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John Byrd Poem
It was only this past week.
I had dreams
about Maria again,
and Cat spoke to me through
some diabolical means.
You would only
believe the dreams
if you knew me
(and because they are merely dreams).
I was going to find
two witnesses
to stand before me,
(Revelation 11 style)
impregnate a woman
(chapter thirteen, for the interested reader)
I hadn’t seen
in nearly twenty years.
We would name our Son
Joshua.
Thank God that I’m older now.
Thank him that my knees can’t
handle training to be God on earth,
like I’m Batman on some unheard of steroids.
I had to go to work in this frame of mind,
and, when I was
putting away a bag of chips
on a shelf,
I thought,
“something is amiss.”
So I buried my tears
in the hr’s office,
who had a bipolar brother,
and was endowed with natural empathy anyway.
Today I got through the Damoclean downswing.
slept all day and spent some time
with my daughter tonight.
Right now I listen to Richter and experiment.
It sounds like Bukowski to me,
only not as clever or cool or polished.
But that’s Bukowski’s voice coming at me,
being critical of someone not Bukowski.
Cat is the girl I keep writing about on this page.
Found out through Twiter
she was a Satanist. Maybe that
was part
of the mania’s onset.
Anyway, maybe she’ll meet Chuck one day.
She can tell him (through our ESP)
that I was fond of them both.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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John Byrd Poem
I remember
my feet stretched into the cold,
dirty water back home,
mud swirling
between each toe,
alone with singular
thoughts,
none of them
uninvited.
But without
that intrusion,
without dark night
under the melting,
hot moon,
mystery and fear,
bitter wine and cigar,
freedom of the naïve,
I would have known
none of you,
and never sought your
forgiveness
before the sun rose.
I arrive today
between
the tempests,
a modest look
at the mirror,
quiet again, nothing more.
And in that
quiet way,
a worker,
a father, believer,
and friend,
I approach
the eternal questions,
the river only a memory now,
and still,
it is present,
with all of those questions and answers
beneath my feet,
when I was alone,
no voice interrupting
my late night tv dinners
by the streams.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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John Byrd Poem
House of cards
I.
I fear
the clock
renders
neither mirror
nor dull glass.
Like the Lilly
it moves
and grows
and dies
unseen
by our
distracted
eyes,
telling me
nothing,
moment by moment.
Time,
her only
transgression
is death--
quick,
fluid,
emaciated,
withering and
vast.
II.
I will touch the sun
and every
gray
will taste
my eternity.
I will build
Babylon
with an
edict,
with an
imperial
deck of cards,
screaming,
hissing,
blind,
knowing.
You taught me,
after all.
III.
Prince,
ha-satan,
you
laid
the ruin track
for me,
taught me to
accuse
Love.
You,
grand inquisitor,
pro-bono
prosecutor,
veiling the world
again
beneath fire,
beneath scales
under
twisted mouth.
IV.
We once knew
a peace
under
sun and rain.
God offered
the sun
and the rain
before
snow fell
from
the evil tree,
before acid
dripped down
and you,
you,
you,
heard your name
over and over
again,
and the madness
cradled
you
in flame.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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John Byrd Poem
The memory
arrives
colder now.
Spring in
Phoenix,
a palace
of tan grass
beneath
our feet,
all of you
that remains.
The water
and the wind
still dancing
in my mind,
running
furiously
in my speech,
your quietness
appealing
to every trace
of what I was.
All of this
makes sense,
the way
anything
exists at all
makes sense.
Forgetting you
by degrees,
an impossible
arithmetic.
Keeps
me up nights,
wound up and
scorned
by your presence.
I search
for you,
your eyes
touched
by fire,
by impatience,
your voice,
trumpet calling
me home,
and I remained.
I search
for you,
but I
am
the missing one.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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John Byrd Poem
Sleepless, half-naked
and thirsty
beside the river,
under constant moonlight,
waiting to feel
the final impact
of the Sun.
I am
locked up,
dents
on red knuckles,
tears betraying
a fear I can't
hide.
Nose in a book,
laboring
to be someone,
losing, regaining
the world,
the charitable God
reminding me
of the beauty
of grace.
Walking sideways
down a Fort Worth
barrio, music
steadies my mind,
keeps me
from knocking
on a random door.
What do I fear now,
but the silence of her voice,
of the voice I have known,
the siren that
drifts me down
to the great rivers,
searching for the tree of life?
And I fear that
you, my love,
were my tree of life,
in my own
strange way.
The vastness of you,
my only ocean
in the universe.
My delight carved
into the plot of land
I never had the wisdom
to let lie fallow.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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John Byrd Poem
I write freely,
quietly,
without you,
without
your trespass.
Love has a
texture,
whispers and songs
in the dark
bring a
vintage wine,
laughter.
No offense, but
these are
my words
of straw,
written indelibly,
finally,
to and about
you.
Life, this pulse,
ocean of pleasantness,
reaches out,
her hands wet and full,
deadly too.
I yield
to her feral call,
hungry, naked
exploited.
Interior world
of screams,
vast and
stolen, wishes
upon the suicidal
rock.
Goodnight and
so long.
Quiet now,
quiet now,
to you belongs
the kingdom
you possess
and so long for,
crucify your
curses there,
upon that cross,
a good soldier,
feminine,
marching across
the marshes
of your own
smallness.
I will drink
the nectar
of rest, and you,
your twisted
mouth,
and memories
like sores
on your
tired body.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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John Byrd Poem
Blaze of the Immortal,
come softly,
earnestly,
to my lips,
and speak
the parallel
of love, of truth.
This bitterness,
a mere interlude
to the chalk of soul,
the bitter gall,
or the sweet
forever, wherein
I want to invade
every moment
of your joy,
of your suffering,
of your endurance,
of your love
and tears.
Those tears.
I have known
you
before the great
depth opened,
before the
treasonous fall,
and after,
the wick, after time,
extinguishes
at My word.
I am love,
and there is nothing
before me.
My origin
is bound
in the
necessity
of My existence.
And, because I Am,
I love you,
every last one of you.
I love you in the fire of glory
and in the black fire too.
I will never abandon
my love for you,
while you cry freedom
from the pit of agony,
while you hold onto
everything wrong,
while you maintain
your everlasting Self,
I cannot help but love you.
What can I do
but what I have done?
Cut to pieces like
an animal,
displayed for all to see,
each moment worse
than the next,
each moment eternal
in scope,
slain forever,
risen forever,
worthy forever,
always knocking and praying,
searching for you,
speaking to you,
loving you
in the paleness of your knowing,
in the paleness
of what you feel now,
I Am utterly in love
with all of what you are.
I Was utterly in love
with all of what you are.
I Will always love
all of what you are.
Copyright © John Byrd | Year Posted 2016
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