I wrote this poem about a year ago. I was living in my un-air conditioned house. I had some significant health challenges. Honestly, I believe I was listening to Joni Mitchell’s album, Blue, which is one of those albums that I could listen to over and over again. It’s got some of the most heart-wrenching ballads and then there’s songs like the opener, “All I Really Want.” When it comes on, you can’t help but want to just dance around in your socks or jump on a plane and take a chance on a relationship you have are completely uncertain about. Even in parts of the song that are sad, there’s hope and there’s joy. I began to think of this 24 hour chunk of time, where this person was just in constant motion. I just pictured them moving from one room, to the next party, to the next love, grabbing arms and inviting others into living. This is what I came up with… On a side note, I found the above piece of art and I thought it was sort of fitting. It could be taken as he’s dreaming of all this or maybe it’s all happened and the night is over. I liked the idea of it. I then saw below in the corner another piece the artist did, and I felt it also fit the piece (more in the way of it being somewhere in the course of the 24 hours). I love both of them so I included both.
Barefoot Manifesto
Come, lay down with me in the early morning dewed grass,
As petals beneath Proximus Centare, bloom.
I am so full of movie kisses on a lonely road. Road tripping,
Hands out the open window! Catching
A breeze, a joyous shout, a romance. The best in me, in you.
Let’s bathe in moonshine like we have the best blooming bodies
At the community pool! Total sun, abs, chests…
I’m too busy absorbing beauty to be beautiful right now.
All I want is to eat myself happy.
I want to be the poem that doesn’t want anything,
Ok, I like to watch two lovers stare at each other across an empty room. As if they know they’ve seen the best this planet’s got to see.
I want to graduate with a degree in making people know how to feel free.
To be constantly in a state of revision, the pen cannot touch me enough.
I want to be a rough draft like an oyster, convinced someday
The sand will be irritated enough for the pearl to emerge.
So lets whisper wishes in the night air, order a simple beer in a hotel by the sea,
Become the hero in someone’s great American novel.
Let’s gather every dream in the room and push it down the asphalt
In some Big K shopping cart and feed them to the despondent,
Until the ugliest outfit at Goodwill is on a runway in New York Fashion Week.
I want to feel like I can perform in a ballet with a broken ankle
Make you laugh so hard, you can build an economy on anything,
The way I could not.
I want to be the lunchbox ham sandwich taste in the mouth of someone who is Poor and been eating them for weeks. Each bite is a reminder
Of the freedom they are working so damn hard to taste.
I want to take & taste, your acquired tastes and time
My lips always ready to be melted like a surprise May snow.
All I want is for you to know me and for me to know you.
I want to be as sweet as Joni Mitchell is
In those opening lines of “All I Want,” on Blue.
I want to grab you by the hand and remind you it’s important to be something.
I want to dance with someone who lets me hear their hearts syllables through my Raggedy white T-shirt, whose whispers of self doubt
Sing colorfully to my blind eyes. Help
My arms remember how to hold someone when they cry.
I am not a pause at the gate for a moment kind of guy, I want to be
The person who shows up with a sign to welcome you back every time.
If I am a mistake, let me be the better one.
Let’s drunk and dine away the quiet nights in this lonely studio apartment
In the America no one ever told us about.
Let’s not miss the fun of clothing ourselves in all the embarrassment we can find.
There are plenty of rotting logs in the deepest part of the woods with
Cricket symphonies awaiting an audience. Let’s tell each other
Ghost stories where people we’ve lost come back to fill us like
A strong red wine on cold winter night by a homemade fire.
Let the party forget us for a moment, as we snatch moments of hot kisses
In the apartment hallway, outside under the glances of the night stars.
Straight into the morning, we have no time to waste a breath.
The future cannot begin without some awkward silences.
History is searching right now….
I want to be it’s next great lullaby.
Oak Roads: Poetry and Musings 