Musings of an Angry Wannabe

You want to write poetry
but your poetry is shit.
Feeling this emotion for days
but lacking the words to express it.

Frowning and brooding fits,
that smile you put on's just a facsimile.
But you don't want everyone to know;
you are your own worst enemy.

Frustration builds with each terrible stanza;
haven't you done this well before?
Maybe it's reflective of what you've become:
A lazy moron, escapist, bore.

God, it's worse than you imagined;
trite comparisons and awful rhymes,
but how can you express this cacophony
in four simple, rhyming lines?

Not So Much A Sonnet

Barrett Browning counted the ways,
Dickinson longed for wild nights
And Shakespearian sonnet proved
          You don't need beauty to be beloved.

 Myself, I haven't the silver tongue
To spin such sparkling words.
Nor does my pen maintain the grace,
          To even try would be a waste.

The best that I can offer
Compares you to simple things
Like warm clothes from the dryer
          Not an angel, exhalted higher.

 Driving with windows down
Or the last slice of pie in a diner
Cannot compare to a summer's day
          Or fairy tale lovers, far, far away.

What I mean to explain is
Everything reminds me of you.
And while "She Walks in Beauty" is nice,
          It's not enough, it won't suffice.

Japanese novels and the King of Rock and Roll,
Starry nights on a Hot Tin Roof.
How can I fit all the things I love about you
          In a poem's rhyming line or two?

I hope you understand, and don't mock too long
The words are weak and silly, but the meaning clear and strong.
I had to try and list some of the ways you are my light.
Perhaps, after all, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was right.

Stasis

Still, though?
After all this time?
Some might call it romantic. Others, pathetic. I just call it bothersome.
Twelve months and seven-hundred miles didn't do the job
How can I possibly be expected to?
I just want to know
How many weeks, how many miles is it going to take me
To stop feeling this way?

Sometimes my mouth is so stuffed with words that I'm afraid to open it.
Like,
if I do, I'm adjectives and nouns will
pour out all over the nearest unsuspecting person's shoes.
So I go running and tripping for a bucket.
Something that I can free the words into without mess or fuss.

But by the time I've found a container.
All
the
words
are
gone.

Tout le Monde

It starts with an itching on the back of your hands, a thrumming under your skin.
The world is quiet, sleeping, but you don't join in, every groan of the house amplified by silence.
It sets your teeth on edge, and you wince in time to the ticking of the clock.
Up, up, time to go your muscles scream, and it takes a concerted effort not to leap from your seat.

Outside, you know, the cold black sky is waiting, wider than anything you could ever reach.
An awareness of the never-ending roads pounds relentlessly through the back of your mind.
A shudder rippling through your frame; a visceral reaction to the wanderlust infecting you, body and soul.
Visions of the future flash by, clear as memory, promising adventures and new people and freedom.

Freedom that tastes like ice-cold spring water, a welcome reprieve from the constriction in the back of your throat.
You can't seem to conjure a reason not to go; you've forgotten that all ideas are good ideas in the middle of the night.
How could such a decision possibly seem poor under the luminescent moon's calm gaze?
So with a haphazardly loaded duffle, you set out into the Great Unknown, fearless in the throes of your fevered desires.

No one can say a word, not for good, nor for ill, either.
We're only side characters in each others' stories anyway.
Only the protagonist can steer this destiny, and leave the rest to Fate, or particularly good writing.
Dawn is breaking on the horizon and the next chapter is yours to complete.
No one else can ride off into the sun for you, you've got to do it yourself.

Quiet Desperation

And miles of quiet desperation to go before I sleep...

I need something to happen.
I want to stop stealing the words of others
and to form my own.
I have to muster the courage to bring about change.

I just feel like I'm standing here.
Waiting for something to happen.
For a shift in the gravitational pull of Earth
so I can float up, up, and away.

But nothing happens.
And days turn to weeks turn to months.
Sometimes I think I'm locked up;
doomed to eternity in this two-star town.
But I'm stealing other people's words again.

Desperation can only be quiet for so long
before it bursts forth and bleeds out,
leaving smears of red anguish in its wake.
Desperation was a creature made to scream.

And so I strut, and fret, and continue to steal more genius vocabulary than my own.
Waiting for something to happen, too frightened to kick start it myself.
Three hundred and sixty six new days are waiting at the threshold
And maybe this year I'll bring about the change I wish to see in the world.

Silent Snow

It's cold outside, but it hasn't yet become bitterly so, and she makes the decision to keep on walking. The hour is late and the streets are mostly deserted, despite the warm light coming from inside the shops--extended hours for the holiday season. It's been snowing gently, thirty minutes hence, and there's a light dusting of fluffy flakes covering everything; streets, sidewalks, rooftops, and windowsills. It's still coming down, looking almost etherial in the orange glow of the street lamps.

Snow is the most silent of all phenomenon, and she relishes the quiet, hearing only the soft crunch underfoot and the first notes of "Carol of the Bells" somewhere in the distance. Holiday bustle has its own appeal, but this...this is something special.

Colored lights twinkle benignly at her from a shop window, in red, green, and white. She leans close to the glass, to watch the path of a small electric train around a mountain crafted from chicken wire, hard work, and paint. Her breath fogs the window and she brushes it clean with a gloved hand before going on her way.

She straightens her scarf and the snowflakes that have collected there are scattered, on her lapel, and on the ground, reunited with the rest. Though the snow is gentle, it is steady, and she knows that by morning, there will be a significant supply, sparkling and pristine, awaiting demolishment at the hands of children.

But for now, the silent snow and the empty street are a haven, and she stands for a moment, overwhelmed by the scene. It's quite appropriate, then, when she thinks she hears the strains of "Winter Wonderland" floating in from somewhere faraway.