Poetry for Regular People Volume 1 Read online

Poetry for Regular People

  Vol. 1

  Nathaniel Fincham

  Copyright © 2014 Nathaniel Fincham

  All rights reserved.

  a fEW WORDS

  This discombobulated collection of poetry embodies many, many years of my existence, beginning with a confused young man to an even more confused older man. These poems are my attempt at understanding my life, my world, and myself. I hope that you enjoy them.

  Thank you, reader.

  Nathaniel Fincham

 

 

 

  A LOVELY PRIZE

  I will chase me a pretty life

  like an insect pursues a star,

  by flirting with seductive words

  and passionate phrases.

  My pretty life will be beautiful indeed,

  loving me for the lies I have told

  and the games I have played

  to win my lovely prize.

  One day my pretty life will leave me,

  as do all wonderful things,

  sending me in search of another

  pretty life to pursue.

  BEAUTIFUL OBSESSION

  Beautiful obsession consumed,

  like a rosy apple

  or optimistic friend

  to fill up

  and sustain me.

  A repeated purposeless thought

  directs toward compulsion,

  keeping me from wandering lost,

  stumbling in the dark,

  or finding a solid place to stop.

  Satisfied without meaning;

  hope among the pointless;

  faith in nothing real.

  I strive for the unreachable heaven

  and I always will.

  BEAUTY BE DAMNED

  Beauty be damned.

  Is there more

  than skin

  in which to love, to obsess?

  Youthful giggles?

  Her lips mock me,

  laughing when I am ignorant.

  They are vicious, yet soft.

  Shy voice?

  My wrongs sound sweet

  and forgivable.

  I will try to oblige her.

  Unforgiving body?

  Her smooth, pale cheeks

  redden as the blood

  rises beneath her face.

  The giving in?

  Remaining desire,

  in spite of the questions.

  I happily forget them.

  Magnificent screams

  of the inevitable crash?

  Damn flesh and lust,

  only the surface I can touch.

  BLEED FOR IT

  Bleed for it,

  I think as I reach

  into the thorns,

  the stabbing and catching,

  as sharp pain should.

  A lovely flower is hidden

  beyond the jagged barbs.

  I swear I glimpsed it,

  and am now obsessed;

  I will bleed to touch it.

  BLEMISH

  Stroking the statue of beauty

  smooth and flawless

  I feel it crack and begin to crumble

  beneath my fingers

  Against my altering touch

  it reacts to my ugly

  and is no longer perfection

  but blemished

  BLISTER

  Men like me

  enjoy the burn

  Whatever color

  the fires turn

  Ash us down

  spread us around

  With love or hate

  or simple ache

  Whatever color

  the fires turn

  Men like me

  enjoy the burn

  BUILD THEN BURN

  Burn! Burn!

  Sharp and sweet

  Forked tongue

  to lick the heat

  Burn! Burn!

  The world into naught

  Smallest of sparks

  causes pain and rot

  It burns! It burns!

  And the fault is mine

  I burn the ladder

  upon which I climb

  It burns! It burns!

  A joyous roar

  I will build then burn

  and then build some more

  CLARITY

  After

  the friction has ceased

  leaving sweat

  and smoke

  to linger,

  I am allowed

  brief clarity.

  A fleeing moment

  without

  distracting lust,

  wondrous thoughts

  to seize quickly

  before

  desire leads me away.

  DREAMING

  Are we all asleep?

  Drifting within a dream?

  The nightmare of one creator,

  or the connection of many streams?

  Is the world just an illusion?

  That will fade when we awake?

  Into a world of love and laughter?

  Run for heaven’s sake!

  When we sleep where do we go?

  Into a dream within a dream?

  Do we get a glimpse, does the real world show?

  Will we ever know what me mean?

  When we die do we wake up,

  Or enter just another stream?

  Will the chain ever end?

  A stream within a stream?

  Is the dream everything

  And we are nothing at all?

  When the dreamer wakes or dies,

  will we loose it all?

  DRIFTING TOWARD A DREAM

  The dark behind my eyelids

  contain flecks of lingering light

  and swirls of gentle red,

  like blood roses

  in a mourner’s bouquet.

  My funeral. Will anyone come?

  Empty church and realized fears,

  and I lie within a polished box,

  as I had when youth was new,

  before the shine begun to dull.

  But even the sun becomes older

  during it’s burial within the horizon,

  emitting sparks upon the ocean.

  If I could lie on the white sand beach,

  would that finally be Heaven?

  Or only a silk pillow

  used to soften sleep.

  If I were weightless as my thoughts,

  not space nor time would exist.

  No regret, or reason to dream

  as night rains against windows.

  Images and poetry float like water

  around me as I drift

  within a liquid slumber.

  EMPHASIS IN ITALICS

  Waving tree

  of an autumn sunrise,

  bare, bony fingers

  attempting to tickle

  the burning horizon.

  Small nose with large nostrils

  above subtly bent smile lines

  and faint freckles

  focused around leaf-colored eyes,

  seasoned spring and fall.

  One single insight

  with simple words

  what fall short,

  written in a leap of faith

  and an emphasis in italics;

  Beauty

  is in the awkward combination.

  EVEN THE HANDS OF GOD

  A gentle brush of fingertips,

  upon the face or temple skin,

  wipes away the daily sweat,

  like the chalk from a dirty slate.

  Worshipping the forgetting,

  dancing to a pulsating pitch,

  short and swe
et and forgiving

  until the moment it fades.

  But a quiver and a shake

  and a temporary saint;

  will do no more than blind

  with a fleeting white light.

  Here then gone and too far to reach,

  the might is firm but the grasp is weak,

  even the hands of a faulty god

  cannot hold on to us for long.

  FEED THE REAPER

  She walked a ways to meet the reaper,

  but wept a lake when he would not keep her.

  She tried to

  feed him gold,

  feed him time,

  and feed him souls,

  yours and mine.

  She cried a while then walked away,

  but lived to cry and try another day.

  She got to

  keep her gold,

  keep her time,

  and we kept our souls,

  yours and mine.

  FLOATING ON CHAOTIC DELUSIONS

  Inhaling mist

  rising from the sea,

  sailing toward bliss,

  Elizabeth and me.

  Strawberry blonde sunrise

  spreads across the water

  in ripples, low and high,

  like the hair of my imaginary daughter.

  Through the ocean

  of liquid remorse,

  we slipped on,

  away from reality’s shore.

  With sails filled

  Obsession glides,

  stern winds, strong willed,

  and a ghost at my side.

  Beyond a dome of clouds,

  to an island I have built,

  a safely hidden mound

  of rock and sand, mistakes and guilt.

  Home on a memory

  with the little girl I lost,

  sitting on the beach

  watching waves toss and toss

  and toss.

  FORGIVE ME

  Forgive me sensitive skin

  as I speak callously of lust--

  The urge to devour someone’s flesh,

  simply to feel full,

  turns lonely people

  into irrational cannibals,

  only aware of the meat

  and not the aftertaste.

  Betrayer of brothers;

  enemy to oneself.

  In the attempts to quench burning

  with friction and gasoline,

  people are driven to temporary insanity,

  where all sensible thoughts evaporate.

  But, oh, pleasure incomparable;

  damn you sensitive skin,

  I must feel others against me,

  damn the consequences.

  Forgive me beloved heart

  as I rant against love and love-like--

  To fall, to leap, to plunge,

  to give a piece of my soul away,

  are the cliques that will break

  and make me unwhole.

  I give myself,

  I lose myself.

  But, love is “wonderfully everlasting,”

  like permanent dementia,

  trapped in an opiate fantasy,

  where the pain never registers,

  until the withdrawal.

  But, I need my morphine

  to numb reality away,

  a shot directly to the chest.

  Forgive me brittle existence

  for the lust and love I shatter you with,

  again and again.

  FROM WHAT COULD BE SEEN

  From what could be seen,

  smooth eyebrows,

  like porcelain,

  perfectly plucked and maintained,

  held in the gentle middle,

  aware of beauty but

  not controlled by it,

  between loosened hair,

  like tumbling amber falling

  toward shoulders,

  choosing chest or back,

  heart or spine to spill over,

  to cover and harden,

  and eyes full of ocean,

  as deep and far,

  filled beasties and

  lovelies alike,

  sailors and swimmers

  enjoy and beware,

  she is everything.

  The rest below is hidden

  behind computer screen

  of the campus library,

  lost in a void, yet

  the not knowing gives possibility.

  What lies beneath the eyes?

  Like a blank page or

  untouched stone,

  she could potentially be

  anyone and everyone

  I imagine I need.

  Isn’t that love?

  FUSING BONE

  Pulled together,

  She and I,

  twisted and bound

  by the pressures of life,

  in which we clenched each other,

  until our bones fused,

  skins meshed,

  and the collective implosion took us.

  Inseparable,

  our bodies enfolded

  into one,

  a single meaty entity.

  If death leaves behind only blood

  for some cosmic collector,

  She and I,

  shall surely share a jar

  HUNG(FROM CLOUD NINE)

  Comfort leads

  to the careless acts

  which thread

  my thick rope.

  Dyed

  in golden intent,

  my noose

  is beautiful.

  Strung from

  cloud nine,

  I hung myself

  with happiness.

  I AM LIQUID

  A raindrop dropping

  from a gray-green sky.

  A single, simple, insignificant

  speck of wavering water

  falling freely within the storm,

  reflecting lightning light

  and pulsing with thunderous thuds.

  One among a downpour of bubbles

  forced from a safe heaven

  to an unknown underworld.

  I am liquid

  and fall

  whenever the rain

  returns.

  I CLIMB

  I will climb a mountain,

  cause I know I can.

  Gasp in the powdered clouds

  and visit the baby blue sky

  that hangs above life

  and everything living it.

  On the shoulder of this titan,

  up the back of a king,

  I will glance down,

  from the corner of one eye,

  to the life on the ground

  and laugh at the ants,

  living so small

  and scattering at my feet.

  Laughing to myself,

  for I was once an ant,

  and now I am among giants.

  ICON

  The saddest man ever to be

  lives locked within a clear cube,

  withdrawn into an emotional fast,

  starving in front of the world.

  Crowded around the glass box,

  people pause then pass on by,

  peering at the lonely spectacle

  who bears his pain beaten face.

  Becoming a symbol of a possibility,

  this suffering image in a see-through coffin

  is dying to benefit all onlookers;

  he reminds them to live.

  Alone among many

  and an icon of selfless despair,

  he mumbles to himself,

  “I don’t believe anyone cares at all.”

  FLOATING ON CHAOTIC DELUSIONS

  Inhaling mist

  rising from the sea,

  sailing toward bliss,

  Elizabeth and me.

  Strawberry blonde sunrise

  spreads across the water

  in ripples, low and high,


  like the hair of my imaginary daughter.

  Through the ocean

  of liquid remorse,

  we slipped on,

  away from reality’s shore.

  With sails filled

  Obsession glides,

  stern winds, strong willed,

  and a ghost at my side.

  Beyond a dome of clouds,

  to an island I have built,

  a safely hidden mound

  of rock and sand, mistakes and guilt.

  Home on a memory

  with the little girl I lost,

  sitting on the beach

  watching waves toss and toss

  and toss.

  INHALE THE SEA

  In indulgence, I dove

  into the bitter ocean,

  plunging through

  the shallowest chill

  and deepest pressure,

  each unique

  in thrill.

  Avoiding

  the surface,

  I welcomed a drowned fate.

  Risk in liquid

  or safety on land?

  I inhaled the sea

  and swam.

  JINGLING KEYS

  Jingling keys

  dangling for her to grasp.

  When fingers brush against

  knuckles,

  a subtle moment lingers.

  Amazing. Seconds of touch,

  pale skin,

  and I am forever aware

  of colors,

  blended and borderless.

 

  Right bleeds into wrong,

  becoming the tint

  of smoke,

  and forbidden shades

  turn lavender.