The Raven and the Writing Desk
Hopefully someday to be my second chapbook. These are poems I've written
about and/or during my life with depression.
Autumn Born, Autumn Bred
When came I in late
afternoon
from October's clenching thighs,
born nearly a month too soon;
early forced into a world of sighs;
Blow, o wild autumn wind,
Tear reddened leaves from trees.
Bring the once-proud, mighty oak
naked
to its knees.
A deity of summers dead
had planned my fate and bought
my tongue,
my mother being very weak,
and I being still so very young!
Howl, o troubled autumn wind,
For summer goes; comes winter's pall,
Sing of girls like me who are
Born to autumn; born to fall.
8/97
The razor clenched, the drawers cleaned.
She is ready, but
reluctant, as thoughts
of blood and pain, of screaming tears
swoop in
her vision
And she sobs through her torment
and begs for God.
Three days before Christmas. She
struggles with the blade.
12/97
Gets to feel like home to me.....though I know it looks like hell.
--James Taylor, "Down in the Hole"
Someone once told me
that art comes from pain;
Well, there
is pain in this,
and I always did think there was
no way I could live
without writing,
So I guess there is no way I
can live without pain
either.
I just wish it would be something
more along the lines of
walking on coals, or sticking
little needles in my skin,
or I could even
deal with hungry
rats nibbling on my hands.
No one told me that nothing
hurts more than thoughts chewing at
your brain, or pens digging into
your skin,
or sleeping on a bed of hot words.
1/98
The Hatebird
Watching me
from secret places I know too
well
from branches thick with rain
(from bodies sick with pain)
I
feel the claws of winter in my hair.
Touching me
in deeper shadows
than any of the sea
a moan in a bottle
(a life in full throttle)
he tightens his black wings over my eyes.
Scaring me
with that sharp
grim beak that stings me so
he's hurt me before,
he'll hurt me still
more,
until I fall and cry, Just do it, just take me.
O the jay does
laugh
and the crow does jeer
and the shrike does kill in stealth,
but the hatebird is
the worst of all;
he'll make you kill yourself.
5/98
"...don't show much these days.....it gets so
fucking cold......" --Tori Amos, "Northern Lad"
Spiders
in the Grass
O I lie in the grass
In the long summer grass
And the spiders do dance
In the long summer grass
O my long summer
hair
Brown in the green grass
(But if this were winter,
'Twouldn't
matter at all)
O my long summer legs
Fair and white in the grass
(But when snow does come, dear,
Doesn't matter at all)
And the spiders
do dance
In my hair, on my legs
(On your love, all around me
On your
eyes, which surround me)
Dance in the summer,
Die in the winter,
So the spiders do dance
In the long summer grass
And we dance with
the spiders
For winter's not far,
O we dance with the spiders
In the
long summer grass.
8/97
Peonies
Any
day now
this place will be full of peonies;
I can see their pink heads
Already bulging from their green girdles.
The ants,
which have eaten
their protecting covers,
lie bloated and drunk on their backs,
stomachs
bulging, tongues hanging limp,
staring up in paralyzed ecstasy
at the
heavy, heavy buds,
which will bloom any day now.
People have grown
fat off of me,
have guzzled my sweet, protective layers,
have glutted
themselves to the bursting on me.
But the peonies don't mind,
because now they can bloom.
And I, too, don't mind,
because now I can
bloom.
Any day now.
Any fucking day now.
"It's a lose-lose situation.......somebody hand me a gun." --Kate Schrock,
"Angel"
Swan Song
You know how it may be.
Scary, a little.
Mostly just sad.
And there may be the endless hours of wondering why.
And there may be smoke, and filth,
and intoxication, and the ruddy
face of night.
And it may be that things will never be pretty (or 'darling')
again,
or even nice.
And there may be scowls, or skulls, or empty pages,
but it won't be the same.
You know how it was.
A little different,
only.
One day fine, slightly hollow the next.
One day cherries just
weren't as sweet,
Then the ocean sounded more like a hiss than a whisper;
like something important gave up inside you;
Little important things
quiver and sigh.
And there always were the endless hours of wondering why;
You know how it is
when you're walking along,
and all of a
sudden,
there's just the smallest
twist in the air.
7/97
Down
O I am going back to sleep
Down where the
willows weep and weep
Where fog floats on a lake of glass
And caterpillars
humbly creep;
Where tree roots thick and gnarled like hands
Reaching up from ancient lands
Like bones of sages long forgotten
And
long since drowned in seas of sand;
The roots have formed a cradle bed
Where I can lay my weary head
And cushion it with mallow reeds
And
poppies glistening and red;
Where devils in angelic guise
And fish
heads swum in murky lies
Are shut away from where I am
By the closing of
my eyes;
The dawn sets dewdrops on my cheek
And overhead the tree limbs
creak
And sway in the quiet cool wind
While bit by bit my arms go weak;
My breath comes out in dusty motes
Climbing into little boats
And loll away on ponds of air
As through the willow trees it floats;
The silence as a blanket lies
As shadows take their bows and fly
And see
me into peaceful rest
With diamond points in empty skies;
The waves
have pounded on the shore
And trains have thundered past my door,
But
I am sunk in cloudless sleep
And cannot hear them anymore.
8/97
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."
--Psalm 42:5
Low in the night,
Sweet child, sweet
child,
The stars all hang low
For it's late in the night;
I'll
sing you to sleep,
Sweet girl, sweet girl,
I'll stay with you here
In euphoria deep;
I'll never believe
(though stars may fall,
though you swallowed them all)
That you wanted to leave;
Those
seventy stars
Cannot defeat
My fierce heartbeat,
Or the tubes in
your arm;
I won't cry for you
Sweet angel, sweet angel,
I won't
cry for you, not
Until you are dead;
And that will not be
For
a long time yet.
6/98
Ephrath
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