a song
on a thousand speakers at different times
one thing
one song
whatever makes it only one
is the way my soul is
maybe a pattern
put it on paper
all you need is
a body
to sing
my soul
again
-
why you shouldn’t criticize poems someone else says they like
just celebrate
that in its reading
this person’s need
for being seen
has been metyou must do nothing now
to compromise this
for themand for you
when you are needing to be seen
you will always be free
to find a poem
no one else likes
and you will both be better for it -
shoe string beautifully
loved beautifully
and she too
__________beautifully
and whatever got undone
did it’s job
like a shoe string never meaning to stay so
knotted
we wrapped up beautifully
and unwound__________ten years
of string tightening
never fraying just
strangling
________and marriage counseling
and the heroin of believing
we could last forever
has its withdrawals but anyone who would forgo it
has never tried it -
which is worse
which is worse to endure?
your lifelong friend taking his life
or the love of one’s life just taking it from you?
both are forever deads
just one is literal
the other cosmological
astronomical and fucking unbearable
one gets a proper funeral
both win constant reminders
one mouth still moves to blame you
the other mouth is in your head
and it fucking blames you toowe are about to find out
in the absolute treasure of my life -
why it’s impossible to count birds
there were two birds
and one ate the other
but the bird survived
just now the one bird
can only do exactly
what the other is doing
but with their wings the same color
and their beaks the same shape
species the same
flight patterns the same
there is now no distinction
and no one knows how often this might occur -
many
could go a lifetime
never asking
could never trace their step or hold up the thread
of ourselves through everything
friends and chapters
we cherish? we let them in? Let out even our littlest wish?
we let them know? we shake the feeling
that we have wronged them. That we hurried through it
that we wished to be on the other end
of experience however small or wonderful
how ever we hope the show would suddenly stop
and some holy city would crush our home
and be suddenly better – infinitely better
do we hold friends to some concluding paragraph of some page in some chapter of our unfortunate lives
do we string the sentence along
and push punctuation down enough to think this could be in
finite could be in
different to time // could be in
our blood to last forever just
not like this not in some forever state today not wishing we were on the other end not wishing we could see the other side
all settled into our eternal place
maybe trapped – we’ll see – if we can hold the reigns
enough to break a piece of it to
sting a little and let up a little all in one present
but then let go in some instant even faster than it came to let us wish to let us
drip our souls into unhappy spaces
and then lick us up in less than a quarter of a second
so that time is the true friend
to give us what God invented
the infinite irregular change and chase
from need to need all gone and arriving
without extra silver spoons or linings to go around
just absence to absence to meeting to absence it’s clear
we have what GOD wants so no wonder He came
no wonder he left his changeless infinite space
to suffer the same unending, ruthless, brutal, and lively and unforgivable change. -
matter
in the end does it matter
does it matter
does it matter
does it matter a hundred ways to ask the same
does it matter sips of coffee summer rain
does it matter hero’s journey in a box with a cat in the rain with a hat all the samedigging nightmares up to re-quell the same
some pain some names some little hundred fucking shamesunder serious consequence we lose the name
the names of heroes and architects that taught us to refrain
from the joys and pains of sin and shame
from the heirs of torture and summer rainheck! no wonder we refrain from all the little hurricanes
that come up and under hero’s way
just to still the heart awayjust to wish your soul to sleep
just to whisk your eyes to shamedoes it matter what we did if sins and shames all wisp away
does it matter in the end if sorrows mount forever anddoes it linger a little longer in the bosom of the beast
if we let it simmer on our skin will it singe a ring of sin
will it have us hold our little fingers all twisted in
or will it let the sinner linger once all its hopes of heaven quench
little bubblies in a thin elastic skin all rumbly in my tumbly without morale or consequencebounce and pop and piss all on parade ignite the tumult please again
does it matter when it matters
let it matter when it matters
let it linger when it lingers and whisk the yoke of cloudy eyes
little demons in the morning
little seasons through the summer
little windows a mind to wander
little whispers hearts to wonder – whether
enough will really be
or if the sun could ever really just
enough, just right
to let our heavy heads release just like
little sprinkles to the sky -
A Very Little Light
In the end a little light may be all
We can hope –
A little devil in it
‘s miscalculated throwsLittle candle left lit – you’re out –
Mask or make – just a smell we smell instead
a risk to take the house – the whole houseA very little light
Wanes in and out
flicks swing to
catalyze a …
a thread we pull insisting it pull
On some shadowy soul
nathanael.ink 