thoughts in the not-quite-silent library

almost gone...

whispery voices to keep me company

as i convince myself

not to close my eyes...

i'm fighting,

in my corner,

with its little window and blinds...

the draft,

the lamplight,

and my reflection...

feeling sorry for her

because she's on the glass,

transparent,

cold.

i can feel her blowing on me,

blowing on my shoulder...

"go to sleep..."

she doesn't take or want my pity.

she wants to hide me.

she wants to hide.

in the darkness, she more than disappears;

she ceases to be.

but she likes it there.

unlike me, she can reappear from disappearance.

once i am gone, i'm gone.

the body, such a fragile thing...

inward pressures out, and outward pressures in.

so weak though "the spirit is willing..."

almost gone...

just barely here,

transfixed by dark reds and purples,

and poetry,

mine and yours.

"will you take me in your hand,

turn me over and over,

and read me

like the eyes that proofed my lines

once practiced?"

"will you have me then?"

you will have me then.

never gone...

in the city...

(this is me not doing the homework i should be doing... well, no. that's not completely true. it started as homework... then it took a more natural course and we ended up here...)

Cities Inside Us

By Alberto Rios

We live in secret cities

And we travel unmapped roads.

We speak words between us that we recognize

But which cannot be looked up.

They are our words.

They come from very far inside our mouths.

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city

Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven

And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there

Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where

They went. They did not disappear.

We each take a piece

Through the eye and through the ear.

It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak

In the outside world

We have to hope that some of that sound

Does not come out, that an arm

Not reach out

In place of the tongue.

the words

i want to give you the words,
the words that will warm you like cider,
smooth, pure, natural...
the words that will make you well.
the words you can taste and breathe
and use.

11/1/09

"maybe i was born to hold you in these arms..."

a prayer

Jesus, take me o'er

and pilot now my course.

My hands, my feet, my mind, my soul

surrendered, I am yours.

Abide with me anon

and into every day.

Alone, awake, adrift, apart,

a sinner, I have strayed.

What voice disturbs my soul,

and wherefrom is my peace?

The same, from first and to the last,

my Jesus, my release.

behind my eyelids

sudden gusts from the storm outside
remind me that i am still alive,
still a part of this world that i see
and feel,
but do not know.
the earth is spinning faster
than this chill that finds my face,
bringing tears i wipe away with my wrist.
warm to cool, self to storm.
i have not thought as i usually do
about the forces pushing, swirling, and embracing me.
i have not been one for words.
no, not like i usually am.
yet i have not been in want of words;
they’ve come.
at my fingertips—
the same ones that freeze in my pockets now—
symbols spill and spew in some kind of meaning,
meaning i have chosen for you.
this is what i want to tell you.
what i cannot say
appears in the color of my eyes.
this i cannot control or describe.

i have spoken of a place behind my eyelids,
and this wind feels like the wind of that place.
the air is black—
not polluted or clouded,
but black.
here, my eyes are open though i feel them closed.
here, i know for certain what i merely entertain in the light…

here, i come upon fields of tall grass,
dull brown and green,
in rows of waves that roll and sway
as though they were under water.
at the edge, the harvest has begun,
the waves have been driven back.
one man holds the blade,
and i know this man.
he reads and writes slowly,
pen and paper a hindrance rather than a tool
for his thoughts
just yet.
he writes to me…
he writes the truth,
and in the sun, we shed our tears.
his hands folded in their own struggle,
a picture of our hearts
as we part ways.

this is the place
behind my eyelids
at night.

the sound of silence
pulls the pen to paper now,
one lamp, my night-friend,

and the evening comes
like a soft, bewitching song
through my head, away…

strings recreate sound.
i cannot hold it for long
in my wrinkled palm.

it seeps through the cracks,
drips onto the page and bleeds
through several layers.

light, ethereal
i never owned it at all,
night inspiration?

call it lucky ink,
and the sound of silence rings,
one lamp, my night-friend.