20/20 by D. Seiden

20/20

Salt misty breeze

Velocity driven

Noses in mud

The challenge arisen

Molded so young

True colours unseen

Gelatinous tin

Suite nineteen

Clicked into position and shrouded in treason

The right thing to do for all the wrong reasons

Once was invincible now whipped and shattered

Filth-Fashion INC. in shards of glamour

The ruling by peers

Through snickers and sneers

This faction reaction

Intimidation and pheer

Lids half-slits

Lips zipped tight

Frozen stand-by

Consoled by the sight

Scorn the infidel a part the conspiracy

Part of the problem invenomated jealousy

Cured of the hype guided by truth

My second opinion to start with the youth

Treat the ill

Shield the glare

Arm in arm

In my care

Revived inhale

Life in line

Soothed exhale

Sparkle & shine

Look in my eyes

I'm not nearly done

Look in my eyes

It's ten till one

Look in my eyes

Our time has come .. ..

D. Seiden 

February 2001

In your time

Do you fall asleep on the train?

Do you find time to complain?

Do you work your hands to the bone?

Do you thank your stars

you're not alone?

In your time

do you find time

to love deeply 

and ignore the past?

When confronted

do you look away

and hope this, too, 

shall pass?

I'm a star

and you've faltered

curse against our time and youth

I'm a star

and a lover

trying to grasp

that violence that you do

Oh, your anger
it becomes you
as your roughened beauty does

Oh, your madness
it betrays you
as did your lady loves

Buried in your past 
a criminal
possession 
you've let go

You keep busy, bite your tongue
and fail to wonder 
what love
can heal your woe

I keep my head up
eyes wide
seek out and see you
my heart a beacon, a spire

Your face worn, head bowed
arms crossed
eyes closed
smothered treasure, hidden fire

Diamond in the rough, I've loved you
it is remarkable, forever, endless

But ever always you turn away
holding loyal to your keen sadness

Parallel lines never meet
but our paths have known each other

You wish not to know me now
but 

I will gladly warm myself
by your dying passion, smoldering

by your past loving and present cruelty

by your complex and unreasoned patterns

by the impossible you
of whom I've always wondered.

This is Living

I jumped into the lake
cold, unforgiving
and thought, 
This is living

------

He held me 
so close 
as young lovers should be
contentedly I closed my eyes
so in love
and thought,
that
this
This is living

------

We fought
I burned, so angry
flipping the marble table top
cold and heavy
breaking glasses
and thought,
Who I am?
What is this?
Is this what I want?
and 
How?
just
How am I living?

------

We held on
fell onto the bed
I was drowning
while we made love
gasping, gasping
caught my breath
and kept on seeking

------

We stood at the alter
and I cried,
not realizing I would cry
and I thought,
please God,
give me that blessed shred of grace
for this
to keep on living

-----

Years before I had felt the same
driving home at night
alone
alone
with every passing turn
facing the woods
next to the river
and I thought,
as I sped
and I swerved,
Today,
but for tomorrow,
Shall I keep on living?

-----

Year later
he looked at me
with sad and stern eyes
and scolded me indifferently
then turned his face
then turned his back
and walked away
so quickly
so quickly
and I thought,
This, too, shall pass
...
This 
this is all part of living

-----

Each one in turn
sought my soul yet
tore my spirit
and I kept on giving
even after 
I was the
violence bearer

for this
this is my only choice
to feel everything
soberly, so keenly aware
of all my flaws
and all my love
because all these
are scars
and just
around the corner
maybe in the gutter
a joy, a diamond
a ring

and this
all this

This is living

Desert dreamers

We are the desert dreamers

we step closer to death

with every stifled fantasy kept

close to our hearts

and to ourselves

We know ourselves

and hate ourselves

and love ourselves

all the same

Not fitting in the rat race

no claims to fame

no sleight-of-hand games

A life well-lived?

A life certainly lived

wrung out

hung to dry

and take it all in

again and again

I give you my hand

I love you, as you me

but you'll never touch

the fire inside

nor be burned by it

all the same

Desire me not

desire not to know this evil wreckage

of a life

I keep inside

shielded within

ever hidden, buried down

but desert dreamers

cannot hide in the brutal 

brutal heat and white light

We live exposed
in the unforgiving sun

It's truth

it's us

and this is honesty

We cast no shadows

only a lighted way before us

behind us

we are now and never

Us lustful schemers

we know ourselves

we are shamed

and are beaten

but hopeful

all the same

We are dark and glorious

battle ready

love us

love us

we are lightness in the darkness

we are holy

we are darkness

we are victory

all the same

What it's like to be a man

I have yearned in my heart to know you
to know what it's like to be a man

But I feel that you do not yet know you
or what it's like to be a man.

I dare not reveal I still love you
through your veiled smile
I taste your fear

Fear and woe and anger so deep, so deceitful
My love lost in the canyon between us
We misunderstand each other until the end of time
only aligned in our unique hate and pain
never again to cross with joy or happiness
I ache to not know 
what it's like to be your friend again.

Through my tears I know, I feel it
I am closer than you'll ever be
to be the hero, to be a whole man
who loves, owns kindness, and eschews cruelty.

Who wins here?  Who's the victor?
When I get to keep my love and woe
and you your indifference and secrecy?
Will I rise, even empty-handed?
Will love keep after time, through eternity
when unmatched, ignored, and deserted with firm purpose?

Although I am confused I understand
there is no why
there is no reason
and there doesn't have to be

But still I wonder 
what makes a man?  What makes a hero?
Do I have the strength to rise?
And be the woman, the hero,
my heart speaks to be?

One Day in May

One day in May

after weeks of feeling unwell

I felt okay enough

to till the soil

and sow seeds in my garden.

My garden you can see from the sky

Every once in a while

a little boy watches me from his window

and once a woman stopped to say

she enjoyed the flowers

that were still there

after her mother passed away.

One day in May

it was hot and then cold

I spread the soil

under a rake

and threw the seed unto the dirt

precious dirt

that I inhale

and the sun warms me

I thought of my past loves

and how they gave me

all I've ever wanted

How all my unrequited love

made me a wife

and gave me a life -- 

a good life

and a garden.

And for this I still love you

I look back to love you

and thank you for everything

I'm thankful for the hurt, dears

that ache helped me transcend pain

I now love life

and I embrace the fear

because I don't despise death

I've lived a life 

and keep living a life

and plant my garden

year after year.

Cleome, marigolds, sunflowers

zinnias, coneflowers, black-eyed susans: 

it's all easy

I just toss the seeds and they grow

and it's easy.

It's hard work,

but it's easy

and it keeps coming back

to reward all who sees.

I sometimes fear I'll not know you

you reject and resist my love for you

I'll never know why; but that's the lesson.

I know

that unrequited means I don't get it back.

I love, and am unloved

I love and am loved.

You've taught me there are some things

I don't get to understand

and it's not up to me

and one day I'll understand

I see it and I don't see

It's just love; why is it so hard to return it to me?

And a million other lovers wonder why

like a million burned out stars in the sky

like all the seeds I'll sow that won't make it

that are dead before touching the ground

or suffer a fate before they bloom.

I know you and yet I don't know you

I love you, but who are you?

Does it matter?  I know it doesn't matter

So I keep on doing it because what else is there?

Every year I plant the garden

every year another few inches of land I've conquered

I treat it well, it grows for all

in the fall I rip it out and let it be

but before that comes, I gather the seeds.

I collect in the heat

in the sun

I'm out with everyone else out

walking their dogs

driving by

playing in the street

peeking from their windows.

One of these days, you've gotta come see my garden

It's my love; it gets me out and about

the birds and bees and bugs come and take and live in it

and those blooms you can see from the sky.

After a Fight, October, 2000

Excerpt from journal: Oct. 22, 2000

... 

On the way to the car we didn't speak or touch or walk together.  I walked briskly with my arms crossed because of the chill in the air and the chill in my heart.  I looked up at the clear, black sky and thought:

 

   Tonight you are surrounded

   by all the stars in the sky

      & I

   I am so unhappy.

...

Notes:  What a difference a decade and a half can make!  Time may sometimes feel like the enemy.  But it's a healer, too.  It's everything, I suppose.  It giveth and taketh away.  

First Draft Re: Muses

Listen to me recite this piece here.  Or above right there ↑

What's going on with my muses?
Gone missing
or burning down their houses?

I saw your star in the sky
I never thought 
it'd fall
so quickly.

Some past loves
are loved,
married
with warm beds

Others on the edge

And they called me crazy.

What must it be like 
to peak in your teens?
Young, handsome men?
What is it, then?

Strong, unwholesome
and on fire.

Playing with your lives
houses of cards
tenuous wires.

The spark, it dies.
What of it then?

Where are the hearts
of my young, handsome men?
Aged now, killed by conceit?

I kept the pictures
I keep you always
in my heart

I may not love you,
but your life has value.

The silence, it deafens
and I want to say something

but where are my muses?

Where are my muses?


--February 26, 2014


-------------------

   Discussing process: Very often with me, my first draft is the only draft. I woke up today with these first lines, the next few came in the car on my commute, and now, just now, writing -- it is the end of the night.  It's about 10:30pm.  Josh is already turned in, and I am going against my eternal intention of going to bed earlier.  
   It's actually a little easier to edit work on the keyboard, since you can delete and retype with the flick of a command.  I always write in pen, so you can pretty much always see what my previous choice of words and placement were on paper.
   This poem, as usual, is based on past and present personal events and goings-ons touching, or in the orbit of, my life.  If you're curious to know what's the what, I'll tell you.  Otherwise, here it is, plain as day.

Feb. 27, 2014 -- Discussing recording: I recorded this with Garageband on a Rock Band microphone in my bathroom since my cats were harassing me.  I know nothing about recording.  I'm thinking I should take cues from Chocolate Rain, since you can hear my breathing b/t some lines.  

The creator of Chocolate Rain, Tay Zonday

Change

I look outside
and want to be outside
on the cusp of
these days of change

The youth; their minds
the air-conditioning
the fresh air between
the fret of regret

I shall not miss
the vapidness
of days where dull talk
and selfishness
abound

Yet, I see the future
too, shall hold
the youth; their minds
not yet in their prime

Me, too, 
and yet, 

I wish to know myself
and not forget.

The fresh air is here
that took my breath there

Where friends were made
and beauty held

A hand I had
in making so

And a hand I'll hold
in making so.

---------

DO you ever wish you wrote your thoughts down more often?  The tip of many a writer/creative thinker is to keep a notepad handy at all times and in all places, just in case a thought pops in your head, where ever you may be.  There is an interesting mention of this in an Interview magazine article on R. Kelly where he talks about keeping dictaphones all over his house(mansion) if a song/concept/melody strikes him.  That man may be freak/sexasaurus, but he's got a life made based on the creative whatevers that pop into his mind.

I'm a little nervous about yet another job change in my life, from the lovely and great outdoors, to back to the classroom.  The above is a first draft 30-second poem constructed and conceived as I looked out my sliding glass door past my deck and into the woods. [I actually did some 30-second editing on it, but I often find my first choice words are pretty right on.]