Muse to a Mangled Heart
Posted by David Warner | Filed under Poetry, Print
let me live
in the space between your lips
whisper courage
to the I-love-you’s
that sit
disgruntled on your teeth
waiting to be ground into dust
and choked back down
like pride and protest
strip them of all the lil things
that weigh them down
so they float off your tongue
like fresh breath
and catch the wind like wings
with feathers fixed to each other
with what holds widows to their memories
make me gatekeeper to your eyelids
cry me a moat to drown ugly, scowling faces in
and build me a bridge for her smile to cross
lend me a butterfly
or let me toy boat float back through your dreams
whichever gets me to her heart faster
mangled-heart warrior
let me lead you into battle
let me rephrase your fingertips
so they play her hips
like a melting saxophone
with desperate love and
a soul-deep sense of urgency
if your heart is
too worn
too damaged
too proud
let me
Slow Down, Mona Lisa
Posted by David Warner | Filed under Poetry, Print
I knew her like God knows the horizon
Like she was a watch I built
from a jazz flutes last song,
a baby’s first words,
and a blind painters masterpiece
effortlessly brave and spontaneously graceful
but still cute and magnetic
with the unparalleled passion of someone
whose life’s work they could never enjoy
like I made her tick
and I made her tock
but I could tell that everytime her hands moved
we were closer to being over
so I held them still
so time wouldn’t pass for us just one night longer
I cherished her meticulously
counted her heartbeats
as she pulled my ear closer to her soul
I could feel each individual hair stand up
in the half a square inch region of my wrist her finger circled
I was hooked
like a kid with a puzzle he doesn’t know is missing pieces
Curious and fascinated and terrified and vulnerable and furious
all jammed in one second every second
til the minutes mount and all that’s left is heart break
’cause his mini Mona Lisa doesn’t have a smile anymore
he lost it throwing a tantrum
’cause he couldn’t get her eyes to glisten
the deep brown they were supposed to
Mona Lisa won’t smile for him
like she won’t hold my hand
she just wants to move
I just want one more chance the stop time with her
she can spend it with someone else
I just wanna love her like tomorrow is on vacation til next week
slow down, Mona Lisa
let’s live between the seconds
cause minutes turn to hours
and hours into lightyears of space
from which I can only see you as you once were
be my sun just a lil while longer
not some distant star that waves
on the off chance there’s a clear night in NY
you’re more than just a passing measure of my growth
to be forgotten
then remembered just to orient my memories
let me part your hands and slip my fingers in between
so we can feel the earth stand still beneath our feet again
let me lay you down
so the sandy soul inside your hourglass
sits still
I know they say you won’t wait for me
that I’d just be wasting you
that I can’t stop you or bring you back
but what they say has never moved me
only you can
and without you I’m stuck in a broken clock
I tick tick tick tick tick tick TOCK
in the same spot for however long it’s been since you left
so slow down, Mona Lisa
let’s ignite eternity and watch the flame burn forever
let me piece your smile back together second by second
hold it together with what glues hope to happiness
and rewrite the night with you
slow down so I can love you
Fingerprints
Posted by David Warner | Filed under Poetry, Print
Her hands are old and deep
Like grandmothers’ laps and love songs
Wide, dark, and moist
Like deep cavernous stomachs
Moaning for the slightest hint of nourishment
She’s starving
For just one touch that isn’t overtly disrespectful
One touch to let her know her hearts there
For a reason other than a reminder she can still hurt
She was used and beaten by too many men
Rushing for the parts of her that are easiest to understand and easiest to open up
Passing her mind and her palms
En route to her body
Which was used and beaten
By too many men ready to leave their kids in her
Cause it was easy
Cause she was “easy”
Cause her mind isn’t easy
It’s used and beaten
Creviced, cornered, and nuanced
Clever, caring and nimble
Like her hands
Weaving warm winter dreams
For her patchwork family
Navigating stream after stream of tears
In gravy boats instead of giving them food for thought
Because her mouth doesn’t mesh with her mind the way her hands do
Just another hole for dicks to go into
And misled, misshapen products of her pain to come out of
She shoulda named her kids Fuck, Shit, and Bitch
Instead she made them all euphemisms
All lil prisms trying desperately to turn their mother’s
Dull flickering light into a rainbow
Raindrops bursting from the clouds
Returning to the sea to tell their mother how beautiful the sky was
And begging her to come with them next time
Instead of just shouting her love at the heavens from drowning lungs
Acquiescing to the random ebb and flow
Until she’s the next to go
Hands smashing together
Like old sunken valleys collapsing around long since dried up rivers
as she prays to just go easily
To go quietly when she goes
Somewhere where she can watch the sea
And collect the sand in her hands
To make stain glass monuments to women like her
lullabies across the sky
To rock babies to sleep in grandmothers’ laps
An old deep love song to hold hands to
So she can finally leave her fingerprint on
A world that’s so careless with its hands
Army of Gods
Posted by David Warner | Filed under '09 Spring: Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Poetry, Print, Show Poems
Sit still
Sit still
Sit still
Two words that hit like “kill yourself”
As her toes tapped during math class
She didn’t look like much
Just a shy little girl
clothes too big for her
And a smile too small for her age
But lil did they know…….
The clothes were still too small for her soul
And the smile was the wry smirk of warrior
So she tapped her feet
slow and steady
til the tap tap became a BOOM BAP
and heaven could see the vibrations
Now she’s a goddess
The ground shakes under her
Rattling like the space between lovers
Jittering like the tips of fingers hanging
from hands waiting to touch someone new
Quaking like lost hearts
Rumbling like a war zone
As she floats like an angel deflecting bullets
And saving soldiers
Moving with every boom
like a speaker pulsing with every beat
Like bombs were bursting in her abdomen
And shrapnel was bouncing off her ribcage
Carving her heart into a dagger sharp
enough to cut through diamond mines
she doesn’t dance
she marches
toes pointed like AKs
shouldered by rebel soldiers
never holstered
ready to give everything til she’s empty
and her body lays limp in the hushhhhhhhh
SHHHHH
Shhhhhhhhhhh
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Just a sound to most
But to me a death sentence
As I whispered rhymes
over a dirty mead notebook
with my eyes closed
to a distant toe tap on the other side of the school
No matter what my age is
I was made to blaze stages
11 yrs old and already spitting lasers
I’m the king
There was nothing intimidating about me
6’ limbs hanging from a 5’ torso
all tied together by braces and ugly glasses
but the truth is
those glasses were x-ray binoculars
used to see into the souls of everyone around me
the braces were to hold in my teeth when I spit
cause I always had a voice bigger than my lungs could carry
With a heart bigger than my brain and a mouth that intercepted the words
before the two could communicate
Now I’m a God
And I chuckle at the days when teachers tried to stifle us
Everyday another suggested suicide
Every period another death sentence
Chalk flaking off pointed fingers as they asked us
To fold our wings under our backpacks
Fasten our lips
And walk and talk like everybody else
Squeeze in with the mortals
lol
the two of us
we’re an army of gods unto ourselves
this is our Mt. Olympus
So next time you see a kid tapping his feet
Or scribbling in a notebook
Or doodling on his hands
Or fidgeting with a broken watch
Be quiet and observe
You’re witnessing a god in the making
