Cascading Decades

Look how far we’ve come now

Turn about and view our tracks

How they twist and turn

Strive and relax

I’ll strive once more now

To find the words to convey 

The point of composing   

This winding array 

Seasoned by time

I might relax instead

Nothing left to prove

To the voices in my head

Listen to the soft hush

Like footprints in the snow

They compress and refill 

Shrink and grow

I’ll compress myself into

These rambling lines

Squeeze a word til a 

New meaning shines 

I’ll refill with memories 

Old thoughts to create new

Expand lost feelings

All in an effort to -

Feel my soul shifting

And let the words cascade

I'll wrap them around me

As we close out my first decade

Noting Nonary

If I get lost amidst the details

Fade into the atmosphere 

If all that’s left is background noise

You can always find me here

Lying between the sheets

Caressing reverie 

Tangled in fabrication

Weaving the world around me

Such a strange set of armor

With gaping holes and pinching seams 

And nine years of corrosion 

Caused by stagnant dreams

If I get stuck in all the synonyms 

And the endless march of time

If all that’s left is twisted words

We can find clarity in rhyme 

Riffling through these sheets of paper

Lies and truths snuck in between  

The years are marked in paper cuts

And spilled ink I can’t scrub clean

Such a strange bed to lie in

Full of every comfort and every tear

And nine years of cultivation 

For I've always found me here

Only An Octet

For lack of anything better to do -

For the sake of my spinning head

For the chance to find a better view 

For consolation when I'm dead

I'll try to write something new

Something I've never said

Write it all in spite of you

Or give it all to you instead

Eight years now, and they ask me why -

As if I could just quit

Eight years gone, still I try

To make something they won't forget

No matter what, life will pass me by

Why shouldn't I spend it

On all these words thrown at the sky

My dear, I know - it's only an octet 

Only and perpetually just poetry

Thrown against the page

Matters not to anyone but me

If my thoughts won't cease to rage 

They swirl and swarm incessantly 

Though I trap them in this cage

Is it worth the time to stop and see -

Alas, that's not for me to gauge

But for lack of anything better to do

For the sake of my wandering soul

For the chance to find a different view

As a way to challenge or console 

I'll try to write something new

Something to make me whole 

Write it all just for you

Or just for you to pass by as you scroll 

Hazarding Heptad

Reach for a new sheet of paper

For all the thoughts that weigh

Running out of ink now

Let's put all these words away

Seven years worth of them 

Sure adds up to a lot

Shape them all to form me

And everything I'm not

How to sort through them -

Stacked in pillars about my head

How to deny them -

All the words I ever bled

Sure adds up to a lot -

Dripping out of me everyday

Perhaps I'll take a sabbatical 

And clear all these cuts away

I've earned it now, you see

Seven years giving my best

I'm running out of words now

Seven years worth - how can I fill the rest?

Perhaps this is all I have -

Is there anything worth writing left inside of me?

I'm bound to run dry someday

It's just a question of when that'll be

Asking myself yearly -

What more can I possibly say?

I pick up my pen regardless

And give all my words away

Senary Scenery

Once more, I will, I know -

Reach the end of the dawn I come back to

Before that, how much further can we go?

What more can I do

With all these vast skies

And thoughts that never crystallize?

All the aspirations tied round my throat

All the changing scenery -

I'll get a grip - hold them tightly

And fashion them into the words I wrote

How remarkably strange

Is a life that is ordinary?

How much can I change

With a line that is quaternary?

And I've taken every blow

And tried my best to grow

In all the areas I most lack

Though castles in the air crumble on my head

And no one will remember a thing I said

After all, it's no skin off my back

And just how long has it been?

Two years and counting, all the way to six

Lost in a game I can't ever win

In so many days it ought to transfix 

And what will these thousands bring?

I doubt it'll ever amount to anything

But a loosening of lumps inside my throat

And a calming of my mind and heart

But still - I would never part

With these six years worth of words that I wrote

I'll reach the end - I'll begin again

The sun shall rise, and always set

It shall ease joy and pain 

From memories I won't forget

Because how could I with all of these -

Lines and verses that make time freeze?

In these moments of time I return to

Of past selves and sceneries lost

In these vast skies in which I'm tossed

I'll greet the dawn - what more can I do?

Crystallize

I'm not quite sure what to say
All my thoughts never crystallized
Time keeps on slipping away
How is it I'm still surprised?

Time's entwined in all of it
But tell me - what was it for?
Five years later and nothing's changed
I'm still so very unsure

My memories are written here
Every high and every low
Hidden behind every line
Everything I used to know

They're not always easily seen -
It's all a slight guise
I'm not always coherent -
My thoughts never crystallize

And five years ago, when I started
Did I ever think I'd go this long?
I have no reason to continue
But stopping would feel so wrong

I'll just keep going, on and on
With no real reason why
With arbitrary deadlines and few readers
I'll continue getting lost in the deep sky

Because here in the deep -
I bathe in truths and lies
Drowning in thoughts and emotions
That never crystallize

And here in the deep -
I'm in too deep to ever leave
My memories are preserved here
So I don't have to cleave

Here my past selves speak to me
Offering old wisdoms I forgot
Here I learn of my present self
And everything I am not

Here I'm what I make of me
In these abstract skies
Here I know just what to say
Though my thoughts never crystallize 

Quaternary Blow

Time sucker punched me today

In my gut - knocking my air away

"Surprise!" it said, "Here's four years of your life

Gone forever - all the happiness and strife"

I doubled over in pain and realization 

I'd been so focused on my incoming high school graduation 

My blog's fourth anniversary had slipped my mind

"Forgetful child," time maligned 

"Four years of your life - and you forget!

How disappointed your younger self would be with all of it

Tests, invites, and driving - more crucial 

Than pouring out your soul?

Tell me, which will matter more when you're dead?"

I shrugged helplessly and sat down to hold my head

"Neither," I suggested with a nervous laugh

"None of this will matter half

As much as I thought it did -

What I showed and what I hid

In fear of what'd be thought of me

What I caged and what I set free-"

"Nonsensical poet," time chided, "You drift astray

From the point of the day-"

I crossed my legs and tilted my head

"The point being . . . what?" I said

Time held out a hand to help me to my feet

"You act as if I've been discrete!

Four years of your life - get your head out of the sand!

Get your hands out of your pockets and your feet back on land

It's your anniversary - be happy - celebrate!

Rather than never, let your smile be late

You've accomplished something - take a moment to reflect

Wash away the dust you allowed the past to collect

It's gone and done - you've made it through

But don't forget the lessons it taught to you

Store them in your mind neatly - not in your usual muddled bunch

And maybe next year you'll remember to block my punch"

No Skin Off My Back

Write in a notebook, tear it out
Fold it up so it can't shout
Stick it in a drawer to collect dust
Dig it out and post it when I must

Could be two days old
Could be two years, dead and cold
Could be all fiction and lies
Could have a slight truth amid it's cries

Most of my poems come because I have nothing to do
So I pick up a pen and write about something I'm sure somewhere is true
Sometimes it comes out in a poetic story
Other times it's just random thoughts that come to me

I work with fictional people I create in my head
Who stay to write their thoughts, then they are dead
Stay to write their story, then fade back into nothingness
Stay for the dry paper and leave without a kiss

I dramatize little flitting feelings of dismay
Though I feel quite happy most every day
But happy poems aren't as fun to write
As ones about fear and pain and shadows of the night

So that is my Creative Process -
A muddled, unimportant mess
Been going on for three years now today, easy and cheap
No skin off my back - Happy 3rd Anniversary In [the] Deep

No skin off my back, no painful story of my own
No little secret, no wise way shown
No skin off my back, I've got no gift or curse
Just some thoughts, written in verse

2 Years And Counting

1 day and counting
2 days gone by
3 days trying
4 days, oh my
5 days working
6 days no play
7 marks a week
And we mark our 8th day

1 week and counting
2 weeks I write
3 weeks, oh joy
4 weeks no fight

1 month finished
2 months done
3 months striving
4 months no fun
5 months pleading
6 months I dream
7 months hoping
8 months I scream
9 months I whisper
10 months I shout
11 months I question
12 and I must take 1 foot out

1 whole year of thoughts
Of word upon word
So can you really blame me
For wondering if I'm heard?
Because this day marks
A whole two years
Of hopes and dreams
Worries and fears
Of fiction and truth
And some things in between
Of laughter and tears
And figuring out what I mean

2 years and counting
Will you stay and count with me?
For 3, 4, 5, 6 . . .
Until the end of my eternity