Tag Archives: poem

Pablo Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ (written by Brendon Behlke and Pablo Ramon)

Spotlight; me:
peace starved,
hunger met by darkness,
Not sated –
            stoked.
Become bullish fire,
horns of flame,
eager to gore
an audience of errant toreadors.

Stage Direction:
“Destroy”
“Murder,”
Scene – Infinity,
enter: monster (me).
Raze the set to rubble,
fade to black.

House lights on,
Reveal: Wreckage,
horror,
me.
Not the fiend –
but the human takes a bow,
for all the vindicated matadors,
dead eyed, slack jawed,
red with the weight of requital,
as thick curtains fall,
secreting away every
                        exit;

I leave, but linger,
haunting the now dimming theater,
where shadows stretch and merge,
a figure lost in canvas.
seeking peace,
and forever unseen.

A Haunting

It’s not my house,
not my place,
yet still I insist.

Here,
beyond threshold,
like a curse uttered under breath,
breaching pursed lips,
that would condemn if pressed,
I dissipate into the darkness,
ears strained – eyes starving.

I hear the nothing,
pull back, stretch taut,
and snap with the sound of a house aging,
then reset – repeat, snap again.
My heart follows the rhythm,
and still plummets a counter melody.

From room to room,
with echoed steps of borrowed time,
I agonize like winter wounds bleeding,
chasing ends that defy coagulation,
surpassing cold with warm history,
but in the end settling
for a conclusion in between.

Every corner hides nothing,
but I feel something –
and comprehend neither.

Truancy

Shrug away the saddle of gravity,
and float free through this reality,
unearth the joy of a liberated view.

Up dissolves, always retreating,
down wrestles, always pulling,
Neither are accountable to you.

Forward insists on forging a destination,
while all else is mired in hesitation,
and, as need arises, can be made anew.

Hold fast to your curious nature,
be bold with choices that bring you favor,
in the variety of forwards to pursue.

I know the weight of that pressure,
but nothing can hold you down,
even when you feel the most tethered
don’t be so shook as not to look around,
find your forward and push through.

Peeling

Ripped from the wall, like muscle stripped of skin,
A grotesque shape thrashes with savage intent—
Vengeance not against time, but stagnation itself,
Its cry an absurdity, a proclamation of pain.

The sound pounds the air into submission,
Tempers my ears as iron meets the flame,
Grinds my thoughts into dust, scratches on glass—
All resistance futile, every effort the same.

Still as clouds on a memories moonlit night, I wait,
Watching as it lurches closer with mockery in its gait—
But the misshapen limbs, obscured by shadow,
Twist my mind from body, pulling them apart.

Is it motion, or the void where motion should be,
That contorts reality into something dark, sharp, divided?

What We Began

The self,
absurdly reaching for,
a place on the top shelf,
where we are reached no more,
a solitude of health.

Desire,
a veil across the eyes,
our innards turned to fire,
what reason underlies,
lost in futures conspired.

Panic,
overwhelms emptiness,
drops in the Atlantic,
swallowed by loneliness,
madness becomes frantic.

Lifespan,
the gift turned albatross,
doing all that we can,
to stave the ceaseless loss,
from futures that were planned.

The Inertia of Rachael

No pause long enough for my aging eyes to rest,
the time they need to settle, focus, and define,
is too long for our two realities to align,
all I, we, or any can do is their best;
yet knowing that I still must confess,
the brevity of it leaves my heart behind…
She is so damn fast!

With her now like memories, I am but a solemn guest,
watching as she grows, iterates and refines,
proud she is a part of me, though never mine;
always sprinting ahead, chasing life’s next test…
She is so damn fast!

40 Winks

This now that is forever happens in a blink
though the forever of it pulls harder than time
It rises, lives bombastic, and falls in a wink.

Once again the time taken from me becomes mine,
where I can make great distances out of old dreams,
though the forever of it pulls harder than time.

Still, the life I have is fed full against the seams,
until who I am expands past recognition,
where I can make great distances out of old dreams.

Soon, these wants are not desires but premonition,
as I keep finding reasons to invest in me,
until who I am expands past recognition.

I need only define what angle and degree,
a mere in-between amongst a forest of change,
as I keep finding reasons to invest in me.

Sometimes, the times will distort in ways that are deranged,
this now that is forever happens in a blink,
a mere in-between amongst a forest of change.
It rises, lives bombastic, and falls in a wink.