Spring Forward (A poem)

Wortels and wombles and mountains of clay
Stretching and shaking the sandman from their eyes
The journey begins again
from slumber they rise
Facing the daylight
Inching higher each day to reach the reality,
which recently was just dream
(J.Smith 2012)

Training It (A poem)

Step into the steel coffin bidding farewell to the light of day
Metallic teeth clamp tightly around fearing your escape
Moments pass and time stands still
Slowly swallowed deeper and deeper into its cavernous self
And, finally, the first level of hell

Voices of those who came before flutter around,
adhering to your already clammy skin
Broken time machines force you into queues,
questioning everything

When passing through Hades’ gates a fine must be paid
The gate keeper, with his vigilant eye,
tucked safely behind his oracle glass peers out at nothingness

Down deeper and deeper,
the temperature rises higher and higher with the smell of decay and loneliness fresh in your nostrils

Other lost souls surround you,
but remain unaware of the existence of god,
each in his own separate hell
You shed the limply fluttered voices with the roll of sweat down your back
Instead, you are covered in the worries of others and the worries of your own,
some converging, some alone

Booming voices commence
demanding respect, a response, anything,
from the lost souls, the gatekeeper, anyone
Again time passes, lined up like cattle for slaughter,
when will your number be called?

A rush, whirlwind of dust, more voices, ordering the cattle herd on
Hades intestinal snake slithers you through its dark cavities,
lulling you
Taking the herd further and further from sanity with its chortled vibrations contently
devouring all

Heat almost unbearable consumes even the most frigid of hearts
The sweat,
eyes darting anywhere but home,
touching anonymity
Time honored panic bubbling up
each knowing the journey may last for infinity

And then it stops
And then the gate opens
Released back into the sun and the rain
Free again, you smile along with the other souls, but only to yourself.

(J. Smith, copyright 2011)

The Glass Messenger (A poem)

Your words drop heavily to the floor,
without hope of recovery
Sealing the coffin on my dying will
And silencing the remaining light in my eyes

Drunk on the vibration of your voice,
I slip quietly into panic
Seeing through you, around you
Without you, before and after you

There is no reflection,
yet the sharpness cuts and brings forth blood
red, coming fast, draining from my face
Covering your words thickly
cloaking them, protecting them
Forcing them into the crevices of the wooden floor
Adding character to the room
Stealing character- mine, yours, ours

Shattering the broken harmony,
You too fall to pieces,
mixing into the split red, the words
spinning apologies into liars webs
catching flies and dead dreams
and forgotten memories and finished futures

Mixing them, breaking their boundaries
adding a pinch of salt
To the wound
For good measure, for the good of us all

(J. Smith, copyright 2011)

Winding clocks Backward (A poem)

Once we were free,
Without time on our heels
Winding clocks, still mysterious in movement and rhythm
Bees demanded our attention, not world politics
We did what we would, what pleased us
Flitting like butterflies through the neighborhood
With sunlight tangled in our wild hair
Wild as our thoughts and dreams, running
Bare feet touching every other step
In the tall grass of our safari fields
Searching out large and small game
Seeking knowledge not found in books
Or on advertisements
Cupping grasshoppers and crickets alike
Listening to their wise words and sharing our secrets
Knowing our secrets were safe, unbroken
Within the kaleidoscope of perfect childhood wonder
(J.Smith 2011)

Failure to Compute (A poem)

Pounding away at anonymous keys


The zeros and ones abound

Beautiful designs created behind the desolate whiteness

Each zipping effortlessly through cyberspace,

Sending unsympathetic letters and numbers to digitized sub-humans

The failure to compute yours or any syntax in this the wire jungle,

Is a failure of the operator and the receiver, but not the syntax itself

What is less than three? Infinity? Your love?

Love letters and letters of dear John arrive at rapid speeds, before

Cerebral sparks have finished firing,

Their last strokes connecting within the almighty operator god

Last chance to recall the ones and zeros become the past without further thought

Carelessly, like the train leaving the station

With you chasing after it, luggage strewn about

Emptying secret contents onto the platform floor.

Alone and exposed, lighted by the glow of the monitor

A single sub-human tear passes, zipping effortlessly down organic matter

Because it cannot feel the ones and zeros, only the sorrow they bring

(J. Smith 2011)

Une Petite Poeme

Chaque jour
Chaque moment
Je me souviens
J'ai tout oublié

J. Smith (2011)

Sometimes

Sometimes the cracks get deeper

Sometimes the pieces are disjointed
Sometimes they move further apart
Sometimes there is a sea of water
Sometimes it fills the cracks
Sometimes it drowns the pieces
Sometimes while submerged it appears to be whole
Sometimes it is
Sometimes it isn’t
Sometimes isn’t forever.

Celebration (A poem)

You tear the darkness off me exposing my underside

The softness of your touch contradicts your glances

Hold your breath

Seas separating, leaving emptiness behind

Our waves of consciousness ebb and flow keeping me awake

Can you hear them?

Suffering in silence without uttering the safety word

Onlookers’ eyes wordlessly flicker bitter tasting happiness

Hold my hair and adjust the fallbeil to severe it fully

Rushing to the floor, the feeling goes

Numb and content, a job well done.

(J. Smith, 2010)

Embers of a Thought (a poem)

Pulling in the smoke of a lost flame...


Misplaced paths crossed and paths still chosen
Mistaken luck? I sit and ponder

Lost in thought
Lost in the labyrinth of my imaginary memory

I want, I long for…something
I can taste it, feel it, without knowing what I miss
It remains on my lips, yet to utter would be suicide

When it grasps me, I am unable, unwilling to break free
Without so much as a warning
Wanted hands, wanted heart, wanted words…

...unlock, what?

(J. Smith 2010)

In Honor of Halloween (Pumpkin Heads, a poem)

Pumpkin heads

Shattering the commotion with your silence
Not the jack-o-lantern smiles left on your rotting skull
The tricks already played and treats savored
Remove your mask revealing sought after decay
Free falling thoughts from your candied lips

Wicked and sticky sweet your actions speak volumes
To your unwritten confessions of lost youth
You walk through the cackling laughing leaves
For without them the walk at dusk lacks

Carve deeply into the flesh
Leaving no room for interpretation or validation of strangers
Undoing time and space absorbed by your presence
Sucked clean like a snake bite offered in homage
to the handler fiddling with devotion

Embers snuffed with the last breath of smoke
Freeing itself through the uneven cracks
Light lingers still for a moment alive
Only for a glimpse into your madness

(J.Smith 2010)

Silent Ruminations (a poem)

Silent Ruminations

I told you my daemons existed
Those that hide behind the rungs of the chair

Their teeth dull and aching still wanting to gnash at you
In the shape of a smile, a gash on their eyeless faces

Hands shaped like worn branches
Reach out to hold you, broken and gnarled

Feet firmly planted in your dreams
And hearts licking your nightmares

Patiently waiting to taste the scraps of your thought
Starving for the light of your gaze to free them

Pet them; they will be soothed with your calloused hands
Speak their names curling them in the safe of your lap

Forget them not for they will disappear
In time with child infused innocence

(J Smith 2010)

Lives of the Dead in Action

Last week I found myself drawn to an advertisement announcing a poetry reading at the Viaduct theatre, a small fringe theatre in Chicago. The Viaduct usually puts out interesting, albeit bizarre, plays and such so I was happy to oblige myself with attendance to its latest activity, "the Lives of the Dead" reading (which, I was pleasantly surprised to find was a performance of the poem, not just a reading- lucky me!).

The poem by Hanoch Levin focuses on the thoughts and emotions of the dead man- his yearnings and desires as the deceased. Although this sounds, well, quite morbid, the performers provided the intimate crowd an evening of entertainment and reflection into the embarrassment and trials being dead creates. Each performer personified the dead well and gave feeling to the once animate body now rotting underneath the soil touched by the living above.

As happens with some less traditional performances, the audience, me included, was not quite certain when the performance ended. We held our applause and waited when the performers came to a stand still; we waited when the performers took their leave; we waited when the house lights rose; we waited when the background music ended and began again; we waited while Johnny Cash sang his song; we waited when his last words faded away; we waited when we could hear behind the closed door the muffled sounds of the performers exchanging laughter and the cracking sounds of opening cans.

Finally, I could bear the waiting no longer and abandoned my desire to shower praise on the performers. I walked past the other theatre goers, all still sitting in their seating, waiting, ... as I got to the stage door, I heard the faint echo of the solo clapper, stubbornly refusing to accept that she had been robbed of her ability to praise the performers and then with the spell broken, the shallow sounds of chairs being exited and coats being applied rose from the room and followed me out.

I laughed to myself. I laughed at myself- both lightened my step as I headed out into the evening without clapping for a job well done. Good for them, I thought- the actors leaving us, without clapping, leaving us to deal with our own silence, uncomfortable and lame. Leaving us to deal with our inability to fulfil our part as the observer, just like the dead man- as he too in his death and decay could only observe...

and they all lay, a field strewn with skulls,
each man a skull deaf and dumb
fastened into the earth and gazing up into the night sky.

...And I laughed to myself. Bravo!

And Autumn has Fallen

As I sit writing, I hear the wind, strong and purposeful, bringing cooler weather. A wind such as this shall bring good sleep and good dreams. Dreams of colored leaves and carved gourds. We are at the cusp of autumn! Today is the autumnal equinox and, although the sky I am under is overcast, I hear that this is the brightest harvest moon seen in the last decade. I hope those of you who (saw) can see it are reveling in its glow. The autumnal equinox is the balance between night and day (theoretically speaking).

A day of balance.

Welcome autumn with your fiery glow of leaves and cheeks
One last burst of color before the sleep of winter blankets you 'til spring
The nights linger longer and the days taste of the final harvest
Masks and shadows expand and disappear
Welcome autumn, my favorite time of the year!!

Make sure to dance by the light of the moon tonight!

Once I Dreamt… (Poem)

This photo inspired the following poem:

Once I Dreamt…

Once I dreamt I was the trees
I grew in the mountains and shivered in the breeze
I held steadfast to the ground and the rock
Moss clung to me and blanketed me from the winter’s cold stare
I was wise and gentle, yet strong and solid
In youth I was fictile, often changing direction as the wind
Time wore on and I grew into myself and strengthened my foundation
With the strength I withstood the defects of my youth
Old age brought blight and rot
I was devoured from the within
Unable to shake the emptiness, I died
Once again the ground that I consumed, consumed me
And all was well…

(J. Smith 2010)

Mirrors Visted, A Poem

I recently started reading Gaiman's "Smoke and Mirrors." The mystery and intrigue Gaiman inserts into his short stories brings me back to my childhood wonder about all that was then magical in the world. When dragons and unicorns could exist and peacefully live together with the other forest creatures. And Mommy Fortuna could capture them for her own wishes.

This quote inspired the poem that follows:

Mirrors are wonderful things. They appear to tell the truth, to reflect life back out at us; but set the mirror correctly and it will lie so convincingly you'll believe that something has vanished into thin air, that a box filled with doves and flags and spiders is actually empty, that people hidden in the wings or the pit are floating ghosts upon the stage. Angle it right and a mirror becomes a magic casement; it can show you anything you can imagine and maybe a few things you can't.

(Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors)

Mirrors Visited


We do the dance opposite of one another,
Facing each other,
Turning the mirrors at 45 degree angles, changing reality
Producing the magic and telling the lies only magicians can tell.
We all do the dance and tell the lies and live and love and dance opposite of each other.
The music is secondary. The each other is tertiary.
It is only the mirrors that remain in first.
The mirrors, telling the lies.
The mirrors, living and loving and dancing opposite of each other.
Behind the mirrors exists nothing.
Ignore the emptiness just beyond.
Look into the mirrors see happiness.
Keep smiling into the mirrors, they will smile back.
The mirrors, telling the lies.
The mirrors, living and loving and dancing opposite of each other.
Even when we dance alone in front of the mirrors there are two.
No one is lonely in front of the mirrors.
We smile big smiles and bow to each other.
The mirrors, telling the lies.
The mirrors, living and loving and dancing opposite of each other.
A small candle glow becomes a bursting of light and the smile returns upon the lips of the reflection.
Step out of the mirror and dance the dance and smile the smile.
Twirl faster and faster and the light brightens and the smile widens
The mirrors, telling the lies.
The mirrors, living and loving and dancing opposite of each other.

(J Smith 2010)

When I Married You...

Sometimes it is easier to write the things one means to say. Sometimes it cuts out the background noise and distractions. The following is a poem I threw together:

When I married you…

When I married you, I loved you like no other.
When I married you, I knew it was not the paper that bound us, but our commitment to each other.
When I married you, I knew there was no one else.
When I married you, I looked ahead and was happy.
When I married you, I looked behind and was satisfied.
When I married you, I knew you were my best friend.
When I married you, I married you forever.
When I married you, I said goodbye to single life with no regrets.
When I married you, I welcomed you with my whole being.
When I married you, I was confident that our love was strong.
When I married you, I knew you were not perfect, but that you were perfect for me.
When I married you, I knew I was not perfect, but wanted the ‘me’ I was (am) to be the perfection you sought.
When I married you, I said I do (and I have).
When I married you, I knew there would be some hard times.
When I married you, I knew there would be some sorrowful times.
When I married you, I believed we could get through anything together.
When I married you, I knew I would walk through fire for you.
When I married you, I knew life was short and wanted to share it with you.
When I married you, I knew I wanted to grow old with you.
When I married you, I felt your love and it made me strong.
When I married you, I knew there would be much laughter.
When I married you, I bound myself to all of you, even to the shadows in your heart's doorway.
When I married you, you lighted my shadows, wiped away the cobwebs in my heart and made room for it to grow.
When I married you, I wanted to share my world with you.
When I married you, I wanted to know your world, to walk in your secret garden.
When I married you, I knew life would never be the same.

I still feel the same today.

(2010)

While on the topic of marriage, I also want to share with you of my favorite songs by Francis Cabrel, Je T'aimais, Je T'aime, Je T'aimerai. It is a truly amazing song. For the lyrics, in French and an English translation see here.

Love your other like you will die tomorrow. If you do, you will have no regrets should it be so...

in the light

Here is a little poem I recently threw together. Hope you enjoy.

Hold me to the point of crushing

Suffocate the dark horses of my mind

Racing, racing into nothingness

Racing into the spaces where I hide

Keep me in the light of day

Don’t allow night to fall

Bring me through this, with you