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Stuck in the past
writing letters to her
I slept on silk
and would not go out
my mind turned to amber
like the evening
Poems on the topic: past
Poems on the topic “past” on Poets.by.
Hard times
times hit hard
my sin my dinner
my off-and-on hen
my past
Visionary
a change to my past
is the price of visions
one long look under the bed
will be true tomorrow
Golden dawn
a letter from the past
respects no expectation of
a better account
so I clear my mind of such
correspondence
I will have to carve other dice
New neighbor
Both my wife and I
have seen her gossiping
to her six silver spoons,
her past brought hot
and strange as a whore—
the story is true.
Seventeen
We were best friends.
It's sad I have to talk about us in the pass tense now.
An Un-Swung Axe
it's not your fault lindo
that i flinch every time you suddenly turn around
or that my hands shake every time i try to touch your face
or that i sob brokenly every time i can't bring myself to do it.
it's mine.
i'm just such a fucking mess who's stuck in the past and
i'm sorry you have to deal with that.
"Can we be friends again?"
That's how it started
Again
But can you?
Can you be friends with someone that you once loved?
Can you be friends with someone that broke your heart?
Can you be friends with that person
Without falling in love again
Without seeing that side on them you loved
How are you supposed to prevent that from happening?
How are you supposed to build up a shield around your heart?
How are you supposed to just be friends?
I want to
I want to be capable of just being friends
I don't want a broken heart
I don't want to feel the power of love again
You're supposed to be smarter
The leftover
Do not look
to the future.
It needn't necessarily come.
The present is now,
whether you like it or not.
Disbelieve what smart people tell you
Past is the only truth.
The past is yours, yours alone,
Undeniably, unchangeably,
Indelible, burned onto your brain,
Scarring it forever.
On a summer morning
Shake it all down on a mat,
Lay it on the sun,
Warming,
Watch it turn brittle,
Memory
our mind-sea foggy clear
hides its scaled creatures
twisting turning movies with their
jungle passions ancient times
crusaders’ flaming crosses
pitiless in ‘faith’
as much a part of me as this treed
half-raked lawn
you hide your armies images
wrapped in your bones
sharing that sea
an attic's cast-off
gowns and gestures where
so many loves and knives
lie buried
in this marsh teeming
What Fifty Said
When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
Now I am old my teachers are the young.
What can’t be moulded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I go to school to youth to learn the future.
My Dead Dream
Have you found me, at last, O my Dream?
Seven aeons ago
You died and I buried you deep under forests
of snow.
Why have you come hither? Who bade you
awake from your sleep
And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the
deep?
Would you tear from my lintels these sacred
green garlands of leaves?
Would you scare the white, nested, wild
pigeons of joy from my eaves?
Would you touch and defile with dead fingers
the robes of my priest?
Would you weave your dim moan with the
chantings of love at my feast?
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