2022 Part I: Poetry Previews
12 free poems from 2022 Part I: A Poetry Collection
I'm happy to announce that my newest poetry collection, 2022 Part I, will be available on Amazon tomorrow, February 10th, by the end of the day. It's possible that, as of right now, the book can be purchased in some formats. But before you dive into the 181 poems that make up this collection reflecting the first half of 2022, here are 12 preview poems for you ahead of release. 6 of them were already released on social media over the last 2 weeks, but 6 others are being released exclusively through this Frayed Branches post.
Enjoy!
NOTE: The perspectives of characters within these poems do not necessarily reflect my own. Many poems are pulled from story and character ideas and are not a direct reflection of my own values and beliefs.
***
2022
-
I wake up to light.
-
The crowds on TV cry celebration as
The glowing sphere drops right on time.
Jubilation spells fortune and glorious dreams
Built on our new starts tonight.
-
Every star in the sky burns a little bit hotter
Now that we’ve survived one more year.
And every object pulls forward, just a little bit closer,
A comfort to hold back the fear.
-
For as we sail into these deep, uncharted waters,
We don’t know what dark we may find.
But we hold up our lanterns to cast away shadows,
An echo of peace in our minds.
-
May the next three hundred and sixty-five days
Brim with sweet lightning and love.
And may all of the darkness dissipate and linger
As whisps, into space, high above…
-
In Your Name
-
From what I see as I stand still,
The morning breeze at hand,
The lightness in my chest
Gives the cold no harsh command.
For, with hot chocolate in grip
From this place we’ve known too well,
I speak into the echoes,
Aging stories I do tell.
-
While I spin a song of might,
For these words to remain brave,
The back of my head spins
With declarations I must pave.
Until my hands start cracking
And my nose begins to freeze,
I see a sign between the hills
Reminding me to breathe.
-
This purpose must be possible
Or else it wouldn’t be.
Viewed as a liability,
But that’s not what I see.
Instead, I hear the faintness
Of your spirit in the air.
And I know, then, what I want to do
Until I meet you there:
-
I will turn the seas to silhouettes
And force the trees to rise.
I will cut the stars to ribbons
To watch them dance within your eyes.
I’ll raise mountains from the ashes
With what little Earth I tame.
I’ll spend all my living hours
Building kingdoms in your name.
-
Doused in Supply Flies
-
Their origin remains a mystery,
But what they do is all too known.
-
Sitting atop open trashcans,
Rubbing their little hands together
As if plotting out some evil scheme
To turn human food into their green waste.
-
Each new piece of trash added to their pile
Becomes another parcel by which they ship
Their ilk unto new parts of the world.
-
Whether it be through animal dung
Or week-old barrel meat,
They find some way to repopulate, feed,
And repeat the two-week cycle again.
-
Even if spray worked on their little
Multi-hexagoned eyes, there would not be enough
On shelves or in glass bottles
To take them entirely out of the world.
-
There is no way to fight their buzzing wings,
Whatever they carry onto rice and beans,
Or the cracks they lay their larvae in.
-
You simply have to deal with it.
-
Psychosomatica
-
Goddamn, I’m neck-deep in the shit again,
Wishing for a way out, wishing for a payout.
Goddamn, I’m back in the pain again.
Hoping for a shoulder; cushion or a boulder.
-
Bad back, it’s the wave He sends.
Blood between the molars, fighting getting older.
Bad brain, never make amends,
Sugar into wine like I can be saved next time.
-
Hot damn, it’s this shit again,
Wishing for a day off, pushing for a stray toss.
But Goddamn, it’s the pit again,
Dicing up my palm trees, leaving me some dry leaves.
-
It’s the pager, it’s totality, it’s wrought with me,
In psychosomatic lucid dreams.
It’s the wager, it’s a symphony, it’s less than it seems,
In psychosomatic lucid dreams.
-
It’s the sin, it’s the sinner, it’s the overseen,
Turning dominos into white steel beams.
It’s the shamer, it’s the shamed, a misguided belief
In psychosomatic lucid dreams.
-
Buds
-
You are growing your leaves back again.
I always miss when they bloom in late spring,
Instead cordoned to watch as, small and delicate,
The buds on your branches tease your renewal.
So much happiness springs to my heart
Knowing I will be able to see it happen this year.
It may be the last chance I get, though God willing
I can return to this spot, this way of being,
And come back to visit you again and again.
I want this hill to stay beautiful forever,
Even if, as time marches ever forward, your leaves
Turn brown and tumble to the grass.
Perhaps it’s selfish to want your body here forevermore
So that, even as bugs peel away your flesh and make
What used to be a lively trunk their homes,
I can still rest a palm on your bark and know
That nature can be beautiful, even at its worst.
So many words are on the tip of my tongue.
So much trite I could expand upon to describe it.
But I think I’ll settle for the simple, finally:
-
I can’t wait to watch your leaves come back.
-
Wasting My Time
-
I am reminded again how much you are
Wasting my time.
-
Value placed in valueless words
For months upon months upon months.
“We’re getting it done, we’re making it happen,”
As if words speak louder than actions.
-
Being here is boredom unequivocal,
A glimmer of hope stomped out every time.
Maybe, maybe this will be the day things change.
Instead? Disappointments innumerable.
-
Everyone can see it, and yet their winging becomes
Part of the problem too. Of the appeasement.
What about this? What about that?
What about letting the visionaries craft their work?
Presuming they have a scheme to begin with!
-
Let this not be a chiding, but a lesson as you pass
From the bubble into the wider sphere.
-
You cannot win every battle,
Just as you cannot make every soldier happy.
Instead, you must stick to your vision,
Adjust when deemed absolutely necessary,
And consider treaties carefully
Before signing them.
-
In other words:
-
Get your shit together.
-
The Wolf
-
The wolf roars from the field, triumphant.
Pain has wrought rot through all his legs,
But still he stands tall, eyes glinting,
Felled not by the logger afar.
-
These are his woods, his fields of amber.
He will not let his world be deforested.
Better he tear the pelt from his own backside
Than grow dormant and docile for charred bread.
-
Masterfully, he raises his eyes to sky,
Observing the passing stars, seeking dawn.
Tomorrow is a day beyond recollection,
And the hardest day of his very existence.
-
But he will try, as hard as his tears will let him,
To stand alone against the coming cold.
Future days will lead to whimpers, empty barks,
Perhaps even a night of stomach-clenching starvation.
-
But he will survive the dreaded nights ahead.
A strong heart, a wise eye, and his own determination
Will turn his victory today into a conquest
Over his own hill-sprinting soul.
-
And then he will realize, in the darkest of nights,
He does not stand upon his victory alone.
The meal is his, the medal his to wear,
But he doesn’t not have to bear its untold burden
By himself.
-
Lightning springs forth from the forest behind him
On the darkest night of his solemn win.
And beheld, from the swirling skies above,
Pawprints dance in the stars.
-
They ride down to the heavy heart below
And offer their own to keep it alive.
The wolf nods to his companions
As the unseen splinter in his chest, slow, is pulled.
-
There is no victory in this victory.
Too much has been bled and too much has been lost.
The wolf’s high will come crashing down
And he very well may lose himself.
-
So long as he recalls his pack, opens a new door
Where starlit illuminations become his family,
Then love can bloom where tulips wept.
-
He can stand against the coming storm.
-
Water Rabbit August
-
I want you to know, now, I will never be your friend.
I do not like you. I will never enjoy your company.
Never having to smell heat like that again
Will be a blessing, now knowing it was tainted
By stinging pride and ten-year-old cakefaces.
-
The wool in your hands is translucent.
Your meek a farce to the outsider who,
With all pieces stickied to the walls,
Can denote with great ease your cunning,
Unseen—regrettably—for those weak enough
To sink within your heart’s spearpit.
-
No matter how clean your orifices
Or how prim and proper your suit,
I know the gangrenous rot beneath
Your flaky layer of thin skin.
-
Lay paste to your silhouette while you still can.
Place broken vases at others’ feet
In hopes the world will dust your fingerprints
From its shards.
-
Three things will happen if,
By water rabbit August,
There is gold on your finger
And bells in your hair:
-
I will know what you are.
The world will learn what you are.
There will be no peace of mind for you,
Even if I must sacrifice mine.
-
CONGRATULATIONS!
-
Apology
-
Maybe there wasn’t much more we could give,
If this was the goal in your head.
But sat here I still wish, with all of my being,
I’d given one hundred percent.
-
When I heard your memory of mechanical ghosts,
I did my best to break through.
Yet once you found strangers all carrying wood,
I knew this black fire would plume.
-
Justification, like shades on the floor,
Spewed out every day we aligned.
Conviction, convincing of every misdeed,
But forging anew in your mind.
-
I had to admit, and I can, but won’t shake
On the absolution in your heart.
I wish I had noticed, not being content,
In hopes you were playing your part.
-
Keep telling myself it’s the best I could do,
That it wasn’t your life in my hands.
But I was the one who watched you tie the noose,
And did nothing but hand-wring and stand.
-
Maybe there isn’t much more we can give,
If this is the path in your head.
But set here I still wish, with all of my being,
You could be happy instead.
-
Precariosh
-
To be the “care” in the “careful,”
Rogue in the fires of lacking,
Is to never spill ink into pictures.
-
Wedding short sights to horizons
Turns the dipping clouds
Into gray stone walls atop the trees.
-
To rip the tires from the car,
Expecting it to conquer dirt roads,
Is like forcing squares into circles.
-
But so too, to boast gold bars
Only to use them as doorstoppers,
Is a mockery of their worth.
-
Like revving the racecar’s engine
For a cautious race against
The aspect of speed itself.
-
Don’t let your treadmarks be remembered
As the dark mistakes
Of would-be victories.
-
Go, instead, into that throttle,
Full speed ahead, and think not
Of the wreckage you could become.
-
You may just win the race.
Those gold bars just might
Be worth the world.
-
Victory in the North
-
They say the caps of mountains crumbled
When the king reclaimed his steel seat.
Those beyond his kingdom languished
As he, high upon his house,
Made prosperous his cities and his ports.
-
There, stomping ‘pon the ice divine,
His soldiers create divots in the world
Where cannons sit,
Awaiting the lazy princes and princesses,
Their own armies pulling ashore in the dark.
-
As if such loutish creatures could scheme
To take down the new ruler of the higher lands.
-
As enemy flames melt snow and ice to puddles,
The cannons fire into the marching crowds.
Helmed heads fly between shoulders,
Each eye seeing, believing, flickering out.
-
The king merely watches from the tower,
Eyes aglow in the flaming attempts to unseat him.
What a world, he observes,
That they should think themselves able to best him.
-
Timid. Strong. It doesn’t matter how they behave,
Which mask they wear at the gate.
The guards still load their massive weapons,
Take aim with the precise eyes of hunters, warriors,
And fire.
-
Nothing pushes past.
-
Thus, the northern kingdom remains uncontested,
And the king, atop his steely throne, smiles.
-
Nightalight
-
There is something that calls to my senses
When the lights go out.
A black torrent whose uneven spirals of bone
Become one with the night,
Casting it into eternal sundering.
-
It calls this place Nightalight,
The space between worlds between worlds,
Where games of little wonder take shape
And become the centerfolds of reality.
-
In my vision, this place looks so familiar,
And yet I cannot recall ever passing through.
-
For me, it is the origin point of whatever
Clock ticks steadily in the back of my brain,
Telling the wrong time, yet somehow,
The time it’s supposed to be even when, here,
Time is but a figment.
-
It—the unseen force—guides my vision
To a row of shadows ahead of me.
-
Each humanoid differs from the other,
But somehow, they all have the same feel to them,
As if brothers eclipsed by one another.
-
13 face 13
As Generals of Violet Heaven and Sunflower Hell
Stare one another down on a battlefield
Made of the dark, cresting dirt
Off some faux hillside.
-
The shaded figures block the background
Of my vision, by which I swear I see,
For but an inkling of a moment,
A nonsense figurehead in the distance.
-
She stands mighty against the sky,
White cloth hanging loose from massive form.
-
At first I believe her skull is blooming bloodshed,
That the tendrils etched from her face
Are the remnants of metallic death.
-
But no.
-
No, those lines above her head are not traces of blood
At all.
-
Her head is a star caught amid supernova,
Every bloom an echo overtop itself,
Trapped in time, unable to move.
-
…Her. Face. Opens.
-
She sees me.
-
She sees me she sees me she sees me.
-
It’s her, the one who brought me here
And the one who calls this place Nightalight:
The spot where sun and moon meet star
And bloom into wars beyond comprehension.
***
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