Fifteenth poem
No matter the distance,
No matter how long,
I will not desert you,
I’m here till the end.
I’ll give you assistance,
I’ll right every wrong.
Above all else that’s true,
I love my best friend.
The Road Not Taken
i often think about the guy i didn’t choose-
the one who blew my mind.
the one who shattered all my fears and who really showed me how to love.
and though there was no pomp and circumstance he often comes to mind;
i can sit in quiet retrospect and think about specific moments in time.
Piled up like freeze-dried memories, they often take my psyche on a trip
and i allow myself to travel back down memory lane-
the long conversations spent acknowledging life-
learning each other’s likes and dislikes-
just being there, always in the moment-
always present.
Maybe that’s what I miss,
maybe that is what makes me wonder…
that road not taken-
sometimes i can’t help but wonder
where it may have led.
Half-Shell
I stood at the ocean, and watched as a seagull dashed a clam against the hard rock. Pecking, pecking, the tireless drone, like the words of denial we spoke, chipping and breaking away our connection, breaking and cracking sharply
Crack chip plunk crick.
We speak of impossibilities, across the seas, and yet we know, that no matter how sweet the words, the tender the reunion, we will never be what we see. The bittersweet taste in my mouth always lingers, your voice haunting some neural context in a faded dream. Words that you will never say come and rise from grey matter, your own voice trembles; it isn’t, it’s too close to the surface and threatens to split apart like an overripe fruit, and I weep for you, I weep for what we have lost, dashed across the rocks like the clam I saw in the jaws of that seagull, relentlessly torn by Nature’s distance until we remain, two halves of a shell lost at sea.
When She Cried . . .
When she cried . . .
I felt the house shake
Because she was the foundation
When she cried . . .
The sky turned gray
Because she was the sun
When she cried . . .
The day was silent
Because she was
Nature singing
When she cried . . .
The earth stopped
Spinning
Because she was the axis
When she cried . . .
She turned her face
Because she was
The stronghold breaking,
The sun fading,
Nature’s silencing,
And my world falling
SUMMER WORKERS
HOUR FIFTEEN
POEM # 15
24 HOUR
POEM
MARATHON
SUMMER WORKERS
Was it you passing through my valley?
Were you asleep on rags in an alley?
Sweat beads on your brow from the heat,
Flames from the Suns nostrils, call retreat.
Misfortune travels coast to coast,
Your ears hear frustration boast.
Shade from the giant oaks curtail the fire,
Fields of crops needing workers to hire.
Sit down in our valley by rushing stream,
Fall asleep as your mind engulfs a dream.
Snow dragons wrestle you till dawn,
Once again you are the Suns pawn.
Written by Carl Mann
The kurlman
6-13-2015
Empty
I remember saying don’t cry, as the tear ran down my face, who was I to believe I would listen to myself, after all had I listened last week, last month, last year… then surly that ridged tear, the one that is probably as sick of me as I am of it, yes that one, the one I lost count with, the one that turned salt to stained cheeks, what makes you think it will listen now……
Hour fifteen
many of us have heroes
who lead remarkable lives
but few could ever measure up
to the hero in my eyes
sacrificing and unselfish
never asking for praise
always willing to give his all
never expecting to be repaid
dependable and loyal
strong and always true
yet even with a human flaw
I model my son to be like you
faithful and devoted
always there for me
I could not be more proud
of the father God gave to me
gj
Love story
I could write about
How the earth
Continues to thrive
Or how
The ocean waves
Hug the shore
Right before the tides
Pull themselves back
I could write about
Love
And all its
Magical ways
But I’d rather write to say
I’ve loved you
On your good
And
Even bad days
-Angelica Villarruel
Poem #16: A Night at a Concert
A Night at a Concert
This night smells of brimstone,
needles in the atmosphere
piercing the bones of clouds keeping us all together,
a heart burning, dripping brimstone upon the road.
I cannot borrow the tears of rain shivering
all in one piece;
the sidewalk is boiling from the colour of pale skin
to the cardboard hue like packages in the mail.
The taste of cherries were in my mouth, but
it’s all gone rotten, and
walking downtown never tasted so foreign—
oh, El Shaddai, save my soul!
This music is hypnotism, the traffic hungry
for movement—oh, let me move mildly free.
The big trucks passing would rattle the house,
but home, it refuses to see with human eyes.
Hesitant as the fogbanks curling on the horizon,
I’m strapped in silence,
sodden with all the secular kids,
in so little room to cross the road, hundreds at a time—
my knees are jerking just to jump back in the car ride home.
Modesty—what a suffering word,
but don’t we love to live with it?
Oh, El Shaddai, save our souls,
For we hardly know what we are doing.
why do we need so much space to get
through the door? One concert over, a thousand
more bands to see; folding and unfolding feet
treading a crosswalk of inhibition, rain settling
on these blank downtown corners—Union Street, steaming
of brimstone, like a river of hot coals.
This movement, this consuming, irrelevant, inevitable
movement—beautiful, isn’t it? Afford me this
rationed breath to move, to escape nowhere, and
I want to know the colour of everything
without it hurting: to know the colour of a true
walk downtown, the colour of loving life. Now, here,
I hear the rhythm shaking, the chords being cut;
Music—where are you in this mess?
Here, now, this is how my head will lift on high—
Oh, El Shaddai, help me save this world,
for we don’t know where it’s going.