If I had only known,
I would have taken your face gently in my hands
And pulled you close to kiss you
In that very second when I came to understand
How I loved you.
The past, and the very late night, speaks volumes;
I must listen.
Category: poetry
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What I wish I knew
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Upon Reading Nabokov’s "An Invitation to a Beheading"
I know I know—
Yet there are these
Times when the imaginary
Characters seem to have complexities
Beyond their capabilities,
When the sky
Seems to have shades of meaning
Invisible to the ordinary eye.That other self says, I know I know—
It is the shadow that throws
My will to live against the wall
And watches it drip off like a smashed
Spider clinging to the web after death;
It is a puffed prison warden who says
To sit still and listen and that soon enoug
It will all be over, justice served.I must know this; I can feel the cold breath—yet,
The lessons in the book say,
Stand up. Just simply stand up and
Leave.
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Feel alive
When clouds have slid into
Indistinguishable strands of silk as a veil
On the smile of the sunset,You will take a deep breath
Air will fill your nose, smell sweet,
Settle into your lungs with a sigh.Feel alive then.
The sand is between your toes and there is
A gentle rockabye song
Playing over your mind; one wave, two wave.
Crash softly, pull back out to the expanse of ocean,
Crash softly.You will breathe out
Knowing one day this too shall pass. This too shall
Belong simply to your children.
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Spontaneity
Let’s you and I
Glassy-eyed and beaming
Make our plans—
Move to Costa Rica
A small place on the beach
Hand in hand to stroll
And cook
And love.It seems so easy
As we chat
Under a big summer sky.
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Learning the Trade
My father cuts out newspaper articles
of interest
from politics to jazz poetry
and gives them to me.They pass from his olive-skinned hands
to mine pale.
They end up crumpled in my car,
under my bed,
on the coffee table underneath the stone coasters.
Although he only sees me roll my eyes,
I take each one and,
with the patience of a skilled craftsman, I read.
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white-out conditions and memories
There are white-out conditions outside my window! Heavy gusts of snow so that I can barely see the townhomes across the street (with their classic Baltimore marble stoops now completely buried again). Not much to do but remember the past. As you will grow to notice, I have many “RIP” poems. It seems I’ve said goodbye to many; some might say too many for a person my age. But no one gets to choose. I just try to write my memories so I have them for later (perhaps sunnier) days.To Shawn:
When you were riding,
You could feel the day’s warmth
Easing into the night sky
Dissipating like a quick sigh of resignation.Dust to dust.You sped down the highway,
The smells of the road and Maria’s pizza
And the summer’s last cut grass
On the wind in your face.Ash to ash.In the headlights you saw it all and
Then the realization:
A lifetime’s worth of dreams and thoughts
And love
Shattered into a thousand colorful pieces
On the asphalt.(9/20/07 RIP Weasel)
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Remembering Spring Break 2002
South of the Border coffee
during the bleary night time morning, we
lost a bumper along 95
and sped our way like fast and furious
rebel riders. We were,
with walkie talkies, heading
to spring break.Salty breezes
and some fat keyboardist with
fuzzy beard peppered gray
singing political satire and no one cared.
Dane, you, and I were
sitting sipping ritas in sloppy golden
honey sunshine famous in Key West.Cool night, we
drank grain alcohol from odd angles
for prized smiles of being cool amongst
all our shiny beaded friends.
Your naked moments won us
a free frozen drink koozie
and jet ski ride we never took.Long hours after the karaoke,
you and Sush found a credit card and brought home cold waffles at 5 am.
I sat in the trailer writing frantically, high on caffeine pills and palm tree fingers:the blurry street lines, the charcoal miles, the hot rum, the mac and cheese, the seafood buffet, the southern girls, the scooter scars, the trailer smell, the Chicago gospel, the Hemingway cats, the frantic hunger, the ephemeral buzz….
Your car gasped for air when the week ended but there was none;
we were overheated, belly-up fish in Miami rush hour.Sunburn behind and
and dark interstate miles ahead,
we sat on the dented hood.
Our sweaty hungry friends
waving at prudish traffic
a “honk if you’re horny” sign,
reminiscing and waiting to move on.(r.i.p. Sekula 2003)
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Sip n Bite
While I should be job searching, instead I’ve been reading back through a lot of my old writing. It is an interesting journey. Almost like reading someone else’s diary (were those really my words? did I dream those things or live them or a combination of the two?). For those who don’t know me, I used to be a bit of a “night crawler” … Late nights live music drinks friends who also couldn’t sleep like me… There are many under this category. Here is just one, more to come.
Sip n Bite
Florescent haze on our
two booths with an aisle between
the seats dressed in
that scrappy orange color
famous in diners at 3am.You breeze
through the door and effortless
slide into the booth across
from our crowded one,
and instantly the waitress
with the long dark ponytail
and chocolate brown sweat suit
divines that you want coffee.What else
does she know? Does she know
I want to sit over
next to you
and stroke the tan corduroy covering
your legs?Seems not.
She is dealing with the drunks at the
counter, one a dirty-minded man
in a sweater of wine, whispering
in a public voice
his intentions for her.Eggs arrive that match
the florescent pale that has seeped
into my eyes and hair.We nibble on our separate islands
and reminisce the night across the
sullen pale tiles. Our words
make sense in this insipid lighting, at this
domestic breakfast
Rockwell would have understood
had he enjoyed Fells Point as much
as us.Leaned back, full, I see you freely gaze
at my collarbone in the comfort of your sunglasses.
It sends a shudder
racing through the blues of my veins.
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Sweetness
Sweetness
I’ll wait for you while
The seasons do their
Yearly dance
From one color to the next,I’ll wait through
A loss of leaves
A loss of tight young skin.I’ll wait for you
As long as your phantom
Hand holds mine.
As long as that endless ocean
Waves back.
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looking back (political)
I have so many poems already written (Try over 100!). Some stretch back as far as college (that first exciting writing class sophomore year!). I wish they were already posted. But, I have to be patient… here are two political ones. More to come today. I’m feeling motivated. [First one: Spoils. Second: Saddam Hussein]
Spoils:
We photographed ourselves
around the naked prisoners in Abu Ghraib
with thumbs up.As we’re told, all is fair
and it felt so good to indulge. We were all smiling.Then in a dream voices spoke
of what we are told not to speak.
I was told by some
that the casualties of war are
other people’s brats
who are expendable
and born to be.
Told by others
that the casualties of war are
decent folks who become
beasts with red eyes
and calculating cold fists.
I was told by the Ministry of Truth that
there are no casualties in a war
that results in victory and peace.Then we woke up.
We nod our heads yes
to the talking heads mouthing
our shock and dismay of mistreatment on film.
How unfortunate that a few bad apples
went and spoiled the bag.
We do apologize for them.But history will prove us right, despite the setbacks.
We will write how we liberated the shiny gold road of freedom
in such a god forsaken desert. We will write how we
selflessly gave the spoils to the poor people
like a patriotic Robin Hood. It is all so simple.We will devour the photographs with our smiling white teeth.
We will wipe our mouth with a napkin of self-righteousness.Saddam Hussein
They got him.
He was wallowing in a hole,
a spider hole,
six feet by eight feet,
and the walls were dusty and steep.Doesn’t it seem strange,
to find him there, trapped as a rat.
A murderer taken with
no shots fired;
he acquiesced and was pulled into enemy arms.The shots and shouts of those freed
alerted tentative neighbors
something in the desert was gone,
something was different today than before.Those restless souls, those tortured and in pain,
those paranoid, scared,
starving and hot,
thirsty souls might get a chance after all
to feel a rain, so unimaginable.They got him
he was living in a spider grave,
bearded and tired,
he did not flinch when the enemy
examined him.
He was in good physical shape despite the humiliation.Years before in Vietnam,
those Vietcong waited in spider holes despite
the venom bites.
They waited to kill.
They knew battles might be lost,
but that war rages on.He looks like a tired defeated old man.
He looks happily forward to his genocide trial,
his place in history,
his name, his glory—
see his bearded face on TV.Will tired ghosts finally sleep? Will revolution mean change?
Can spiders in hiding ever disavow his name?
He imagines the back page headline: a car explodes in the desert.
War rages on.
Poetry by JC Snyder 