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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
I cross a river of sticks-
frozen, the fallen brothers
of the War of the Seasons.
Snotty dew grasps at siena tips
in a crack between the planks of time
as the Gods cast white petals down
from some isle south of heaven.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
Yet never did he waver from the path he had chose
Lyla was his sun, his moon, and his desert rose
Not even the temptations he met throughout those years
Those sweet little whispers did fall on deaf ears
Not a friend from class who had too much to drink
Not the pretty sorority girl who told him not to think
Not even the beauty who desired him more than most
Could get Ryan Adams to abandon his mighty oaths
Oft they spent evenings studying late into the morn
Ryan ever cheering her when her heart was sad or worn
Thankful she was but love was not on her mind
Yet she could not tell him for she was too kind
His promise he fulfilled at every opportunity
His efforts ever resilient in the face of adversity
Until the time came when they would soon part
With graduation looming, my comrade bared his heart
With every shred of skill and guts he did possess
He painted a masterpiece of her in a summer dress
The colors swirling dangerous wild full of love and life
Made his mural of memories shine while rife
With gushing emotions and agony and love
Like a torrential downpour of passion from above
And so he appeared a right mess when he poured out
To the lovely Ms. Dawson how he felt without a doubt
Speechless and stunned was the subject of his art
Unsure of how to respond without harming his heart
She was a gentle woman with great capacity to care
But friendship was all she wished of the man standing there
Troubled and worried the young woman carefully spoke
Knowing all too well his heart would likely be broke
With baited breath and a face drenched with sweat
Ryan Adams heard his love say with much regret
“You are a good man of that I am sure.
But time I think will be the cure
For this love you feel, for I am not the one
To love you in return and be your sun.
Friends we will remain for always I assure you
You have been one of my best since I met you, it’s true
Who else would be so selfless to lend me aid
Whenever I need you for the mistakes I have made”
The angelic Lyla had been as kind as she could
But regardless of her words the effect would be no good
For Ryan Adams would crumble in the wake of devastation
Heart shattered into pieces at Lyla’s declaration
It was his turn to fall, without speaking, to the ground
Desiring a pool of tears in which to be drowned
She reached out to hold him but her touch singed his flesh
No longer, his eyes screamed, will our friendship mesh
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2009
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
There’s a diamond in your eye,
like an ocean out of space,
that shimmers like a moonstream
in another time and place.
Glacial blue flames that stir
a smile to a grizzly brute.
A heart filled with dazzling sapphires
makes the gloomy world mute.
Softly, I hear your raindrop voice
whispering on the windowpane
of the time when robin’s eggs two
held my life under their sweet reign.
But now there is only grey.
My fingers talon the callous dirt,
as I try to touch your face
where you’re buried in the earth.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
Cherry blossom lips
harpy of my clouded life,
order mocked by hips-
lashed, ocean blue eyes knife
Elegante, my unaware amour
masters the reasons I flee
archaic heroes of tragic lore-
rue their shades transpire in me.
I wonder at an angel's grin,
enrapt, hording her laughter.
Diamonds pale, like rivered stones,
incomparable company with my love.
But a bastard in rags-eyes avert!
Beat yourself back to the sot's cruel cage!
in those oceans you're but the Boatman's shirt
never noticed, consumed by tidal rage.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
A locomotive crying out
As it hurtles down life’s tracks--
Sounds like soul to me;
Or the wind whispering
On every blade of grass
Dipping toes in every pond;
Or the diamond that we keep
In caves too dark and deep
For any intruder to excavate;
Or the sermons of the Reverend Al Green;
Or the Force that guides and heals;
Or the reason for existence…
The soul, that which outlasts all else,
Sounds like the sweetest steam engine
In a myriad web of rails.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
Once a man of steel,
cuckolded by foreigners,
made to bear a rusty belt
And belch hapless smoke in shame.
Once a spiderweb of commerce-
now a conglomerate of strangers,
united by dementia-ridden streets
frayed and cracked by Erie’s buffets-
but the breakwall soldiers still hold the line.
As do the masses, when they can stand
the agony of Sundays as crying sots,
drenching the gutters in saltwater
beers, burying the despair behind
frozen, grim, angry brows.
On they fight, under the evergaze
of endlessly winking red guardians
who still believe, as the men below,
that Cleveland still rocks, on and on.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2013
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
First you march through fields--
Green, but choked with weeds.
Until one day chance drops the Bomb
And the world explodes before your eyes.
Never have radar eyes seen beauty
Like this, the fire lily in spring,
Pyrotechnics bursting forth from petals
And the sweet napalm nectar heart.
Tender small hands
Softer than pillows of snow--
Look with adoring eyes, but never touch.
Such miracles are easily shattered.
Next you must be silent, soldier
on through sun and sleet.
Look on with a distance at her still.
Sip vineyard wines and lob grenade glances
As the summer’s smirking captain burns her,
And she is dying of a most miserable thirst.
But I have no water left in my canteen…
Lost, but such a thing gained
From naval expeditions into the murky brown twin pools
That shimmer like umber ghosts in the raining moonshine.
But leave before sunrise—the place is forbidden
For men of such stature, of such a character.
Step aside for the hulking boars,
Who will pluck each of her lovely petals
One by one, and stamp them dead in dirt.
Then be still, self-appointed guardian.
Polish off those beers and brood.
But be ever alert should she call.
If the invasion comes, the only gun
She may have to kill is you.
Accompany her on breezy walks
Attempt to humor, but disclose no more.
Simply hang in gardens of babble on and on
Where the only words you speak are Sanskrit to her.
And when the cavalries of autumn winds pillage through,
She will have nothing to shield her from the beatings.
So close, I am still too far away, and would give away
my position out in the open.
Remember the gentle beauty, her voice.
Every laugh, every lethal saltwater tear,
Every moment you would kneel beside her
And be more tender than Mother Nature herself.
But at last when winter comes you make the choice
For she needs a man to keep her warm
The night grows cold, the stars smile sinister
the field is buried in the blackness of time,
that awful plague without a cure.
You may dream to storm the frosty beaches
And pluck her from her very roots;
Take her off her feet, in hopes
Of saving her, the only fire lily in the field.
But with a frown, she bows her head
Turns away, withers and dies.
The fire lily in spring, there smolders
In cigarette ashes.
So you stay under cover, and leave the field,
Afraid to turn and look again.
For time has worked hard for months
Building the atomic bomb
That verges on exploding in your heart.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
O great encompasser
of the three AM world
and the boundless countryside,
where the wind sprints gently
shedding its high heels,
I wish you would come more often,
to rest a weightless hand
on a banged up shoulder,
and to plant a tender kiss
on a pale grizzled cheek
ripped raw by the winter wind.
A mute descending avalanche
to drown the car horns, the obscenities, the talk shows,
with all united under a single banner,
One that needs no name no color no country,
only to be embraced for what it is,
the rarest of all treasures, the soundless.
Return to me now, voiceless friend.
I could use your wisdom,
and your brotherly embrace.
But it seems you visit most
with those who roam after death,
your dearest, best-listening friends.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
Memories
become sand full of hourglasses.
One thousand snowflakes are one thousand dead cats in the Hudson River.
Memories hurt.
They are Michael Schofield broken out of prison.
Prison is the look on your father’s face.
We had the same face. I used to remember him being younger.
Once he was James Dean going bald and with a cause.
Now he is the weeping willow pretending to be a Christmas tree.
Trees are ebony towers to admire. They take the place of hands, and lips and voices. Sometimes they can speak but only when you aren’t listening.
I hear ghosts I met a long time ago. Their voices mix like bad wine.
They have a lot to say to somebody else.
Words
were daggers but became backfiring nunchucks.
Painting mosaics is more like scribbling outside the lines.
A car with no brakes and no gas.
An automatic pistol being fired by your shadow, armed with toothpaste ammunition. Nothing adds up because math can’t help.
Lithium is the iron curtain to save the free world.
Conversations are only permitted in dolphinese in the broken dunk tank.
Words twist like ivy at Wrigley Field and taste like blood if you impede upon traffic.
Fifty two card pick up and “will you marry me” mean the same thing.
She had no words for either of me, even if I remembered.
Mirrors
are grown in fields on the dark side of the moon.
They are sold to the vain but crawl into the vein.
They shout at jet takeoff volumes.
We use them as search engines even though they don’t have Wi-Fi.
They are the jealous, condescending friend we have to put up with.
A high school dropout who prefers to lean on a wall and do nothing.
Mirrors were made to be smashed. They deserve to go to hell but never do.
They join their cousins the broken beer bottles from West End in a cozy hole
where they can make out with nuclear sludge and give birth to North Korea.
Then they can go on vacation to the beach where they grew up
and create memories that disappear.
He told me who I was and wasn’t without speaking but he was wrong.
Now he won’t look at me and neither will she.
Two-dimensionalism is bliss.
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2012
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Chris Kane Jr. Poem
It has gone on for far too long.
Lightning will smite me for my wrong.
On my honor, I gave all that I could,
Vicious fate will still get me; I knew that it would.
Even now, you gaze at me with shimmering eyes;
Yearning, I hide from those azure skies.
Open arms forced to stay at each side,
Unworthy Casanova, swallow love as pride!
Kindness that I never deserved, shall soon depart-
Run away! Run far from this fool’s heart.
Instead of your man, I could be your brother,
Somehow then fall as dumbly for another
Touch you, I will not; never as I am touched,
Ever in your hand a heart lays unclutched,
Nevermore to care, roaming directionless and hurt.
Only one can tell why I hold you close to me,
Bringer of my sorry end, a light I cannot see.
Raging passion held behind exhausted eyes,
In a prison so deep you cannot hear its cries.
Enchanting, your smile makes a pulse stop still.
Not even I could destroy my love, nothing ever will
Copyright © Chris Kane Jr. | Year Posted 2008
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