Category Archives: poetry

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20 February, 2013

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determination, poetry, writing

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Barefoot Wednesday Poetry

Never Ever Forever
JCD Kerwin

I’ll run barefoot
through the jungles
and in between
the catacombs lost to places
Man will never go again.

I’ll smile like the natives
painted blue and red—
the colors of the blood
dripping from my feet.
But I won’t give a damn,
and I’ll just laugh harder
when my shins begin to crack.

Because I won’t pretend
I’m an iron man
made of adamantium,
or a super man worth damn.

Surrounded by shadows and trees,
lost species and relic dreams,
it’s okay to just be me.

I’d rather feel the rush
of wind against my skin,
than against wings I don’t deserve.

I’d rather run around the world
for a thousand years,
than grow feathers from my back
just to fall

like all the times before.

(November, 2011)

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15 February, 2013

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determination, poetry, self-portrait, spoken word, writing

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Because It’s That Kind of a Day

Autobiomaniacal
JCD Kerwin

They call me Mista Jazz
‘cause I sparkle with all the razz-
le dazzle and the speed you wouldn’t believe
Speed Racer never tried to beat.

I’m a picture-perfect stately heir,
so debonair with an austere air,
as I straighten up my tie that lies
in strict conviction that I’m better than I am.

I’m a fly guy—
a pussy cat you can pet, you bet,
if you get past my clicking claws.
I’m a dandy Sam, a Dapper Dan,
who watches winding watches ticking in my hand
just to manage something
left behind by a more worthy human.

I’m not the best that you saw;
I’m just a jackass behind the walls
of the jail I created from the fables
I tried to make you understand.
I am an arrogant little prick who licks
my wounds when something doesn’t go right
in the perfect little world I created
with words meant to water down the lies.

And I broke the hearts that wanted mine,
that I never took the time
to bother with because I wasn’t
ready to love someone far more deserving than I.

(Don’t like what I see when I look in the mirror;
can’t comprehend why Blue thinks that I’m a winner.
Makes my heart feel like melting ‘cause
I’m just a worthless windup wretch
who grasps at bones to make myself feel better ‘bout
the mutt I spy in puddles.)

I’m just a wannabe in words,
a whore of language, left languished
on a stuffy mattress eaten out by lice.
Will never be a puppet poet master or
a fury fiction maker like the gods
who line the dusty shelves of libraries in my mind.

Can’t hurt to try,
to get by,
twisting words around like acrobats on wires.
Perspire—mix water droplets on my head with blood I burn in fires—
as I try to climb the catacombs of courage
I buried down inside.

I’ll try to fly,
to spread wings broken back in time,
and see if words can hold the meaning I always
thought they did, in dormant domino lines.

To wait for the kick is just to stall,
so I take the buck and crawl
away into the sky…

My wings might melt in fire but
at least Blue wings will catch me
when I fall.

(December, 2011)

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6 February, 2013

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poetry, writing

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Queens in Ice Castles

White Evergreen
JCD Kerwin

Where we were,
it must have been winter.

It smelled like ice
and tasted like an apparition
of Frosty the Fucking Snowman.

I think you made
glowing icicles stick
across my skin with
your Shangri-la blue lips.

(Ice Queen of my dreamscape.)

I believe it was
some frosty world
made of see-through castles
and beds of mammoth furs.

(You gave me instant hypothermia.)

Where we were was ever white
and never ending;
where we were was a wasteland
of pine needle green.

Where we were was just a dream,
just a dream,
just a white evergreen;
just a damned snow globe of memories.

Now you’re just…
a plastic, painted ballerina
forever spinning to Für Elise.

(August, 2012)

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5 February, 2013

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poetry, self-portrait, spoken word, writing

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Flicker

Flicker
JCD Kerwin

“I don’t care if you wear your hair
like young David Cassidy or Demi Moore in Ghost.
Though, I like it longer ‘cause
you look a little funny when
you’re grabbing at nothing while
you’re screaming palindromes in the dark.”

In another life I
was named after Jeremy Finch.
I’m defined as “renegade.”
I’ll hit Mister Radley’s door and
take off like I’ve got wings on my sneakers.

I’m not scared.
I can do whatever I damn well want to do.
Let’s play Grown-Up Truth or Dare.

I’ll make papier-mâché horns
and tie them to my head so when
I’m called a monster,
it might finally be true.

“You’re slightly insane, I think.”

(I think they’re right. I know it.)

It’s not because I write or
I’ve never felt alright;
I just don’t know how to walk without
leaving my shoes untied.

Now I’m squishing in my Chucks because
I dove into the deepest end
without looking.

Red-rover,
Red-rover…
The life-jackets fell over and
I’m falling because I counted to 100 but
no one’s answering the name I call
when I look into the mirror.

“You just haven’t found yourself yet.”

But I’ve been here all along
and that’s always been the problem.

(March, 2012)

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11 December, 2012

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poetry, writing

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Desert Sun in the Winter

Red the West
JCD Kerwin

I like to talk to cowboys in bars,
wondering where they’ve been and
what kind of dust their boots
have turned up.

I think maybe the twinkle in their eye is
a reflection of the kind of life
I dreamed of when
I was too young to realize
my rocking horse would never
take me to Texas.

Blues escapes their lips
like cigarette smoke and
I hear the twang of
sweet Carolina lullabies
when they sigh.

I smell the perfume of
the girl they left behind
when
they throw their coat across the stool
and stare,
waiting for the past to disappear
for one last time.

I talk to cowboys in bars because
I never saw the West except
in picture books and
watercolor paintings of
some blood-orange, desert sky.

I bet they see
a thousand, brilliant stars
when they close their eyes.
I bet they wish
to ride all night
beneath an indigo-colored sky…

[I’d like to be a cowboy
and ride all night until
I can’t remember
myself or here
at all.]

Dec. 2012