Poems aren't my thing, but here's an
odyssey of a dream.
I'll write a ballad. Google says
it counts as poetry.
You love this stuff. But I don't know
what the hell I'm doing.
When I pressed send for the letter
of resignation to
the job I thought I'd never leave,
I fell into the bed for three
full days, haunted by dreams.
On Shenandoah soil I stood
where water carved ravines.
In every dream two looming oaks
stand apart; await me.
Clear water falls no longer from
the hole shaped like a key.
Blood rust runs red and fire consumes
the small and weaker trees.
Autumn's mold has taken hold but
more aggressively.
The stench tells me there's danger near.
Disease is in the stream.
And in these dreams this disease is
calling for my own name.
It's coming for my progeny
claiming our DNA.
It's here; even outside of sleep.
It needs someone to blame.
So how am I doing with the
imagery? Spark Notes
told me to use all similes
and metaphors and quotes
around the words of someone else.
This poetry's no joke.
I don't know how you read this stuff.
You do. So poetry
I will write because I heard you.
Your words are what saved me.
You hollered from a mountain top.
You echoed in my dreams.
The strangest dream happened night three
when silence I did cross
a foggy Appalachian road
where vines and mold and moss
sang of hanging ghosts in trees with
no sound, no words, or thought.
The birds herald with no chirping,
stationed silent and still.
Perched upon every tree branch,
they watched with intense will
as the ground quaked; I looked about
a shattered cathedral.
My feet planted on both sides of
the deepest cut ravine.
Standing over a gaping hole
that widens and I screamed.
No sound or move the birds did make
as if it's what they deemed.
Into a mountain's deep chasm
I slid. Clawing to grasp
at cavern walls too smooth to hold.
The vines of Eden's grapes
make them partially unclothed. I slip
into a cenote
and float in rich and velvet folds
of water emerald green.
My lips lap at holy water,
arms stretched wide to receive
a beam from above, lighting up
droplets like confetti.
That was my attempt to play with
religious imagery.
The internet says its needed
To write good poetry.
Only don't expect that from me;
I only teach science.
This next part gets pretty crazy.
I'm pulled under by snakes.
153 feet down
into a glistening cave.
Flesh colored rocks untouched by age,
nothing weathered away.
Behind ridged walls there comes a pulse,
a deep, low sultry beat.
They push me onto couches, soft,
jewel-toned and velvety.
Show me yours and I'll show you mine
and the snakes undress me.
They are not terrifying when
they expose their own skin;
they are quite beautiful, really.
They slither and slide in.
Curvaceous, supple, voracious
Iridescent passion.
Is this Eden's Garden? I asked.
They laughed. Shook their heads no.
When will I come back? I plead.
When the time's right. You'll know.
But what if I don't know the way?
They shrugged. You're on your own.
They wove a crown of feathers in
my hair. Spoke history
in my ear. And from fleshy folds
presented me a key.
They pointed to a gate and said,
You'll be back to see me.
Why does poetry always have
to be so confusing?
It can't just give the answers or
reveal the true meaning.
I'm only a science teacher.
I don't know what I'm doing.
But you love the stuff, so I'll write
this dream-like Odyssey
as a poem (I hate poetry)
because your words saved me.
You hollered from a mountain top.
I heard you in my dreams.
The other side of the gate was
the Appalachian road.
Ghosts of birds watched silently from
trees like skeletal bones.
Beneath my feet the disease had grown;
I dove back in the hole
and crashed onto concrete ice. The
water froze. Bedsheet white
cliffs replace smooth caves. No more snakes.
The cenote had dried.
The disease made it insurmountable.
I lost the will to try.
It was your words that helped me out,
whispering through the night.
A poem you once read, "Rage, Rage,"
but your voice wasn't right.
It was the scream of trees and birds
"Do not go gentle". Fight.
I once took a poetry class.
I wasn't very good.
The teacher liked his writing and
his buckle made of wood.
He'd set us before him and read
shit no one understood.
So I used a lot of symbols
and most of my own words
I tried personification
I've done all my homework.
But leave it up to poetry
to not make any sense.
love
me
YOU ARE READING
This Could be for You
No FicciónI moved. During the pandemic. The letters I write are real. So are the people they are addressed to. You and I are connected by less than six degrees; they could be for someone you know. But I'm sending them home in an untraditional way. I want the...
