Tag: writer

You Are a Meal

On By HannahIn poem1 Comment

All I have to do is look
At your eyes, and I know
I know which way the wind blows
On Agua Fría at 2 am
I know which way the blood flows
When I come to at 9 pm
I know why I came this way
Through a longitude of suffering
Latitude of brokenness
Like an earth caving in to entropy

All I have to do is look
At your eyes, and I know.
I know that you are a meal
That feeds me, you, a healing
of multiple destinies at once.
I know that I am free
As a woman, free to be
Spectacular.
I know that true love is more than not nice
It is the deadly bullseye of Cupid’s bow
It is the impact that doesn’t come twice
But once. Thank god.
I know that time is a mountain blessing:
A testament in patience and
Reckless fear. A dusting of dreams
And eyeballs. An allergy to stopping
And suicidal footprints on the climb up.

All I have to do is look
At your eyes, and I know.
I know my demise into your arms
At the end of my days
Surrounded by children
Ours, ours, ours, Forever.

I know that I want to survive
The seeping seasons to come
The ooze out of summer into fall
Blending from self to everything
Golden. I know that golden is a feeling,
Not just a color, a way to paint.
Remember that first drive in the sun
After the fainting?
We were gods born from a miracle,
Gasping for air through gritted teeth.
We were cupped in the womb’s hand waiting
for a washing, a cleansing of vices
and untethered joy.

All I have to do is look
At your eyes, and I know.

In The Book of Memories

On By HannahIn photo, poemLeave a comment

We are still children
attempting to raise the next generation;
pyramids of hope from the bottom up.

We think we progress like keys
on a piano, up to the faintest
pitch of heaven,
but the truth is we fall down
the scale so many times.

Rock bottom is nowhere and everywhere
at once.
The ending of a song,
the beginning of a life.

Getting up is hearing the pianist say,
“she is in the book of memories”
reaffirming the thought that we are
stories walking on stilts.

Two days later,
you’ll think it was a dream,
remembering he said all of it
was an illusion.

Vincent Van Gogh said,
I dream the painting, then I paint
the dream.

Entering and departing
with the screech of a Greyhound bus;
the chimes of hypnosis.
I’ve got the mosquito bites
from the river
and the notes to prove it.

My Friend, The Pianist

On By HannahIn poemLeave a comment

For Michael Caldwell

 

I want him
to pull out
every song
in his repertoire,
Beethoven, Mozart,
Rachmaninoff, Chopin,
the music nobody
can perfectly pin down,
untwine the notes
from his fingers,
unleash his aging body,
take the fear
and the almost-fear,
and the love,
especially the love,
and then
and then
play them
on his piano
and see how
they sing
and his heart jumps!

 

Inspired by a slightly more solemn poem, My Friend’s Divorce, by Naomi Shihab Nye.

 

 

Life is Many Things Hannah Lyles

Lifesource

On By HannahIn poemLeave a comment

I am moss clinging onto
pages of books, sucking air:
the wisdom of others is my friend.

Fertile green, slippery rock,
wet with love. Have you ever

loved a book so much
it became your being, and
the stories became yours?

You dream rainstorms
and you wake up twice
as long, full and hungry
for soil.

The Question Box

On By HannahIn poemLeave a comment

 

I, distracted

from my own unraveling,

was afraid you’d come undone with me.

I watched my own heart disintegrating

into pixels on the screen of a game.

Two-dimensional play:

You can go back but never past

the beginning where you still had

full health; a life to spare on love.

Or, forward

where there’s always an ending in sight,

the drop-off into the next level.

 

What’s in the in-between?

They say the magic happens here,

in the mess of day two,

when the monsters come out to eat.

With each step, I lost a little more

of me and you.

But, isn’t it funny that with the undoing

comes clarity, while the fabric hangs

looser and looser?

Falling apart and liberation

are two sides of the same coin.

 

 

So, I’m building a new house

with bricks found on the roadside;

the same pieces that nearly killed me

as they fell from the sky.

With my pen, I draw the outlines

of windows, the blueprints for forgiveness.

Inside, you’re a phone call away.

Inside, the blood flows a little easier;

the ink forms symbols of hope in space.

 

——————————————-

Featured image credit: Ray Che (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rayche1989/5203972988)

(Anxiety is) Just a Block Away

On By HannahIn poem2 Comments

Whenever I feel my feet walking in the direction of despair,

I stare at the ground, desperately looking for a dropped coin

in hiding. Some days, it takes longer to find something shiny.

Other days, I look up to see if there is anything

resembling God, like a heron flying,

a servant to the tides and the king of the lakeshore.

It flies with a grace I’ll never have.

My flying is poetry. The words

put together this way and that way, mirroring

the soaring wings moving with the whims of the wind.

 

That’s me on a good day.

 

Sometimes there is nothing but broken glass and empty wrappers

that used to hold something sweet; just grey cement.

But, finally, between the cracks, there’s moving brown:

a small lizard with a throat bigger than mine.

Poetry is my red-throated neck. It saves me

from the tumble, the voice that says “you’re not enough”.

The words sag and stick on the walls of my head;

a big,

choking piece

of food that won’t go down.

 

But somehow, by looking around, gravity is relearned.

I fall but—

the ground of the page catches me again.

Give me a few days and my faith will waver.

Give me a few lie-ins and I’ll never wake up.

But, for now, my feet find a way that’s not a block away.