I know that you’re made of things

That others can’t even dream.

And maybe your eyes aren’t gray.

Could be they’re a color I just can’t see.

Imaginary Friends

You’ve held on longer than most.

Many have already said goodbye;

You seem to think it will last forever.

I only wish that it could.

But you know,

Someday

I’m going to have to tell you that

I

Don’t

Exist.

I’m nothing but a voice in your head.

And you need to know.

It’ll break your heart;

But it will break mine more.

I know

You won’t dance with me

Anymore;

Twirling around your cluttered room,

Your feet more graceful than mine;

I know

You won’t talk to me

Anymore;

Whispering all your little secrets,

Waking me up late

When you have a bad dream;

I know

You won’t think of me

Anymore,

Till I’m just a

Flicker of memory

Pushed to the back of your mind.

I’ll watch you letting go;

I’ll watch you moving on;

I’ll watch you growing up;

And I

Will fade

From existence.

I Can't Tell You a Thing about the Weather

At least not in the way people mean

I know things like

How the moon sounds brighter after it snows

Or how the clouds taste when the sky is pink

And how sunlight feels when it is cupped in your hand
 

But no one wants to hear about things like that

They want ordinary things

Like

“It’s such a lovely day today, don’t you think?”

And

“This next snowstorm is supposed to be a big one”

They have never trailed their fingers through the sky

And felt the ebb and swirl of the blue

And they have never heard

The rain’s bright song

Or the wind’s long stories

Of everything it’s seen

And they have never tasted

The fresh picked stars

And felt the silver juice run down their chin

No

They just want to hear

“It’s been hotter today than it was yesterday”

And                

“I hope it rains soon, the grass sure needs it”

I can’t tell you anything about that

But if you want to come up

And sit among the stars

I can take you with me

Just ask

Caterpillar Baby

The sun shines bright on the graveyard.

People shift

In their dark, dark clothes

Uncomfortable in the heat.

I stare at the

Tiny white casket

No larger

Than a shoebox.

A butterfly rests on the surface

Yellow wings

Breathing

Open and closed.

The baby had died inside his mother.

Never breathed

Never saw

Never cried.

He stayed his whole life

Inside a cocoon;

Now he’ll never see

The sky.

I look at the ground,

Focusing on the

Leaf green caterpillar

Crawling along

Oblivious.

The baby rests

In his little white box

And all that I can

Think is

“He never even

Got

His wings.”

Blue

I am the sky

The ripples in the pond

The color of your half remembered dreams

I am in your eyes

And the bruise on your knee

Hidden by your faded jeans

Birthday cake frosting

And summer days

The crayon you used to scribble out

A waxy horizon

I am soft music

An ink stain

The ocean

The feeling you get when you’ve lost your way

I am pale veins

Bright poison frogs

Loneliness mixed with the sound of rain

I’m a flash of feathered wings

I’m shadows on snow

I’m the cloud in your mind

When there’s nothing

Left

To say

First Post

I'm not good at introductions.

I've been staring at this little white space and trying to come up with an appropriate first post, something that will quickly and effectively give readers a basic idea of WHO I AM and WHY THEY SHOULD CARE ABOUT ANYTHING I'M POSTING HERE, but so far I've got nothing. I guess instead of trying to be witty and memorable I should just give a brief overview of what this blog is so I can get the first post out of the way and go on to what I really want to do.

Basically, I write poems.

I'll probably begin by posting some of my older ones, and then work my way up to posting the new. And since I just like poetry in general, I'm thinking that every now and then I'll post a poem from an outside poet, something that I didn't write but appreciate and think that other people might like too. I'm not looking to get suddenly famous; I realize that posting poetry online can be a bit like shouting into the void, but if I can make even one person happy because of my words, that's all that really matters, right? And besides, it's good practice for me.

Anyway. Yeah. That's what this is. I hope you enjoy. Have a fantastic day.

--M.R.