The Wheel of Fate Keeps Turning...

I think I write this poem every time I turn my life upside down.

Have you ever taken a fork in the road
so fast that you can't slow down
all you can do is speed up
and try to hug the curve?

Have you ever seen a really big dog
standing in the middle of the road
with a transfer truck right behind you
and absolutely no room to swerve?

Have you ever hit the end of a relationship
living on forty minutes sleep in two days
fast finishing your third beer
and contemplating which level of hell you deserve?

southern martyr
circa 2003

Unfinished hymns...

Just a few Bits & Bobs that I never did anything with. Maybe they aren't actually unfinished, maybe they are simple truths that tried to trick me into thinking they were bigger & complicated. Maybe they are snapshots of a moment that can never be elaborated on.



To be Alone
or not to Be.

Standing in a winter field
Listening to the icy silence
In that crystalline moment
You find your Existence.

s.m.



I don't want to be here
and I hate the smell of fear

s.m.

I dig at my wounds with my pen
Write these words with my blood

s.m.

Bury me in a shallow grave
so the wild things may find me
Bury me in a shallow grave
so the earth, it will not bind me

s.m.

He has had his pound of flesh
Drank his cup of blood
Why add twenty seven tears
To an ebbing flood?

s.m.

I tripped a Star
just to watch it fall

s.m.

I guess there's a first time for everything
the second time around!
Ever notice when you're falling
you're feet don't touch the ground?

s.m.

What if I left?
Shed my life
as though it were a skin too tight.

s.m.

I worry there is no Other Half,
no Missing Piece,
only the Jagged Edge.

southern martyr
2-8-2010

Poetry from Chaos

I have found that Chaos flings out the best little bits of odd poetry. The key is getting close enough to catch them without getting caught in the riptide.

Finders Keepers

Keep singing
keep playing
keep looking
right at me
not at me
into me
abandoned house

Broken shutters
battered siding
frame windows

Standing across
overgrown lot
only ghost
of a curtain
skeleton chair
crooked picture frame

Peering into
cobwebbed attic
of my soul

Picking through
dusty scraps
broken things
left behind

Spying sparkle
shiny thing
in some forgotten corner

Passing grin
across face
as though
already possessing

Lowering blinds
too late

Southern Martyr
2-3-10

Conflicted

This whole "posting something every week even if it's tripe" experiment has really helped. If by help, you mean that I am posting things that under normal circumstances never see the light of day. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's liberating. I jot things down now that I would have let slip quickly between my fingers before. Maybe that's good - maybe not. I kinda feel like some sort of Pro-literary fanatic at times - "Poetry starts at the moment of conception!" Then at the end of the day I've got a cardboard box full of inbred kittens.

All that is to say this: "Here's some more poetry! Awww, look at it - it's polydactyl."

Lost

I need to write something.
Come, help me think.
Can you find the words?
I seem to have lost them.
I was sitting right here!
I haven't moved all day.
Maybe they're caught in my hair
or lying curled in the folds of my skirt.
When I rise to search for them
they will roll under the couch
and next Tuesday my cat will speak eloquently.

southern martyr 1-26-10

Drunk at a conference - so why not post a poem?!

Coming Home

I love the way your hand moves
always to lie upon the curve of my hip.

As though it is a crescent bay
your touch returning again and again
rising and lowering like the tides.

A heavenly body
your hand circling in orbit before
landing gently on the surface.

I hope that to you
it feels like home.
I imagine you feel a vague restless longing;
that something undefinable
makes every return a homecoming.

the smell of woodsmoke

a front porch light

that you know I am here waiting.

southern martyr
1-11-10

I'm proud of myself for putting SOMETHING up every week here lately. My muse has taken to whispering in my ear again. May he linger past the heartbreak this time around.

I've not got much today...

But what I've got is mine.

I'm hungry.
I'm tired.
I'm angry.
I burnt dinner.
My toe hurts.
My best friend's B-Day present is on someone else's porch.
My heart still aches.
I know I'm alive.

southern martyr 1-15-10

Battle not with monsters...

lest ye become a poet. For a long time I convinced myself I was just uttering these poems into the abyss. The abyss has started whispering back. My muse has returned. I knew that if I made myself write every little trivial thing that skitters across my mind then more and more words would come crawling out of the woodwork, but with quantity does not come quality. However, if I stop then I fear the words will stop. So here I go again. Unpolished and perhaps unfinished, my offering:

Muse

He's dark and he's pale
He's coffee and wine
He's strong and he's frail
He's rough and he's fine

He's hot and he's cool
He's godly and base
He's wise and a fool
Devil's hand, angel's face

He loves and he hates
He pushes and waits
He's crooked and straight
My choice and my fate

Bourbon on my tongue
and sorrow on my mind
The grace I've lost
and still hope to find

A blessing and a curse
The crossing and the line
Sonnets and blank verse
All or Nothing at the same time

southern martyr
1-12-10

I scare myself sometimes...

I was moving my desk into the Ex-Geek's office today and came across one of my poetry journals from about 2 years ago. I didn't remember writing most of them, so I started reading them before moving on to the next stack of crap to be sorted through. Most were my normal melancholy drivel. Then I get to one particularly cynical depressing bit of wordplay & I actually said out loud: "That is just AWFUL." It was. I think I may have just driven myself into a dark spiral. All the more reason for a brand new fluffy kitty cat - therapy. By the way, my long time, black, fluffy, cycloptic, feline companion, One Eyed Jack, died a little more than a week ago.

Happy Hollowdays one and all!

Untitled Awful Poem

She holds Hope
like a child's face
wanting it to stay
small, bright, & her's alone.
Yet, Hope grows into Dream,
it's gangly arms & legs
stretched - reaching.
Dream, enamored of Risk,
leaves Her to her garden,
her cats &
her dirty dishes.

southern martyr 2007

Flipsides...

If roots went as deep
as branches high -
trees would never fall.

If love went as far
as hate goes wide -
I'd never have to call.

southern martyr 11-24-09

Here's an Oldie but Goodie that has been rolling around on the hard wood floor inside my head:

Within the Lover turned Enemy
dwells Man's fiercest Hate

To be the Lover hated
Life's cruelest twist of Fate

southern martyr circa 1992

No worries though, I do my best writing when I've got something under my skin. I'll enjoy it while it lasts and save up a little misery for some sunny day that's needs inspiration. Happy Hollowdays one and all!

May not be good, but at least it's something...

Working a lot, dancing a lot, yoga a lot, boyfriend a lot, writing a little.

A Cold November Rain

Guns N Roses did not ruin it for me

It still feels like the first drops of water to ever fall from the sky

cold clear crystalline

I press myself against the house
The gutter keeps the unswerving drops
from striking me

Yet still they call out as they fall

And those caught on my bare skin
answer with sharp excited cries of their own.

southern martyr 11-17-09

And here's a little something twitter length:

the mountains slept all day today with blankets tucked firmly beneath their chins

southern martyr 11-18-09

well hell... it's poetry?

Okay, so I said I was going to be a little better about writing. However, I can't seem to find two minutes to sit down and frame my thoughts into any sort of order. That's where poetry has always come in for me. It lets me jot down something (real or imagined) in the moment. Without any conscious effort. Sometimes that means my poetry isn't that great... But it exists, great or slapdash or just plain bad, it's there - a moment or a thought pressed between the pages of my life so that I can go back and remember it later. Here's two that I dashed off during the last few weeks and haven't done anything with. I think that because of how busy my work life has been lately I'm slipping into almost a faux haiku style. At the moment that is how I hear things in my head - short clipped and almost sing song. Maybe I'm going slightly mad...

Untitled

You make me nervous.
I think you lie sometimes,
because sometimes I do too.
And yet, your lies are so much better than mine.

southern martyr 10-09


It Just Ain't Right...

Wrong day wrong week
wrong month wrong year

Wrong man wrong love
wrong hope wrong fear

southern martyr 10-09

Well folks, that's all I got today. At least it's something...

Melancholy Muse

Having you, was like drinking spring water from my hand.
Natural, pure, bittersweet,
and all too quickly slipping between my fingers.
Now, I sit with parted lips pressed to palm,
savoring the cold numbness,
and wondering if I've drunk my fill.

~ Southern Martyr 6/11/09

As I said before, my muse has found me once again. I don't know if I'll keep posting the little quick things I write, but for now it helps put things in perspective and believe it or not it actually makes it all much much easier. If I can channel a little grey funk into a poem or even just a meaningless string of words on paper, then somehow it's gone from my mind afterwards. I guess it's my way of passing it all on to the dragon who never sleeps...

A moment of painful honesty... with myself.

This morning I took a long hot bath.
Rummaging through almost empty bottles
while water slipped down my sleepy face,
I realized I was out of shampoo.
That I would have to use his.
That today would be another struggle.

~Southern Martyr 6/11/09