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Best Poems Written by Rhys Owens

Below are the all-time best Rhys Owens poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

I Turn the Bar Codes Away From Me

When we love life so much
we hate to live,
she said,
nothing. And I was not about:
—to give in.

You drink death from a bottle
filled with nothing,
"Like" ashes that never left an ember.
And we had classes... on the river...
she said.
No need to wait...

I remember lotsa larfs; with you
too;
in pyramids deeper than a close
but not an older heart,
could swallow,
such a golden year that only two can render.

So I turn away from the costs;
and am sickened by the impersonal
bills paid by broken hearts made
by forgotten papers.

With you, she said, there's yet an interest. 
Sharpened by knives that don't see each other everyday.

Put aside a few good years, and you will have
percentages based on broken seed encumbered.
Like the last word in a will of faith....
Left to pay the rent of sundered responsibility.

That was not love, if that's the taste of it,
she said, and read a poem of the 1920s.
We were left for more real things 
than the truest love, betrayed, in its finest memories 
could even pay a visit.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Night Terrors

i never had night terrors,
but i know a guy that did.
he used to go outside at night
and scream that the elephants
were coming.



now the elephants were bigger than me.
this i knew, and it was that that i felt
when i was awoken, and realized what he was saying.



he knew what he was saying.
one night it was the Nazis.
he was twelve years old,
and the year was 1989.
but it was the original men
from the short filmstrips
we watched in library the year before.



those were the nights when the tv
went off the air.
after a few late shows and movies,
the national anthem was played
and life became surreal enough to dream.



i remember the drip of the kitchen sink
as if it were yesterday.
i would try to wait till the dripping
became in time with the clock on the wall.
my unconscious would hypnotize me
that way, i could dream of things that were
too vague....and when i awoke to hear him



out on my lawn in his stone age pajamas,
shouting that the elephants were still coming...
i would always remember that though i couldn't see them,
they were bigger than me.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Tomorrow Is October For Me Too

I put you in a sacred cup.
Like a child, I whine,
And cry,
For you.
Not old enough to drink:
To see into the eyes of a woman,
Grown, with pain.
What she tells me I cannot understand.



But I can understand well enough.
I am as young in pain as the child
They will not take to drink;
A pain as fresh, as the dead leaves each year,
After a glorious summer seen from the inside out.
Yes, from inside.  



Because, I am the summer,
The sea;
The autumn, and its goblin's veil;
I am winter's cozy nook;
And springtime's drip Of Saviour's blood.



I am the child that lies within—
That even memories can't save
From the crooked spine
Of your blindness' path.
And you won't come to play with me.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Food Stamps

when i used to have to send letters to the editor
from charleville-mezieres,
i used to use stamps with pictures of Louis Pasteur on them.
in the united states, i've been sending out manuscripts,
with stamps that have Buzz Lightyear on them.
i feel reflected in my infinite culture.


to change the world:
i don't want to change the
world,
or culture;
i wrote.



the world of culture is the law.



it's nothing but space.
the outlaw moves through nothing but space
on all sides and in all areas
of life.



space all around.
i don't want to remove the space i need to move around in.
but it's possible, is what i wrote, if i explode
to break the very symmetry that survives as space;
it's theoretically possible, another wrote;
all i need to do is explode.


to find another food
for the food of the gods.
to find another god;
a one that's not the state.


you kill those gods,
you hang them and burn them.
because these gods are only men.



we are only men;
you,
silver-tongues with plastic toys,
are something else.



i write to stop playing with your toys.
to find another game;
it's when we break the rules--
while playing with "your" toys...
but we're playing another game.



it's only when you stop and stare,
with your holier discontent,
that it turns into a game of you.



you give the hand when you feed;
but it's never your own.
you don't play war games,
you don't offer your table,
your food, your money...
you offer that of those that have little...
and for that they hate us.



i've been around a long, long year,
before the junkies, before the settlers,
before the indians:
i want the Romantic fallen angels and the mad
to transform their demons into dancing springs
of spirit.



i am no longer myself.
i've been so many others,
there's no one left to be.



i need enough space to be myself.
and, somewhere
there is a flower on a star,
waiting to see herself.
why do we send letters in space?


we haven't enough to eat?

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

The Last Muse

Certainty waits in caves, lost and found, in modern sites,
Where chaos helms the deep layers of dimensional light;
Far, in May's cool autumnal nights,—her footsteps trek
A prism of thought,—constellations tracing her back.
I was studying the key that she left me in dreams.
Shape the stars; by her vague, distant words, all what it seems.

These visitations, we've shared, give of a bluish flame
Burning now! Crude demons quake before an honest name!
No loss, in air or shallow waters, can try defer,
Or now declaim! of the hidden world we now prefer.
Written in a destiny I found searching her eyes'
Brown sand, the truth of a shared dream never fades or dies!

Last night! We saw the old stars die and fade to nothing.
Only tarnished nickel and broken gold were touching
The throne of my beauty's soul, from the base of her neck
To the white, heated slope of her breast, till my lips met,
With my warm silver water of stars at last reborn,
This Muse's softly beating heart,—and new life was formed.

So come again! and never leave now, my bed of yours.
Smooth as this world we'd always been destined to create,
In you,—I have seen the eyes of this new child of ours.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

White Tulip

Freezing, alone, a girl within herself tends the ground;
Knowing the water does nothing but freeze, till around
The turn of the year, winter gives way to spring again,
Where cold, distant ice sees to mending; flowers begin
To grow; their petals moist with rain, and tears, left over
From cruel storms bold enough to haunt this cold December.

A hope in Hell, for those that still have the strength to dream
Of Heaven here on what seems to be a barren earth.
Opening her mouth, she still could not muster a scream,
And could not bear the memory of love's distant birth.

But summer comes, and the rains are warm for her again!
For she was born, too. To laugh, and dance, and now begin
To grow like the white tulip, though delicate and small,
Still—perennial in the hearts of poets, who all,—
Remember their little flowers,—no matter how long
They must wait, through bleakest months, and hours, for their song

To hold in truth and sight, to smell and caress petals,
Held fast but in memories too long, and short, to live.
But there is hope in this barren climate that trembles:
Her blossoming happiness is more than fame could give.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Text Messages

whoever it was that created text messaging phones
needs to take all the money they made,
get really drunk, or really high
or a young girlfriend,
anything it takes
to make them old before their time
so they can die.


who thought it would be a good idea
to have a mailbox to carry around with you
everywhere you go?
who even thought it would be nice
to have a portable telephone,
always on call?



don't people leave their homes
to be away from their mailboxes,
away from their phones.
the majority of letters were written by a stamping machine.
the majority of phonecalls are from people that haven't the guts
to show up at your door,
let alone, tell the truth.



and when there's a man and a woman
that are both mad,
or one mad at the other,
everywhere you go,
she has your number,
everywhere she goes,
she can't escape his angry charm.--
you hear a noise or feel a vibration.
is it the publisher's clearing house poetry event,
or the latest friend to have gotten paid
dinner money for a night out of the week?
no.--it's the girl being mad.
it's somebody that's accusing you of something
you didn't do
(but might as well have done),
because she's already punished you for it
an eye for an eye...


or it's the man with the weight of the world
on his sleeve,
and you're too busy coming up with lies
when he lights up, unprepared,
your phone, twenty--thirty some times
a day.
between all the other calls
and text messages
you pay your hard earned dollars,
and sell your soul
to the corporate pimp with interest,
to explain how you "can't come to the phone
right now," when phones are made that come
to you, and never die.



men that never die.
women that never die.
phones and makers of phones
that never die.
and everyone of them has something to say.



and if you can't come to the phone right now,
there's a world full of people that can.
and you can say the same thing
to them all.
it doesn't matter.



as long as we're doing something!
--doing something,
to keep the service going.
and to get our money's worth the service.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Christy's Sleep

like a dancer with a walking stick, i wait for dawn
to crawl, heroically, from your womb, strong
and noble as a caring man can.
with murder on his breath, and filth below his toes.

 

when winter eats the last desserts,
and heaven washes the sheets where
we both used to lay. i sometimes want
to say something after the desire to say is gone.

 

every time i taste my blood,
like wax paper melted thick in bubbles
behind my tongue, i think of birth of words.
and what knifed silence holds in store.

 

like a man left in the rain, for nights,
a chewed cigar, damp with sickness that
survived the dew, i hold the door
for you, and only you, wake up everywhere i call home.

 

every venture is a straight jacket for our love.
when you try to think, when you wait and say,
"just wait." my heart always says, no.
i cannot wait, but for you i wait....

 

until the world that you invent sees
that i and i alone, have caught the water
in my steps, and left the unicorn a horn
to call her mother, and her pets, when nothing else is wrong.

 

so put your pretty fingers in the ink
that i have bled. and tell our precious fortunes
in the cards that stick like blood to your cautious hands,
and soothes, like art, but truth, your fretting head.

and rest.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Alternative

i remember those nights,
you showed up with your Russian haired hood,
it was as the restaurant at the end of the world,
more like a diner;
you don't remember,
you weren't always there.



it was the night i fell off the wagon;
the lady in red,
riding hood, you remember?--
the cloak and dagger ramble?
the first night i said, 'i love you,' in anger;
the next day you were all perturbed,
as you told me a few days later...



there were too many zombies
out on friday nights,
when we had our dates,
so i don't remember.
but i remember now,
i went there without you...



a darkish red reminded me of my nights with you,
a glowish fire over the surroundings,
that glowed a blue, on nights before,
but red with you.
you added an ember to my idleness.



i want to go on a roadtrip.
this is all a little premature;
any given night is not the same
when we just go on random
on a trip that never plans.



i have too much to say...
what i see,
to show you without
with you...
i had a lot more to say
'sgood i forgot.
so i don't ruin then, now.



i'm there without you.

Details | Rhys Owens Poem

Body Count

i lost my wallet
a few weeks ago,
while i was sitting on the rainwashed
beach, after my truest love
had just been married, for the fourth time,
and i just realized it today.
that's the kind of man i am.



i had a ride home.
i ate dinner at my family's house every night
except when i found a twenty dollar bill
lying on the grass twice,
once in a dream and once for real.



it never occurred to me to reach for my wallet,
it never occurred to me to change my pants,
for that matter;
my old true love was gone,
and i had nowhere to go.
and no one i wanted to see.



when the fields by the road are bare
and rich with a nudity
no man ever sees any more,
when the rain is a music so lovely
because it's a sound made by no one
and nothing,
so you know that the feeling behind it
has to be real,



when all you want
is to share a drink,
share a car ride,
or a walk,
or a Christmas dinner,
with the one you love.



and they're in another state,
living another world,
another personality
that does different things,
says different things,
than the way you used to know,



and you wonder:
is it possible that they move the same way,
that they hold their head at the same angle
and lower their eyes when they walk
with that humble, shy pride
of a beautiful creature
whose image no painter ever did justice...
if they tilt their head in the same way
when they laugh from true joy,
as they did when they were with you;



or did they leave that behind too;
with the notes that called you a different
sentimental name whenever they
came to see you,
knowing you wouldn't be at home...
with the trash they left on your floor,
because you couldn't let go of them long enough
to walk to the can, or even the other can
when you shivered together outside
after long walks in the rain...



it was always raining.
as if that was the whole reason
or the symbol that gets us coming and going,
because of the flow,
the never-ending life that has to dry up
and disappear, so it can come again
more strongly, and more hard.



i'm not one to count money.
i count bodies,
they're more interesting, and more unique.
and they're more quick to go;
money always remains the same
no matter how much or how little it gives you.



bodies give you something more.
it's a dying art,
counting bodies.
and i never hurt anyone.