Exhalations of emotion (skip this if you hate poetry...)

What is a blog without the obligatory poetry, eh? Being the dark, tortured artist I am you should have seen these coming. Through the years these have been my therapy and the way that I have been able to take my inner demons out and look them in the face. It is not easy to carry these emotions around with you all the time and by excising these thoughts through poetry I think it has helped me stay sane (or the precarious balance I currently call sanity!)

Some of these have been published in various small journals and others are just my orphan children. I hope you enjoy them, but even if you don't, I do. Art needs a little self indulgence now and then! I have an interactive new media project I plan to do with these someday, but until then, here they are in their raw form... Maybe you will find them comforting - I do.

Warning: These are not happy...

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Searching for Survival 4/16/03
A bee
beats itself
against the screen
in a primal dance
of desperation –
I long to hold it
in my hand
and watch as it
plunges its dagger
into my unyielding hand,
expelling its life
in an impotent strike.
I would carry the mark
for a day or two;
a constant reminder
of a life once led
but hastily cast aside
in the search
for survival.

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muse 1-14-98
through a veil
of prisming tears
you see the world
in shades of purple fire -
jagged needles of wonder
that stab to the core

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puddles 3-18-98

ringed by raindrop ripples
water collects
into magnifying glasses,
turning pebbles
into boulders
that crunch under
careless feet

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*after the storm 3-7-98
liquid emotion rains down
slicking the world with
drops of silence that
hang
like velvet pearls
slowly falling
one by
one

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8-29-98, revised 9-11-98 last chance
white breath clouds
pregnant with words
hang unspoken
(a swirling mass
of stillborn thoughts
bleeding away
in vaporous frost)
as the stop light blooms
a noisy green

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I Close My Eyes 4-30-95
I close my eyes
and you’re still here.
The salt of your skin
lingers on my lips,
flavoring the world
with your sweet presence.
Your shudders echo
like a frightened bird
trapped inside my chest.

My mind never sleeps
for fear of waking
from this dream
where you and I are one.
But if I ever come
to find you gone,
and my flesh grows cold
without your warm embrace,
all I have to do
is close my eyes
and you’ll still be there.

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nothing monumental 3-14-98
no lightning
cleaves the black sky
to create a proper ending

no rain
pounds the hollow earth
to sound a final farewell

no music
punctuates the moment
to set a poignant mood

nothing monumental happens
to signal the end

i just sit
in this familiar chair
and mark

the close of a life
as you slip away
into the silent darkness

and your hand grows cold
no matter
how long i hold you

--Beth Lykins