Rainbows

I think I may have forgotten the reasons

That I am supposed to be sad:

It's summer, and the rains that froze

Are warm now, and playful.

I laugh at the sky's explosion and feel

The thrill of risk explode in my veins

Alongside the lightning and thunder and brilliant gold droplet

That shines in the water so briefly I miss it

Until you stop, and stoop, and hold it out, smiling,

As if to say "Look! You dropped something!"

When you know full well it wasn't mine until

You pressed it into my palm and gave me a hug.

Grey Days

There is a cloud bank.

High above my head it floats,

Threatening to rain.

A metaphor

Dear Emotion,

I know, it's weird to write a note

When all this time we've been okay

With morse code (dashes, more than dots),

But lately, I've been thinking through

The many notes I've sent to you

By telegraph. I can't recall

A time before I made the call

To open up the line to you

And let you tell me who was who.

It's comfortable, our classic way

Of talking. (Well, you never talked.

I guess it would be better said

That I was praying all along,

But that's another can of worms.)

But all that is to simply say,

I wish this were a telegram.

There's far less need for eloquence

When words are simply happenstance.

The medium means more to me

Than what I say (and more to you,

I'd wager, than the tender dreams

I burned upon the effigy

Of love), but what's the point of art

If no one's there to see the art,

And no one cares to talk about

The art, or (God forbid) the dab

Who dares to break the mold of dust

That binds the words to meaning?

I submit to you, my dear,

That what we made was truly great

Because it took your face and brought

A magnifying glass to bear

Upon the smile dancing there

Without a single word. Who needs

The words when you are so sublime

Without them? (See, the romance now

Is rather drab because I'm so

Constrained by making sure I dot

My "I"s and cross my "T"s when all

I'd really rather do is send

A simple fucking telegram.)

But even you were not the point,

Emotion; rather, dashes were,

And you were just an opportu-

Nity to use my art to say

Nothing.

I think, if I could venture back,

I'd try to use the telegrams

To send a story, not a note.

I'm sorry, but I simply think

You weren't worth the time it took

To come to that conclusion, so

I guess if I could venture back,

I'd really rather simply cut

The wire between you and me.

That's not because I think you weren't

A worthy friend. (You are! I'm glad

To have you in my life.) It's just

That now I have this awful dream

Of masterpieces: telegrams

The world will hear and marvel at.

But that is not the way it works,

'Cause every telegram I send

Is better than the one before,

But there is only so much time

And space with which to paint my song

Before I have to pencil in

The note that all the world has stood

And left the show, 'cause really, who

Would take the time and space to send

A million telegrams?

I fell. And when I fell I thought,

"How lovely is this tunnel when

It doesn't have that nasty si-

Bilance that everybody seems

To think it ought to have!" But now

I see how silly thinking that

Must be when really all the si-

Bilance is meant to do is keep

The fall from ending with a nap.

You see, Emotion, I do not

Recall a time when I was not

Obsessed with art. I thought, at first,

That you were what was wrong, and thus

The silence, all these years, for which

I must apologize, my dear,

For now I see how wrong I was

To blame you.

Do not think that I have changed.

(I mean, I have, but that's beside

The point.) I still believe that art

Will mellow out the tossing sea

That runs about within my mind,

And yet I see (or, better, I

Concede) that this must truly be

A fib that I have swallowed like

A pill. Emotion, I have ram-

Bled on for far too long. Forgive

Me! All I'd hoped to say to you

Was that I'm done avoiding you.

Sincerely, and with great remorse,

Your friend.

A Weed So Lovely

Tenuous is our grasp on reality,
For reality and the things which we desire
So often fall on opposite sides of the line
That divides objectivity from perception,
And tears us between our dreams
And the fears within our minds.
What we see is an artist's rendition
Of another's design, and so we critique wrongly
What we think is happening, but isn't.

Dreams are an impulse of the heart;
Fears are the armor of the mind,
Wrapped around youth's vulnerability
To make it age's impregnability.
This is our death before death:
The imprisonment of perception (and therefore hope)
Behind the bars of soul-sucking
Realism: the devil's weed has overtaken
The garden and choked out the flowers.

Lo! the bowed heads of a generation
Trapped with dreams of freedom
From a slavery self-imposed in fear.
Lo! the raised hands of a generation
Benevolently laying on our necks
The yoke they long to escape,
And asking us why our necks chafe
Beneath inhuman realism, too-human realism,
So we shut our mouths and strengthen our necks.

Life is cruel, and people are cruel,
But none so cruel as we to ourselves.
We gouge out our eyes and call ourselves wise
For calling what we can see "darkness,"
When light falls on faces we cannot see
And illuminates dreams we can no longer dream
Because we told ourselves enough times
That dreams are dandelion seeds that
Blow away in the breeze of reality.

But dandelions die to send out seeds
That die to send down roots
That take hold and grow into more
Until a field is filled, by one flower's death.
We might be blind, but even the blind
Can pick a flower and smell its fragrance.
They say the dandelion is a weed,
But a weed so lovely is a flower worth picking,
And a dream so tender is worth cultivating.

A generation stands at the crossroad
Between death's resignation and hope's life.
The light fades from our eyes;
We walk in darkness, our hands outstretched
To pluck the flowers we now call weeds.
Is this the darkness of blindness
Or is it the darkness of night?
The flower dies in our hands,
And its seeds fall into the quiet wind.

Forever is a long time, but forever is not now.
Now, time is short, and seasons change,
And flowers die to be born again,
And hearts are broken to beat anew,
And blindness comes so we can love our sight.
Darkness falls, but the sun also rises.
This yoke is heavy, another is light,
And we have hope: we are not happy now,
But one day we will be happy.