Old poem written so long ago

 Makes me wince now. Written literally almost a whole lifetime ago. Still reflects my feelings. Just hope I'm writing better now.

Throwing this here anyway because I've been so lazy and haven't posted anything else.

never trust someone who…

I love you America the man said as he cut
his eyelids off eyes glaring and stretching
out into snakes snapping and sinking gas-station
fangs into veins inoculating oily incense to the
car-gods grinding sacred life beneath noise drowning
out “beautiful for spacious skies” with “amber waves of” insecticides
climbing up “purple mountains” massacred “above the fruited” capitalistic
monotony of shopping malls and McDonalds oh America why
did you listen to the garbage trucks of paradise promising
cornucopia as they drown you in endless indulgence separating
you from those you promised to bless who are still waiting even
though you can’t see them through sky-scrapers and airplanes
and asphalt idolatry covered with rabbit guts who trusted you
like you trusted the man with staring eyes taking more than
you could give when you could have given so much more than
what he took and is still taking from what’s left of you and says you’re
still beautiful like the painting must’ve
said to Dorian Gray

 

-          Joseph Owen

Waning Moon Lullaby (Revised)

 

waning moon lullaby

“We accept reality so readily-
perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.”
 -Jorge Luis Borges

“sand drifts; eternity endures:”
-H.D.

reflected reality
tearing through the fabric of my breathing

think fear jump
out of bed
teeth grinding
sleep conditioned by atonal fears

flesh slivered under grains
of prickly glass
collecting the bald faced lies of the clock
into movements
as if the moon were going to float away

second wind sucked out
by a lullaby
while the fire-woven stream
clears my open eyes

the unconscious whisper

of my heart holding infinite cuts

under a translucent bandage
trying to wrap disordered thoughts

like eyeholes with broken wings

hoping for a muse
to heal my numb toes
and connect my thoughts to something concrete, palpable
and eternal

the same story angling into your thoughts
connecting them to
pieces of us protected by sky and cactus
and granite rock
under sun blue sky

throw the sky into the water and it
snaps on the moment the silence is caressed

by the whir of waves 

holding scattered yearnings
arcing and surfing through our dreams

this is how we never lose each other

collecting sky, breathing words

collecting sky, breathing words

personal pronouns smashed
and then connected
to a more natural language
winking and blinking
into a pattern of nets
melting
into waterfalls of sky

heart beating
into the patter

of moonlit leaves

pine branches breathing
into wind

and the constant cycles
of pale light
the stars are swimming through

full moon canopy
holding what has to be broken
and then held together
by paths collecting across the mountains
breaking fountains into open pages of reality

breathing tones

into manic
magic writing
as the silence is canonized
into a cacophony of frozen light

vapors
keep the sky moving
into clouds circling
into an iridescence
plain and painful

and searing through commas and comas

lost gospels crowd around
displaying missing pieces
in the silent thunder
of the perfect mind

disconnected particles
of nightmares and dreams
might only be the tip
of deeper shudderings
vibrating into
letters appearing just beyond sight
as sky floods the river
of unconscious vision
and the magnetic meanderings
of that vision
into consciousness

the knit center moved by the energy
into a streaming ambience
as lightning flashes a star-making sound
felt as liquid
around the shapes of words
washing the stain
of panic attacked pools of memory

my mind cleaned out
by songs
moving through the darkness

 

-Joseph Owen 

magician revised

magician

brain buzzing on
a poem made of questions
transmuting gold into swords into words
feeling like they could float out of the skull
arcing over electrically charged catharsis 
of an impromptu rising sun
burning through the panicked feeling of a moon that has disappeared


atom atonement
connecting seraphic dream
to subject predicate
setting everything in motion


sunlight dancing into drums
of words that will slit the page
into worlds
sky skins and rain

sunlight dancing into dreams

waning moon lullaby

waning moon lullaby

“We accept reality so readily-
perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.”
 -Jorge Luis Borges

“sand drifts; eternity endures:”
-H.D.

reflected reality
tearing through the fabric of my breathing

think fear jump
out of bed
teeth grinding
sleep conditioned by atonal fears

flesh slivered under grains
of prickly glass
collecting the bald faced lies of the clock
into movements
as if the moon were going to float away

second wind sucked out
by a lullaby
while the fire-woven stream
clears my open eyes

the unconscious whisper

of my heart holding infinite cuts

under a cellophane bandage
trying to wrap disordered thoughts

like eyeholes vanishing under the weight
of broken wings

hoping for a muse
to heal my numb toes
and connect my thoughts to something concrete, palpable
and eternal

the same story angling into your thoughts
connecting them to
pieces of us protected by sky and cactus
and granite rock
under sun blue sky

throw the sky into the water and it
snaps on the moment the silence is caressed

by the whir of waves 

holding scattered yearnings
arcing and surfing through our dreams

this is how we never lose each other

poem spilling out of frazzled nerves revision

poem spilling out of frazzled nerves

the sky’s tender evolved vision
burning through trees

remembrances kissing
dreams silent under the weight
of the lost logic of
too much sleep

or not enough sleep
and vision induced slumming

breath
filling up the sky
and lighting up the insides of stars

-Joseph Owen

My one pome I managed to write in 2019

poem spilling out of frazzled nerves

the sky’s tender evolved vision
burning through trees

remembrances kissing
dreams silent under the weight
of the lost logic of
too much sleep

or not enough sleep
and vision induced slumming

breath
filling up the sky
will hold what has to be broken
and then held together by paths lighting up the insides of stars

-Joseph Owen