… full of words and tales

i kissed you once out
here beside these trees, and
in soft regret your eyes were
turned inward, towards that part
of your life invisible to all but,
or even and, yourself

but the memory is not the
kiss, it is the look and the
feel of your face as i touched
it, brushing the hair back
off your forehead, appraising both
the moment and the look in
your eyes

but what is frozen often
melts, if enough time passes, and
only now do i recognize something
like fear mixed with your
longing – for while you felt something
for me, i was a strange, unpredictable
creature in your eyes, full of
words and tales

and the stories you knew
best always ended up being
scary ones: perhaps this was
a false setup to a frightening
ending – you weren’t sure

but i mistook that look for
a bad grade, and

dropped the class

past / gone

[This could have been called, “Old Poem, Written Age 25,” but I chose to retain its original title, even while heavily reworking the content. – Owen]


 

a few weeks, all it was, and yet

you linger in this air –

your presence was reality

and more than everywhere

 

the past is gone, they say, and so

i should just let you go –

but you were my first happiness

and it’s still all i know

 

and now, life’s fallen by the way,

and so much seems a waste —

and words we say seem fake, next to

the world we touch

and taste

Somewhere In The Telling Lost

The sound, the image changed her world,
And so she tried to tell it me;
There was an ardor in her tale,
A passionate intensity —

But somewhere in the telling lost
The feel of heart, the blazing sun:
And through my eyes, she glimpsed the soul,
And knew that I was not

The one

breezes blowing

breezes blowing clothes hung on a line —
it makes me think of you —
colors waving banners in the wind,
just like we used to do

we were breezes too were you and me,
a random dance in motion —
we were every wind that’s every blown,
and every last emotion

breezes blowing, summer has to go:
such is the path of living,
where you are today i do not know,
but nothing needs forgiving

for you did the best you could with me
before your time for going —
now and then, though, i’ll still think of you
when i feel
breezes

blowing