The uncageable bird no longer flies free,
chains of ‘real life’ crossing across her
broad tail-feathers and beautiful wings.
The world heard her roar,
or enough people to make it a shared
beautiful
and otherworldly case of loving and losing,
but never thinking about the losing for long.
I still don’t know what love means –
the thoughts dance on my sweating, red face –
and I’m not sure I ever will.
Time flies –
a bird freed and straight and endless –
whether you’re having fun
or not.
Less are made each year,
but I'm still making
young mistakes.
The fires of passion burn me
just as they ignite my life
and I am left as charred remains,
no phoenix rising.
Pretty new hair molded
into what has been fashionable
but is never guaranteed to remain so
a symptom to an illness known as modernity.
The words are slow and heavy now,
caked on mud and dried out dirt,
reminding me of the pain of failures
and times when words shot like lightning
torching our midnight skies
and stinging maladjusted eyes.
At first we shone as the birth of fire
to the primitive women and men,
now dimished to flourescent lights
to the weary school boys and girls.
What once was intense wonder,
now a history of young mistakes;
such a fascinating bed to lie in.
The fear set in as it always did
A slow, trodding march of remembered feelings
and ghosts of the past.
What was left here waiting for me,
and what was worth wanting?
I had spent the weeks inhaling you and
I was beginning to forget where I began
and ended,
and was that not what we all wanted?
We took turns melting pieces of ourselves,
bones and souls,
until we were more than before.
Emergence came and so did we,
we were delivered
and awake
and new.
The fear arrived just long enough to be
swallowed by the love.
I remember the enemy,
Even though its been many months.
There was no counting sheep
Or melatonin solution strong enough
To push aside this demon.
I had forgotten the late nights packed full of
Nothing.
The return felt like a well-worn glove,
Warm, and snug as it stretched onto smooth hands,
Never worse for wear despite missing sleep.
How did I best you before and
How can I defeat you now?
Time tells all stories,
Even when it slows to its post-midnight crawl.
Wide-eyed and finished I
Await another long dawn.
Seconds scrub our life away like
waves scraping down the coast
or rain dragging away the earth.
We watched time eat our clasped hands,
falling away one fragment of skin after another
and never said a word about it.
We felt the approaching wall coming
but could not seem to put it into words;
the beauty of an ageless love had become
the tragedy of the leaves,
aged, dying and passionless.
I watched the purple clouds barrel over
The outlying hills that crowned St. John’s
And knew at least hundred
Maybe thousands
Of others were watching too.
The sky was something we had in common,
every soul on the Earth,
We could always look above at it for direction
Even if we didn’t believe in the omnipotent.
The sky was something special on the coast
Because we watched it tears clouds out of the sky
Like steroid-crazed bouncers making impressions
On too-young, too-drunk or too-stupid girls, and the wind impressed us all the same way.
I stared into it.
I saw the white stars
Fuzzy at their distant edges,
Wet streets and dark-grey sidewalks
And the damp grass starving in the darkness
With snow peppering the fields.
The wind shook the foundations of the world
And we felt everything teetering around us without
Feeling the effects of being on a rock hurtling through space.
We pay attention to the details
Without understanding the big picture,
we complain about the dollars spent on gas
But barely notice the air getting thicker and worse.
I notice how the moonlight plays in your hair,
Hinting at your angelic nature,
But won’t put together the obvious.
One poem and then silence.
Is this how Hemingway felt near the end?
The words all ran away and he was left
lonely
impotent,
finally defeated.
What is a writer who can not write?
Nobody.
The words have a way of hiding when you need them,
and only coming around when the sun is up,
or maybe life works differently and
the words only leave when you’re finished
and ready to end it all.
A writer is nothing special,
like a doctor, a lawyer,
a singer,
an actress,
everybody is a nobody and we inflate them
to somebody they could never live up to.
The wordsmith breathes a final breath
just as the welder or mechanic does.
It’s the little smiles that feel best,
Exchanged between strangers,
That remind me that I meant something once
And someone wants me to mean something again.
I’m not ready to mean something,
The big nobody,
Nothing,
But my heart is warming up.
Everything else follows the heart for me,
And the little smiles from beautiful people
And touches from lovely women
Whether its the hugs of friends,
The kisses of something more
Or just the presence of others,
It all means something good
And real.
Do you remember me on my game,
The almost-smug grin that plays at the corners of my lips?
you will.
I died in my dream a few nights ago,
Was resurrected without purpose
Just like the first time through this ride.
They say you never die in dreams,
but that’s a lie and everyone knows it
And its said drams only last fifteen seconds
But I woke up with a headache from crying
And having to tell my dream mother how I had died
Inside of my dreams while I cried so long
In real life
That I woke up with a headache,
So I that’s false to.
Maybe they don’t know much of anything
About dreams
Or loss
Or misery
And all the DSM’s in the world
And every little comment is just guess work,
Nominalist guesswork at best,
And they can’t tell you a fucking thing about
Your heart
Your mind
Or love.
Andy Veilleux 