TyeDye's Notebook

Listen

Share your dreams with someone close,
reach into the mirror,
and try to find a hand.
Bare your skin to cold,
expecting warmth.
Find they've missed the point,
saw instead the river they wanted to,
rising in your mind.
Birnt the woods left unexplored,
and thre the ashes to the wind.

Close the door and listen close:
wailing in the hailway of a lonely ghost
waiting, falling, flooding in the woods.

Hidden around the corner,
shadows bright, day and night,
floating hope and deep eye,
carry you so you can try.
Behinde the blinding darkness,
the raving of a dream.

Drowning fish, and children don't cry
flightless birds and darkness in the sky,
tarnished faith, forgotten paths,
red leaves and broken glass...
have you thought to listen at last?

 

you can find warmth here you beautiul thing you....

 

Alex your to sweet to me!

 

I've enjoyed these poems more than any other poetry I've read on here over the past few months! I found myself reading through them all instead of glancing over one or two like I intended and usually do with poems on here. You're style is so light and refreshing.

 

Smiling Rose thanks so much for the thoughtful comments...i havent been able to post alot of my poetry on the forums...but when i do it nice to recieve feedback!!..thanks so much...Peace n Love

 

The Coffee House Guy

It was a late Saturday night
early in the meaning of time

10:00 pm
You sat forged to a brown squat,
pondering over philosophical theroies
etched in a notebook of blue.

Jumbled California hair,
hidden under a knit cap
striped in royal blue.

Hazel glazed pupils
scanning frequent entries.

I notice you,
discreet glances through display stands,
your trying to catch my eyes.

Trying to capture them
hold them hostage.
In a moment where the universe stops
ceasing to advance.

Green tea soaks through your wanting lips
staining them,
with a permanent taste I long for.


(where is my coffe house guy?)

 

Quaker

I will never omit the days watching the window ripple,
from the freezing rain of December.

Parked--
letting the trains keep us on schedule

Compressed--
cars stacked on top of cars

Whistle--
piercing my brain still occupied by sleep

Scorched--
vehicular heat drying my eyes
but I can not seem to stay warm today

 

Reflection

My mind is crystal
crystal because its clear for once.

Not waterlogged with anxiety
I can practically swim in the calmness of it.

Making laps,
but never an exasperated breath
Lost and in need of air no more

I warn all
beware of the unexpected drop offs
for anyone could get lost in my mind.

 

I almost forgot you had posted! bad, me...

and

just make me sigh... that wistful wanting feeling... this piece took me there. And -Quaker- has a vibe to it kinda hard to describe... but I definitely feel it! That and it's raining and cold here right now, so yeah

thanks so much for posting these, your writing is simply beautiful

 

Fulmah- WOW do I feel like a jerk..you take time to comment on my writing and I havent had a chance to write back....well its been a good few months and i guess late is better than never...and i again thank you for all the feed back!!!

-Dani

 

Persistence of memory

All along the top shelves
lay forgotten, bound leather volumes,
containing yellowed visions
of people and times long ago:
babes long since grown old
and buried under the earth,
grandmothers and fathers whose souls,
lumbering and vaporous,
hold conference at gravestones
appeased by silken flowers.

 

Produce

She busied herself in the produce when she saw me
red grapes--49 cents a pound
and I looked away, into the automatic doors
wishing I had some domestic matter to busy myself with

She would buy groceries
to bring home to him
neither of them would think of me
as they put the fruit in the refrigerator
or boiled pasta for dinner
until maybe she would mention it in passing:
"You'll never believe who I saw at the Price Chopper today,
your ex-girlfriend!"
and they'd have a good laugh, remembering me at fifteen

I went down the aisle to the deli
to stare at honey turkey through smudged glass
she follwed
pushing her packed shopping cart
and waddling pregnantly
I heard her tell the butcher
that she was due July 17
but she looked big enough to give birth
right there in the middle of the produce aisle

I worried I would have to see
their tiny writhing naked child,
this perfect product of the two of them

The idea that I might have to watch him
become a father to a baby that wasn't mine
scared me so much
that all I could do
was watch her round shilhouette
as she picked out spaghetti sauce

 

April

The kiss of emerald wipes anger across my face,
spinning flames,
ruined feathers,
ashes of youth,
all return to me now and forever.
Horrid love and hateful spring snow push like a steady engine.
While marble words roll off my tongue,
and blaze coolly across the blue stars..
While moments live and moments die.

 

acquisition of transient identity


The warming glow of stage lights upon pale, freckled skin
shielding adolescence
The hypo-allergenic scent of freshly purchased,
unmarred stage make-up
The heated rush of adrenaline surging through veins
The reassuring encouragement of fellow actors
The indescribable thrill of performance
The scratchy unfamiliarity of extraneous costume
Brushstrokes of various scuff marks pepper the wooden canvas
Nervous thoughts of impressions-
uncertainty of audiences reaction
(fingernails chewed to unattractive stubs)
Excitement of assuming character
Anticipation of that one, shining moment
(taste of salty sweat)
The sounds of thundering applause encompassing
Incidental emotions coalesce into impelling energy
Escape from the world and oneself
Release
Comsume the stage

 

in the first days of adam

I. He is a genius like no other before him.
but none of this matters as he boils
water for tea, reaches for the honey,
a spoon, allowing his thoughts to idle
through each empty room, lamenting
the stillness of every mirror.

II. He rubs his hands together
before he eats his lunch alone,
making the best of silence
to stare out the window
at silvery interlaced trees;
two cardinals opposite each other
in a bush, as if it were a scale
finding equality in two flames

III. He is startled by his own whisper
over the scrape of knife on plate:
"Someday i will not be alone.
Someday i will not be alone."

IV. He creates universes planting carrots.
He destroys universes pulling carrots.
He stares at his hands, awed
by a foreign power; in each crease
and line he sees the furrows
and vines of a great garden.

V. Every thought is a prayer.
Where else would they go?
Before bed he kneels and curses the wind
that makes only his hairless skin shiver.
This is the only time he does not pray.

VI. Early morning: A knock on the door
His heart is a fruit swollen with ripeness

 

eve


My existence hinges on the fact
that somewhere cold there is a man
living alone in a small clapboard house
set far back from a straight, shallow road.

He is wiping down dishes with a thin
steaming rag, staring out the window
past the trees to the slight gray rise
of the road. He is content, yet...

His dog turns to him, tensing its lax
black lips in a smile. "Where is she?"
the man asked the dishes, the dog,
the small clapboard house
set far back from the road.
"Where is she? Where is she?"

He dreams that i visit:
I walk from the road, stepping
over deadfall, clumps of grass.
I tap at the window. A brief
hello then he shows me his pipe.
It has a carving of a rosebush.
We tear greens for salad
and his beard, yellowed from smoke,
works up and down on half
of a cored apple.
Nighttime and we curl and cup
in sleep like two fallen leaves
in the clapboard house
set far back from the road.
In the wry smile of a dog;
this is where i have my beginnings.

 

calm


I was two minutes from my own closing door,
Walking tightly inward to the fences
And into the striking wind
Accompanying the tacit crunch of rubber soles
In a hollow, howling world
Blank steps, evaporated within a moment:
--Alone, all alone.

Crunch by crunch, onward and anon
Passing empty beige buildings
And churches with covered windows,
Unseeing static mammoths,
perched forever on the brink:
--Banished, all banished