A Million Millions
I’ve loved a million people,
Kissed a million times
I’ve seen a million heartbreaks,
Half of them are mine
I’ve held a million dollars,
Soon dropped to dimes
I’ve hated a million people,
Whose death I designed
A million troubles hit me,
More than a million times
A million say I’m crazy,
Those unsure are nine
A million friends have stabbed me,
I’ve died a million times
A million people’s hurt me,
So I’ve hurt a million times
I’ve learned a million lessons,
I’ll never be Einstein
In my head, a million fears
Deeply intertwined
I’ve felt a million things
Every passing time
A million friends I have lost
A million deserve a shrine
I can tell you a million times
A million...but when I’m done
The only one who truly feels
Out of millions is just one.
Hand
What is wrong with me
Different than I used to be
Even the easiest feat
Is impossible to beat
I’ve tried again and again
But the hand won’t listen...
Am I?
I think therefore I am.
At least,
I think I'm thinking.
Does that mean I am
or I might be?
Does the fact that i think
I'm thinking
mean I am,
or do I have
to be definitively thinking
to be?
Surely the phrase should be rephrased
to:
I think I'm thinking
(but I could be wrong)
So I might
(or might not)
be.
I think.
Running
The best thing about running, for me,
Is the finish.
The moment when
flushed and out of breathe,
I reach my destination.
I have run a full circle.
Ending where I began.
Yet I’ve taken a step forward in my life,
determined and acted out by no one but myself.
My decisions, my actions.
As I sit and wait,
my breathing beginning to slow,
and the rush subsides,
I wish upon a star.
“Star light, Star bright…”
A bat flies into the path of my vision.
and without warning,
the bat swerved and changes direction.
It’s path changed forever.
Now, having been interrupted,
my wish appears futile and absurd.
I am filled with a rushing understanding
of the part I play in my own life.
I am not a bystander.
My life is not controlled by the stars,
but by me and me alone.
Like the bat,
I am free to choose my path,
however haphazard and illogical it might seem to be.
Volcano
Her senses offered no proof,
Vision was a grey blur,
Hearing merely muffled roars,
Meaningless half the time.
With five of them glowing dimly
She began to burn her surface away
But the volcano only burned hotter
Behind the stone face and bone.
She lit the cigarettes again
Put them out slowly and deliberately
Against the inner bend of elbow
There was a faint sensation
And smell of burning flesh
But still no abatement of volcano.
Then at last the volcano erupted…
She lay down on the cold floor
And began to beat her head,
Slowly and methodically against the tile floor.
Black in her mind went red
Swelling and growing out of her
And before she knew it,
She was engulfed in furious rage of eruption.
When her vision finally cleared
It was only enough as a keyhole
Aware of the shouting in the room
Raged around her were outpourings
Of hatred and anger and bitterness
All the words were extreme.
Broken, consenting, complying, loneliness…
A foot high on the bathroom wall
The words were written in pencil and in blood.
The words of fear and hatred were like the sun
Now its rays were focused in
And the words were spoken aloud…
“Remember me,
Remember me in anger,
Fear me in bitter anger,
Heat-craze my teeth in bitterest anger,
The signal glance drops.
The Game is over.”
My Bower
Alone in my small bower
I write
A dell among the woods
Of Rathfarnham.
A secret place,
A private place,
A place where I am enfolded
By tree branches like caring arms.
A woman in green:
This is my leafy bower
It took me a long time
To find my place among the trees.
Here I can be on my own,
All alone,
And I lie down on the soft green moss
And let my mind roam.
Out across the land it goes
Ripping up the fields and farms
And houses of Rathfarnham,
Sowing in their place tall green trees.
Where it was a gentle glen,
Lit by shafts of soft sunlight
And deer looks up, startled nostrils
Sniffing the air for the scent of hunters.
And here in my green bower
I am the poet-queen
Dreaming of odes and love songs
And laments for the mighty sons fallen in gory battle.
Ibi’s Furniture
Gone to where flowers die
Feeling have vanished
All is full of gloom and grey
Unspoken of before.
Those of yester-years
Fear, happiness, passion
Disappeared out of existence
Masking the face in stone.
Would’ve been assumed dead
If were not for a pulse
Days are wasted away
Sitting like a piece of furniture.
Unsilenced eyes cast a glance
From their darkened torches
Banished to another world
Of absolute solitude.
crushed down
safe in a corner of the world
through barriers I bury myself
I sleep like I’ve never slept before
deep and far from people around me
no one can penetrate my disappointment
crushed down like a butterfly
in the rose garden you promised me