Poems of a Past Life

So here's me. I'm at my parent's house in Guilderland for approximately one month. As I am here for an extended period of time, I have decided that I will finally clean up all the boxes in the basement... so that I know where all my crap is, should I ever actually need to put it someone one of these years.

Productivity on the home front has been pretty good so far, because my jet lag won't allow me to sleep more than four hours a night. And I refuse to use up good daytime hours with shut-eye, so I'm getting in like a twenty hour day... almost every day. It's kind of frustrating not to feel like you can adequately think or speak straight, but while I'm going through boxes I need to do neither, and the people that I get to be around now have known me since I was 13 so they knew me before I actually COULD think or speak straight. And that really goes a long way.

But during the day, when it is dumping down snow and I can't ride my bike anyway... I am homebound. So inevitably, I have been forging through old poems and songs and stuff. I put them all in a little box, and mailed them to myself -- a good suggestion from my cousin -- to prevent plagiarism. Not that I think anyone would really want to steal my little ditties... but hey, best to do what you can do, eh?

Anyway, since these little pieces of me aren't doing any good just sitting around in boxes, i have decided to post some of them, burn some of them, and recycle some of them. Since the blog is just going to be chilling out while I'm home, I figured that's a good forum for it.

So anyway, here are two poems that I found that I kinda liked. It's weird, for the most part I'm generally a happy girl, but most of the time when I write it sounds like I'm a torture victim. So, pardon, I guess. It's my therapy...

This one doesn't have a title, or a date on it, but it looks like the book it was written in started in 2004, so it was probably written in 04 or 05. And I sound terribly sad!! :(

Ask me why I want you and I'd tell you
"It beats me"
And sometimes man, it does
Leaves welts in places no one sees
caresses and then crushes me
Suddenly I'm sinking and what's left is something you can't see
A ghost of what I used to be

Yet you're still there, somewhere inside
lurking like a child learning to seek and hide
Except I can always find you
Even when I don't try to --
like when I hear Dan Bern sing about Key West
and I remember how I like you best
and he tried to escape
but baby I just want to rest
Cuz I can't sleep beside your memory --
which is irony at its best

And I remember that old morning
you took my hand and curled my toes
and I was peeking through my hair, from the pillow
in throes of disbelief and happiness
of what could come from all of this
but
nothing comes from nothingness
and that's all there is to say
I guess



Aaaaaaaand this one looks unfinished. And I think I actually like it enough to maybe play around with it and turn it into a song. It is needy, and it's about singing. And I haven't written a song since I came back from New Zealand. This one doesn't have a title either. Or a date. Dammit. I used to be so good at that!

Somewhere there's a radio station playing out loud
I can't tune it out
and I can't tone it down
It blankets the world in static and sound
and everything beautiful wades in
and drowns

There is a babbling brook that spills from your mouth
and your words build a bridge from your thoughts to my doubts
But your waters run dry
you can't quench my thirst
and I hate how
you never let me come first

Still the kids in Uganda, they sing their songs
rising from the pit of all the pain in Patong
and the tears they flow like the mallet along
the old-souled wood on the xylophone
and the beauty beguiles me, intrepid and strong

And what I know is I understand
a hollow box of wood in my hands
and strumming out from within, whatever I can
to match what I can no longer stand

I wish that I could talk to you the way we sing at night
5 little fingers and 6 sweet strings spring up out of the blight
that light can't usually get through
that tries to crawl out of my mouth whenever it has the chance to

But not when we're singin'
When we're singing' we're free
Shedding lies like skin
skin like gravity
and we're up, we're just floatin'
my guitar and me




... and that's where that puppy ends. but i think with some tinkering that could turn out nice!

Anyway, if you liked that round, I will probably post some more as I come across them. I still have a lot of stuff to get through......... :)