"Blue" by my daughter Sammi, 13 years

Blue

I stood at the edge of the ocean, staring miles down the never-ending beach. I couldn't help but think about everything this beach, this ocean, had been through. It had been through heartbreaks, lost and found friends, cried tears of happiness and sorrow. It has been so confused by life that it gives up and tries not to live it.

The warm, crystal clear water touched my feet one last time. Why couldn't it stay; stay at me at this time - if it all went still - and let me talk to it, ask it more questions a while longer before leaving?

I bet she has made friends and had to leave them. Maybe they were best friends but the waves' force tore them apart. Maybe the friends had been trying to find each other, fighting against the current just to be with their friends, wanting nothing more than to make the ocean stand still so they could catch up with each other. They try telling the ambitious current to stop, just for a while, but it refuses and tenaciously keeps going.

The wind glanced over the treetops and skimmed over the water, tossing it slowly. The clouds seemed to be whistling towards me, soft whispers came from dying fires behind me.

The blue lighthouse shone safely over the ocean for anyone who has lost their way. I feel like I could dive in the ocean and be with it forever, never leaving, staying close and communicating endlessly, watching the world passing by. It sees every storm come and go, not having to be a part of it.

The perfect world is in that ocean.

"Come," the wind started to whisper.

"Jump in, " the clouds increasingly chanted.

The sky turned charcoal grey as if trying to tell me to go in also.

Cracks of lightning flicker across the sky, cheering me on. Thunder roared relentlessly.

I smiled, my worries fading, forgetting them slowly. I realized I must fulfill what I know I came here to do.

We (declaration/prose)

WE

We

(the trees, bees, fleas, stones and bleached bones; the stars, fish, starfish, eagles, beagles, seagulls, virus, papyrus and platypus; the deadheads, meth-heads, skin heads, redheads, tow-heads, reds, terrorists, patriots, pigeons, rats, politicians, polygamists, pagans, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and those that think and look like they fell from the sky; the red rocks, white cliffs, blue sky, yellow gold, green algae, orange orange, black tar and Portland January grey; the blessed air we breathe and the clean water we need; the salmon and seals, frogs and green fields; the firelight, starlight, moonlight, sunlight and dark night; the ‘coons, baboons, loons, eternal Saharan dunes and every other thing, non-thing and unknown corporeal being that you can or can’t name…)

are
all
One.

--Eric Marley

June 2013

      

Compassion - Poem

Compassion

The struggling fly

Knows all too well
The dangers of
The web.

 --Eric Marley

December 2012

Musing On A Breakup, For April Amber Theisen - Proem

Musing On A Breakup

Looking at your window at 7am on Sunday morning, I saw you there. You came to the window in that white threadbare t-shirt you always wore to bed, up early. You waved and smiled at me. When I blinked back I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I’ll never believe them again.

It was only a white curtain, set against the nondescript color of the windows of a darkened room, the color of blood in a vein, of the inside of closed eyes. The curtain laughed joylessly. It held you captive, asleep, your hair strewn across your pillow as if you were in a vertical windstorm because you remember that I liked it that way.

I feel like I cut my hand deep with a knife with a nine-inch blade. It throbs unashamedly and stares back at me maliciously. I know the skin is going to heal, but I don’t know about the tendons, the bone, the table beneath all three.

I picked a flower for you and it cried when I did it. It wilted before I could place it outside your locked door, on the windshield of your car. The pain was too much, it said.

I can still taste the flavor of your moans, your hands clenching the bedsheets.

It occurs to me that cigars make me sick, but I smoke them anyway, sometimes. Sitting here in the street searching your window seems like that.

Why do some plants and romance die in the spring, when living things always grow towards the light? Dying things don’t care about the light; their greenness is chased downwards and underground by the evil brown. Things that dwell underground are afraid of what’s above, just like masks made of wax melt in both the inward and the outer sun. Underground is the only place to escape, but it doesn’t work for long. Our love lives there now. It’s quiet like the inside of a casket.

Acid rain like rust colored pain began to fall in my liver. The liver’s job is to remove impurities, but it put up an umbrella. My liver ain’t touchin’ that shit; it puddled near the lake underneath it, making me queasy.

I figure that mowed grass is the second-most unhappiest creature on the planet, and that clouds stay as long as you are unwilling to ask them to leave with your Other Voice. They don’t understand human words. Speak to them softly with rain or they will just smile back to remind you to be white and fluffy before you ask again. My Other Voice is terminally mute. The ends of my mouth strangle it.

Some trees are simply meant to be split by lightning, so my hair is singed.

I remember you laughing when I told you that cupcake batter on your lips should be its own food group.

Blackberry bushes grow both thorns and fruit. The thorns agree to not stick people in the heart, and the berries agree to allow strawberries to taste better. They balance one another in this way. They agreed to this arrangement but both grumble about it, stuck forever in the pale soil of mediocrity.

It occurs to me that sometimes killer whales push seals back on the beach instead of eating them. Your windows all have teeth.

The last thing the halls of my body heard were your footsteps leaving. It’s darker now. Is there a door anymore?

Sometimes when I eat fish I feel a bone in the back of my throat and I am afraid to swallow again.

You’ll be asleep in there forever, won’t you?

Eric Marley
May 2013

New Earth (Haiku)

New Earth

It was something new

Earth being separate from

The expansive Sky

Earth had been warm there

Cocooned in eternal stars

Her cosmic playthings

But suddenly Earth

Found herself gazing upward

Far from her old friends

Nursing at the sky 

The Milky Way's breast, Earth smiled

But no smile came back.

For the Sky, knowing,
Gazed back with apprehension

Like parents might do

Looking at a child

Recently crippled, sensing 

What might lie ahead.

For others would come
Earth was not to be alone.
There would be Dwellers.

At first, they would love.

They would reverence the Earth

The Sky, and all Life.

But then they would change.

Sky had seen it countless times.

The Dwellers would change.

Ideas like more

And less would infect them all

They would conclude that

By taking from earth
The Dwellers could make themselves
Manufacture peace

Sky would see it all 

She would see the infection
As it began anew

And she would be sad.
For the Dwellers would wander
Would fight the Earth's ways

Instead of waiting

For instance, for season's change

They would break her skin

To plant even more

Than what they needed; more than

What freely grew there. 

The Dwellers would trade

And greed - unknown to nature
Would change everything.

The waters would die.
Animals, once abundant
Would vanish for good.

Mutated products
Garbage, war, disease would come...
And the Earth would die.

It had always been;
Had happened on many Earths
The Sky hoped, maybe...

Just maybe, this time
The Dwellers' souls would have learned...
Learned the way of peace

For hope rises East
And the Sky loves the Dwellers
Hopes for our growth

That's why Sky birthed Earth;
To give our riotous souls
Our old, restless souls

Yet another chance
To learn, to grow, to feel love
In the cold expanse.

So Earth gazed upwards
At the bright Sky gazing back
With great, grave, stillness.

--Eric Marley
April 2013

The Disaffected Revolutionaries (Poem/bitchfest)

The Disaffected Revolutionaries

The tattoo on his neck

Doesn’t look to me
Like anything but
A boot print

Don’t talk to me about

Choices
What “they” deserve

You were not born in their wet skin

You are not yet disaffected

You are not a smoker
So tax the smokers

You are not a gay man

So ban gay marriage

You are not a Muslim

So establish a base there

You are not a drug addict
So discern the drug addict
From a loftier perch

You are not evil
So punish the evil
Ban it-
Mandate its expulsion
So the Great You
The Rising Right
The Promised Nation
Can manifest its destiny
Otherwise
Who knows
What He will do
But...

Wasn't that the Biblical Satan's plan?
How is it now your Biblical God's plan?

While you consider this
If you choose to do so

Those who do not recognize
Your sovereignty
As their Judge
Will exit the coliseum

You built to honor your false selves

Encircle your box office*
They now make themselves ready
For the moment
That you too are disaffected
And walk slowly with them
Down those slippery stairs
Wet with blood and urine
Staring into the faces
That at once harbor
Aspects of
Violence
Anger
Love
Peace
Frustration
Misunderstanding
(For they also judge)
And await
Your decision
To join and fight
Or fight those that join

 --Eric Marley

April 2013

*Lifted from Saul Williams' poem, "Bloodletting" 

Gary Wolnez - (Slam Poem/Story)

Gary Wolnez was one of those guys that was always around but never quite there.  He was in but not quite inside. He played football but he didn’t start. He was kinda handsome but his hair stood on end like antennae that brought in the thoughts of us all.  

Gary Wolnez, he had dark eyes.  Eyes that looked like owl’s eyes; eyes that see in the dark, soft pools that, if you were to throw a rock in one, it wouldn’t have gone “splat” but rather, “ker-plunk”; eyes that might have been drawn by Mensa artists. Eyes that seemed to have just one too many layers. Just one too many layers.

People with eyes like that don’t stay here long. It's too much information. Everyone talks at once. They see in all dimensions, see the Reasons. They see your words turned on end. They can feel your smiles from inside your teeth, and he knows what you mean. Their skin reaches into anyone with whom they are speaking, probing their motives, mining their meaning, feeling the tingle of everyone’s skin. You didn't notice the probing because of the eyes.

Feeling it all is hard work. Doors are ultimately no good to people like Gary. They disregard them. The protection they offer is unavailable, unknowable, really, to someone like him. So Gary Wolnez could never sleep. His radio was tuned to all stations simultaneously. There was no "off" button. The sheep he counted never shut up. They just smiled back at him with his own eyes and kept talking. Gary would walk down the school hall, feeling it all. The sparks from our teenaged forest fires were always in his eyes, blinding him. Ultimately we were responsible for destroying his night vision. He could no longer see in the dark even when the sparks went cold. All the world was 100 fathoms deep. Dark glasses were too late coming.  

The last time I saw Gary he was wearing black. I worked in a grocery store. He watched me from the second floor. He looked like an ink spot. Sun photo negative. Melted Crayola on beat black construction paper. Spark blind now, Gary wasn’t smiling, looked like he hadn't slept since fire. Wait right there, Gary, and I’ll be right up. When I looked back, he was gone.  He’s still gone. He still watches me from above. He still has the same eyes. The sparks are gone. He lives in the dark.