Tag Archives: love

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

7 December, 2012

Posted under

poetry, writing

Comments

Leave a comment

Why I Hate Tying My Shoelaces

Flipphantomskip
JCD Kerwin

I want to twirl glow sticks
around my fingers and
dance all night
like a burning, shooting star…

And maybe I want
to draw on brick walls
with crayons
like I still see the world
covered in white paper.

Maybe I want
to play make-believe games,
laugh when I drink too much, and
have hangovers in meetings.

Maybe I want
to get a bunch of tats
because then I’d finally look
like what I feel inside.

Maybe I want
to chase down my dreams
for a few more turns
‘round the clock,
and not worry
where my next meal is coming from.

Because maybe I just
don’t give a damn about falling
when I try to fly.

Dec. 2012

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 December, 2012

Posted under

poetry, writing

Comments

Leave a comment

Because I’m Feeling Mushy

God’s Country
JCD Kerwin

We made Babylon once.

We built statues out of blocks and
found our way to the promised land
via an old map I found in the trash.
I wore my father’s hat and you
went barefoot.

We asked nomads for change and
scribbled songs in the sand
while we danced
in shadows under the sun.
In the evenings we picked
forbidden apples from trees we planted
in the hanging gardens of our dreams.

We watched the Tower fall
and made up secret languages
we knew we’d hear one day
on opposite ends of the Earth.

You drank the poison because I told you to.
I remember you died and I
breathed the same dust the buildings did;
they all crumbled when we fell.

You woke up first and left me behind,
but now we run around the world
looking for new ways to build our Babylon.
We haven’t found one yet,
but I won’t give up on antiquity.

Dec., 2011

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

18 November, 2012

Posted under

poetry, writing

Comments

Leave a comment

Jungle Eyes

Even my poems sometimes turn into fiction stories…

Goodbye Saigon
JCD Kerwin

I see Saigon in her tea cup;
the soggy leaves turn red and
make explosions in my sight.

When I exhale,
I remember how hot it was
in summer when
mosquito nets
couldn’t keep me from
the sweat upon her skin.

Olive thighs
made me smile at stars
through windows while
bombs blew in
the night.

I’m alone in the quiet—
ceiling fan blades and cigarettes
become
my lament for her.
I see Saigon in silver droplets;
she was blood in the water.
Is this love?
(Was it love?)

I exhale jungle fire
from scorched memories.

Sigh, Saigon, sigh.

Nov., 2012

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

11 November, 2012

Posted under

non-fiction, poetry, writing

Comments

Leave a comment

The Gold City

For M…It’s been a tough weekend.

Building El Dorado Out of Paper
JCD Kerwin

My heart beats blue.
Colors from your eyes
turn my world into a Ferris wheel,
a topsy-turvy circle made of truth.

Near a barn in the country,
by a tire swing in trees,
I first picked up battle sticks
for you.
(Heard your voice in the wind:
years in the future where
someday I’d see your face,
and kiss your lips on a beach
near Pacific greenish-blue.)

History was written in the sand
for me and you.
We made Atlantis in the ocean
with a hundred broken seashells
we thought were magic in our hands.

With words I’ll freeze time just for you…
I’ll write every sentence just for you…
Make my pen into a sword just for you…

Burning stories turn to gold
just for you.

Nov., 2012

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

1 November, 2012

Posted under

fiction, prose, writing

Comments

Leave a comment

Bloodshot Detours

Bloodshot Detours
JCD Kerwin

She gets bloodshot eyes and follows railroad tracks from her head. She follows them to memories he laid for her when he left her cold, forgotten and skin and bones when he said she wasn’t worth the warmth of a lesser man. She blinks dead, glazed eyes and sees black birds on the tracks, pulling off the flesh of all the friends she left behind. [She pulls at her own skin, hanging loose against her ribs, sticking puncture-like from her body while she wonders when the birds will come to claim her for their final meal.] She follows tracks to the town she remembers, but doesn’t, because all she wants is the life she never had, the life she almost had before he kissed her lips and drove the blade into her heart. (Her salty tears across the metal: tarnished silver made it rust the faster.) She walks at Dawn to find someone who can keep the train away for one more day; someone who can keep it away until she finds the way home.

Nov., 2012

Broken Bells made me do it. That’s my excuse.
[End]