Alan, when I should have been crying about you,
I wasn’t. It was suddenly my grandmother’s funeral—
The church looked the same, that one hymn… oh I wept.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t feel the sadness of your death, Alan.
You were young and cheated. It was just
That all I heard and felt reminded me of her death.
All that surrounded me, suddenly,
Shuddered and quaked in my bones so that a flood—
Him, her, them— all those dead and gone came over me.
In that instant, I saw my friends, family,
at my funeral, and I witnessed them weeping. I realized they too
May be crying for someone else.
Category: poem
-
Twenty-six
Pen on paper. Sometimes I curse learning
those 26, curse that pen on paper.
If you say I’m a writer, I’ll slap you.
Just smelling that pen on paper
makes me queasy, makes my hands shake.
Don’t trust anyone claiming to write original.
Blame the alphabet, blame the ego that
all us opposable thumbs possess, just
don’t trust words on paper.
The narrator lies. The pen knows only one path.
It’s all been done before; there are only so many
combinations possible.
-
Upon Reading Annapurna
For some reason, I can’t stop reading Himalayan books, adventurous accounts of men and women who have conquered the highest highs on this planet. I needed to jot this down now~ hoping it will lead to a more full-fledged poem. let me know your thoughts!
Upon Reading Annapurna
somehow the ocean child in me
has been consumed by mountains
striking blue glacier passes
towering ice faces
impossible crevasses and
threats of avalanche
Annapurna, a beauty I’ll never know,
doesn’t whisper or whimper
Annapurna roars her mind’s will
imposes all in her frosted shadow
captures us blasphemous ocean fools
and lifts our flat horizon
straight up to the moon.
-
life just is
We’ve all but forgotten the heartache
jon
cause life just is–
the days dwindle from when I spent
warm evenings with you,
the weeks slip and slide
and before long
I won’t have a good clear picture
of your face
only a haze from something that was
so overwhelming once
to see our best friends carry
that heavy casket
to see only pictures lining the room
to have the unspoken
hanging heavy fear that
we won’t remember you
jon,
I still have your photo on my desk
our triumphant return from the Keys
in your broken car
I remember your eyebrow raise
your voice laughing
“shut up jody”
-
Man, City, Sky
a similar feeling
of sky darkening and quickening breathoutside clouds gather and puff their chests
as if to say with a roar
I am here
outside the smell of rain perfumes my lungs
and soon thunder drives
dangerously closetires grip the Jones Falls
that last turn
underpass by Penn Station and
the sculpture of woman and man as onethe feeling you get
right after the city skyline opens
and there skin prickles, shivers
waits
a storm a man
a city that boasts many
dangerous charms.
-
Vegas Tattoo Blues
Admittedly, this one is a tad* dark (written several years ago, revised today) but I imagine some of you who’ve have spent too much time thinking in Vegas like I have may understand the concept….
Vegas Tattoo Blues
Brown carpet is a
worn threadbare path
rough against my arches.False air blows brown curtains
cooly, such a drag.My hands so slim and tender
are steady.Despite the night,
that mascara running, fishnet talking,
suited pusher, blinking neon,
jackpot empty promise of a night.
It stings.Pills help, booze too
but nothing compares to this.My eyes bead with water
like the rows of cars on
Las Vegas Boulevard, every
solitary mark belongs.I gaze out the window.
Casinos blink approval
and bloat their bellies full
of quarters.
Poetry by JC Snyder 