Poems I Wish I Never Wrote - Vol. III

I SEE YOU NEVER

i see you never in my dreams
when heavy eyelids come to close
around my drenching drowning globes
without the fire they once had

for you, you were my love
you were what i desired
no sex or blood or tears required
just words, that's all, and simple smiles

to greet me in this world i made
when i was young, and acted so
your face above, my heart below
a stalking figure in the grass

but now the years erode my spirit
there is no hunt, or clear blue sky
no simple smiles, no reasons why
to make my mind remember then

just sleep and dreams and dreary days
no light can shine into my eyes
for far above me something dies
i keep my head tucked tight and low

and now i see you never


I wrote this poem as the first manifestation of the Stitches character. I kept the lower case nature of the line for the bulk of Stitches, but ditched the odd rhyming pattern in the center of every stanza. This piece just doesn't work on any level.

***

IT SEEMS DEAD TO ME

It seems so dead, with grief at night I still walk
Down darkened streets familiar to my feet
Where voices choose to sit as peers and eat
Each word with poison feeds the next we talk.
Though shoeless, hopeless, wordless, I stalk
My toes feel grass where there is only concrete
And masticate these words with mind made meat;
I choke in silence while the neighbors gawk.
Take it from me. Nobody wants to share
This Legion of voices that lingers inside;
Those that know nothing have nothing to bless.
Everyone out there who knows me, beware
If you choose to listen, and in me abide,
My pain still rules lonely my clingy caress.


This is the worst sonnet. The third line of the sestet is horrible; I never wrote a worse line. To this day, I reference this poem as proof that a form alone can't capture a poetic cadence. I was going to read this one aloud in Austin the last time I was there for reasons I still can't fathom; I chose to discard it at the podium with three words: "this is garbage." I made the right call.