Tag Archives: Poetry

JustRachel

Empty words – a poem

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“What does it mean?” He asked.

“I don’t know” I replied

I just liked how it sounded

Liked how the words tasted

Liked how they rolled off my tongue when I spoke them sweet and soft.

“Does it matter what it means?” I asked

“I suppose it doesn’t,” he answered “since I’m the only one who cares.”

– RM

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Reflection

My best friend sends me poems. For a while, he sent one every day, two if he was going through it, three if s*** really hit the fan. In the last month or two, the consistency has slowed. It ebbs and flows with his free time and creative energy, but this week I’ve gotten more poems than there are days.

See, my friend lives in Rhode Island. He works in higher education—not at Brown University, but in a state that small, that kind of violence and fear ripples out—it’s felt everywhere. In New England, there’s a “if you go after one of us, you go after all of us” kind of mentality. Anyway, working in higher ed, my friend is no stranger to the impacts of this kind of violence because it is so common now that many students in college today are likely to have already experienced or been impacted by one school shooting before getting to college.

I think for a lot of us, it’s easier now than it should be—easier than it ever was—to get desensitized to it all. To get complacent. Passive. The commonness and the screaming into the void makes it feel like there’s nothing we can do. But this week my friend has been capital “A” Angry—as he should be. As we all should be, every time this happens, until and even after it stops happening.

The poem above isn’t one of my friends, it’s mine. I wrote it after being inspired by his anger. Inspired by the fire he has. Inspired by the inaction of lawmakers, the dead end prayers of onlookers and Facebook commenters.

The poem above calls out the fact that all the talking some people do has little more meaning than the impressions they are trying to solicit. The facade they are keeping up to maintain popularity in the court of public opinion.

I wrote this poem because if what we say is without action, if what we say is not backed by our beliefs and or desire to change the things that hurt us most, our words are empty. And if our words are empty, what’s the point…

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.,” – the Lorax

The poem in this piece has also been shared by the author on her personal social media.

JustRachel

The in-human condition

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(a 15-minute writing practice)

The in-human condition

Tired of this
Tired of screaming for help
For truth
For clarity
Tired of screaming into the void

I’m so conditioned,
so used to being screamed at,
that—
when you speak calmly,
it feels like I’m being spoken down to.

So in response, I—scream at you.
I at you
You—who is trying to help
You—who is trying to survive too
You—who is trying…
to hear truth
and see clarity.

just like me.

I at you
—I’M SORRY.

But don’t tell me that’s okay,
Don’t tell me that it’s normal—
that you’re just being cordial,
don’t validate my torment with soft sentences or gentle parenting.
Because I don’t need that.

Me to you—
I DONT NEED THAT.

I NEED…

I need the noise.
I need the screaming

I need the void
I need… normal?…but what is?…

Loud is normal
Violence is normal
Screaming is normal
Torment, torture, treachery is…
Normal

The world I’m living in has become normal—
But it shouldn’t be
IT SHOULDNT BE
And so changing that—
has to start with me.

I to me
Deciding how long it takes until
Me flip to the W — WE —
WE DECIDE
To stop tolerating normal
And stop enabling and start fighting
This in-human condition.

Kevin at a Desk

For the Decade

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Years, months, days
Hours, minutes, seconds  
 The years have come and gone
 People have done the same
 Become dust to dust
 A bittersweet taste in the air
But what can i say?
What would I give for the rewind button?
 Would I want to live through the teenage wasteland?
 What about the wonder years, decadent daydreaming at my desks? 
The kid has grown up but doesn't want to be lost within the world of man.
 I can not say I got here alone
 Arm and arms locked 
 Men gone and done, hidden in the clock
 I set you down, lay to rest
 For years are to come, it’s for the best.  
Now i sit and watch the clocks, waiting for a regeneration.
The regeneration i have felt before
although this one feels different,
i can feel the butterflies in my gut
i guess things will be new this time.
So before i go,
For the decade I say to you
 Goodbye, farewell, amen
 Good riddance, get out!, good bye
 For the decade I say cheers, but you need to pay the tab. 
Kevin at a Desk

Going Home

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I went home to where it all began

Where i grew up, once nothing more than a kid

Once belonged with a group of kids who accidentally became adults

The joys of growing old and sadness of changes in the wind

We saw the plans for the walls to change over time and wanted to believe they build a gate to let us in

Yet i have come home and everything has changed, the locks are different and the lights are on

The people no longer welcome me to their tables

Conversations seem like i am trying to keep them hostage

No longer am i a made man, no longer a person but a feral animal

i am a legend of the halls, a bronze statue of not so long ago

Sometimes when i see those who i have raised, they raze me

Thrown away like the newspaper but hey, at least i get to go in the recycle .

This home no longer feels like it was ever mine, only a pocket full of time and memories that seem to have slipped through a hole in my jeans

As i leave i can hear the gates closing before i am even out of range

Guess coming home was my going away party

Too bad i never got the invite in the mail

Kevin at a Desk

New Year

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For once again, the clock tolls.

12, midnight, the beginning, the end.

I sit in the remaining confetti, once again alone.

To me, it all has lost its vibrant demeanor

Another Year, Another time where everyone begins again.

It’s as if they shed their skin of the year, they regenerate themselves, then given a new look that feels old.

Yet i am left here in my war torn vessel, with all the scars from the year.

I regenerate last out of everyone, I never understand why.

Maybe, i just don’t want to go, or maybe i am not ready yet.

In some of the years, i think it is a gift, to enjoy who i was for a little while longer.

Yet i am jealous none-the-less

all i ask is that i shake these scars,

the ones that fade in through the regeneration

the ones i regret and the ones that still burn.

This year will be no different,

they sleep, i stay awake

they change, im delayed

but maybe this is they year i live with minimal scars and i regenerate quicker next time.

or maybe ill lay here wide awake again pondering what could have been.

 

it doesnt matter

the new and the old, the beginnings, the ends

shall be turned upside down again in father time’s sands

and it will begin all again.

 

 

 

Kevin at a Desk

To the Forgotten

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To the people who we have forgotten in time

The men and women of this world who once made a mark,

yet their light has become noting more than a broken bulb.

The deeds they have done, both the good and the evil.

None exist to the daily eye; none remembered, just a ghost of a memory.

These ghosts were remembered once

Remembered for what they did, what they once were

Now only oxidized bronze know their names.

 

Ever since i was a child i have felt sorry for these people,

but what i realize is that it is a list that has not ceased 

growing with the times.

The only difference is, now i know those names, those faces

Yet everyone around me shows the signs of letting them go.

We say we shall always remember but what happens when hey forget?

Another nail in the coffin, another death?

 

So take this time, this moment of the hour

To look at the closest street sign with the golden names

The yearbooks with the dusty devotions to the departed

The cookie cutter stones with a face carved in words

The memories that maketh man

Admire their dreams even if they are never to come true

For one day you shall join the forgotten as will i

but that does not mean the end, it just means we have done all we can

 

So, cheers to the forgotten

I hope one day someone rediscovers you,

just i as would want for my own Self. 

 

 

 

 

Kevin at a Desk

I am the Traveler

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Lost man’s journey or true adventures wonder.

what i cant find is what i cant see

Blind man, sour man, gone man.

 

I am the Traveler

The one who does not stay in one place,

who stays without a trace

yet longs for a home.

He does not stay for long like a paper cut in between fingers.

Stings but not for long.

Why cant he stand to stay?

 

Is it the people?

He knows once the journey resumes, they forget him

Some don’t but who writes to a man on the road?

 

Is it the places?

With such exotic beauty and diversity decay

He does not like to become a statue in such a state.

Not left to stain the ways of where he is when he could be away.

 

What is it then?

 

I am the traveler,

I move because i don’t want to be entombed,

by the people and their places.

I hate to be the stain that can not be cleaned. 

I wish to tend to my fires and have them come to me.

Its pure that way.

I give them my knowledge, in return they nurture me, feed me nourishment

So that i may travel wider and further 

To build fires for others to gather around, to kindle stories 

mountains nature sky night
Photo by Josh Willink on Pexels.com

 

I became the traveler, 

to ease the minds

calm the hearts

and to carry on.

 

I am the traveler, for the love of the journey.

 

 

 

 

 

Just Post Grad Things, JustRachel

How to Chase the Future (a slam poem)

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each day my phone reminds me where I was a year ago.

I reminisce –

thinking I was smarter, nicer, prettier, younger “then” –

and for a minute I stop to share these memories.

with myself, my followers, my phone.

and I turn them- my memories – into something of  a show

something to brag and boast about

something and someone I used to be

someone who is now history,

someone who is… dead

dead.

I am not jealous of the dead.

I am not jealous of the lost.

the ones who are stuck in the memories.

the ones who we strive to be better for – because the fact remains that we –

were not good enough “then”

I think about the word “then” like a railroad crossing

the light doesn’t have to blink for me to slow down – I just do it automatically

“then” is like him

it is a one-word memory

it is triggering

it is a shotgun – no ammo – all recoil

it is – lost loves

and past lives

because you can’t hear the word “then” and not think of a memory

so we generalize it.

“then”

a time when freedom meant something to them

“them”

someone other than ourselves

“them”

an enemy labeled he, she, them

labeled

“him”

a friend, a lover, a parent

“her”

the same

“them”

someone we often forget because they were only on our minds back “then”

“then”

you see “then” is a shotgun

no ammo

all recoil

then is the trigger waiting to be pulled

“then”

I don’t envy who I was

but as long as I am stuck looking at “then”

racing toward the past as though I was chasing the future

as long as I am stuck remembering “then”

have I even changed at all?

 

 

Kevin at a Desk

Golden Days

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For these golden days, in old fashion

The winds are blowing again

It’s rattling the leaves, shaking them free of their rooted shackles

Falling ever so graciously to the frosted ground that will soon be frozen in time.

They lay there and are sentenced to the end.

As a child i have always wondered why the colors were so vibrant

Such a True Red always caught my eye and never let me look away,

Never letting me go through

Now that the cycle begins again,

The beauty of looking into the day with colors so vibrant makes a work life dole bearable.

The world is windy now a days, gone is the satisfying breeze.

The days are full of cold rain delays and phases of haze

The colors are not vibrant today

I can not see my reds, golds, and the rare orange.

But i still hold out hope to see the winds change sooner than never

I hear others are starting to notice they can’t see the leaves now

I wonder if they ever saw them as i did, or is this their first time noticing their faceless beauty?

The other day i noticed something,

A warmer breeze rushed over the land, clearing the haze

I was taken aback from this and started to shout to the others to come see,

but they said it was too cold and the haze was not gone

I sense the winds are changing, i have seen it coming 

Seems like warmer breezes lay upon the horizon for some

while others shall need a jacket.

Kevin at a Desk

Up in Smoke

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In too many drinks, deeper and deeper i tread

The room becomes pressurized with the flow of alcohol fueled, anxiety driven young people.

I cant stand the choking, the haze that i am in

I push my way out of the crowd as if hiding in plain sight

That wasn’t my scene,  no director was telling me to restart that one.

As i walk towards the dimly lit bench hidden by a hill

I open up my package of cigarettes,

Flick open the old lighter that my grandfather gave me

The one that saw so many tragedies

It has a scar that runs from the top of the lighter all the way down its spine

You need to turn the flint a couple of times for it to light

A lights so warm you forget of the troubles

I guess it takes after its owners.

The tobacco touches the tip of the torch,

And the crackle of the chemicals cringes my lungs

but its how i breath,

its how i fly

I know this is how i end up in the ground unannounced

But the smoke clears my mind, relieves what i can not hold in

Maybe in a cloud of uncertainty, 

With the booze bringing in the nightmares

i am just trying to smoke them out.

 

 

 

Kevin at a Desk

I wish I Had Known

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If I had known what was going wrong,

I would have been there

 

If I had seen what you were feeling,

the winds around would have spun me a tornado strong enough to save you

and I would have taken a whole barn out of its place to find you, comfort you.

 

These days I am more angry than sad

No longer able to stand knowing what happens to good people.

But Of course, I am late to the funeral, And it seems to be a trend.

And God! it burns a hole in my head!

Because I would have done something, anything,

If only

And I wish I knew how you are feeling, even though I’ll never comprehend it

And I wish I knew what goes on in your thoughts when the darkness seeps neath closed doors and windows,

And even if you do not want it –

I will try to hold a candle out for you to take. To burn away what hate hath break –

 

You see

When the time comes I just hope someone can hold me back

And tie me up in the thickest of chains,

For if this ever happens to someone I care about, I will hunt them till the ends of the earth

 

And you may pray that an Earthly force will hold me back.

But Even I doubt that.

 

Now I can take some sort of stand to amend for my sins

Even though they do not stain my own soul.

 

 

May God have my back,

May you have my reason

May I never again not know 

How you are Doing.

 

 

 

Just Post Grad Things, JustRachel

If her Voice was a Song

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If her voice was a song

Would your feet stand still?

or would your ears retreat in such a way that your legs could follow?

 

If her voice was a song

Would your vocal chords halt

and your mouth stay shut

to hear what she has to say?

 

If her voice was a song

would you forget the notes she wears on her skin

or would you pause for a moment and

appreciate the lines and layers of a woman

who knows how far she has been

 

If you met a woman

who’s voice was a song

who could breathe notes from thin or thick air

would you stop and linger there with her for a moment

 

if you met a woman whose voice was a song

would you listen

or would you be a coward

and run
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