David Jackson

I Turned the Wheel, a Poem by David Michael Jackson

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I Turned the wheel

I guess I never knew how
and maybe I didn’t do so well
at pleasing you
or being good when
I should have been good
for you
I guess I never knew how
and maybe I didn’t do so well

but I tried
I tried
I tried

I turned the wheel
I turned the wheel

I held the door when I could
I held your hand to remember

yes I tried
I tried
I tried

and when the wind runs in the trees
the trees say I love you
and when the rivers run to the sea
we’ll be there
we’ll be there

I guess I never knew how
and maybe I didn’t do so well
at showing you how I feel.

I turned the wheel
I turned the wheel

I held the door when I could
I held your hand to remember.

The ocean waves end at the shore
with the sounds of our love
and when the wind runs in the trees
the trees say I love you
and when the rivers run to the sea
we’ll be there
we’ll be there
we’ll be there

God’s World Poem, A What if Poem

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gods-world-what-if-poem

God’s World Poem,  A What if Poem

God’s world would be non temporal.
All time would be available to review.
The purpose of the universe
would be to create temporal
art, music, writings and events
which could only happen within
the chains of time and death,
of perceived irrelevance.
It is only from the perception
that the work will
eventually turn to dust,
that great art is made.
Maybe there is a place where
the Mona Lisa did turn to dust
but you could go visit her
when she did exist.
If that were true
then you’d rejoice that you
had a chance to create
temporal
art, music, writings and events
that lasted
forever.
The rub is that the things you did
that were bad
would be there
forever as well,
your personalized heaven and hell.
A marvelous place.
I bet there was once some wonderful art at Alpha Centauri

Eyes | Poem by Janet Kuypers

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eyes-poem

eyes

Janet Kuypers
started 4/4/15, finished 4/6/15

Growing up,
boys didn’t like me,
kids made fun of me.

I was raised to think
that I was a plain girl,
easily overlooked.

I’d look at my eyes,
the same eyes my dad
thought made me

always look sad,
and wanted to think
that the song

“Brown Eyed Girl”
could have been
about me.

How silly of me.

I should know better.

And maybe that is why

I’ve always loved
blue eyes.
Eyes not like mine.

#

The eye is a fascinating thing,
it’s beautiful to study,
especially yours…

If I were a biologist,
I’d take high-res photos
of that eye of yours,

maybe magnify it as large
as I could, so I could study it
like a slide under a microscope.

I would search for meaning
in those mesmerizing patches
and shades of that unique blue.

#

They say science
can explain all,
so maybe it can explain

why I’m so in love
with your eyes, or why
I’m so in love with you.

#

Eyes are our windows
to the outside world, but
they’re also portals inward,

giving us mere mortals
fleeting glimpses
to who you are inside.

I think our colored irises
floating on an ocean of white,
punctuated with a pupil

were designed that way
so we could follow
each other’s gazes closely.

I’m watching you.

You probably see that.

I hope you’ll watch me too.

Because scientists
have studied the crypts,
pigment dots and furrows

of the eye, and scientists
are now figuring out
that the eye really is

the window to the soul.

So, maybe I was
on the right track

by loving your eyes,
and never wanting
to lose sight of them again.

Eyes © 2016. First published at Scars.tv  Eyes Poem
 

Kellogg Idaho | Poem by Alvin Knox

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kellog_idaho_poem

Kellogg, Idaho

The banks of Lead Creek are lichen green, rocky
under the concrete Division Street bridge. The laundromat
is closed. It’s the day after the county rodeo, 1966:
the day after the football toss, the three-legged race,
the greased pig scramble (my cousin actually caught one
once, and it lived collared and staked in their front yard
until one day it disappeared, like the boys who go
to Vietnam). A train, a hundred and seven cars long,
rolls slowly through town, wheels squealing like a binding saw.
The turn of the century will never come here. JFK is here.
He sits at the soda fountain in the five-and-dime, sipping
coffee with Thomas Jefferson. Martin Luther King, Jr. is not here.
There are no black people here. The people here look more
like the cast of The Milagro Beanfield War, rough and simple
and quiet, like the smelter smoke, its metallic ting ringing in your mouth
like an alarm clock. You wake to it most mornings. But now it’s
noon and the sky is lichen green, the hills dusty with only
the white-painted tires in the shape of a big K to break the steep slope.
Osbourne, the next town up the valley, has a big O.

 

 

Share image from Silver Valley Stories

Protest Song | Poem by Alvin Knox

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protest-song-poem

Protest Song

There’s something wrong here. Why
are so many people hiding behind their banners and signs?
Why, in their swirling colors, has the red of passion
become the red of danger, the orange become fire?
Even the yellow and green are confused with black.
And the sky all black, all black upon a gray block
swept with shadows. Something is wrong
here: the jaundiced arms, the hollow eyes, the mouths
open wide in screamed profanities that swallow
the lips where whispers and kisses have died.