Submissions by Lee
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I am. What else it there to say? My likes, dislikes, loves and wishes, mean nothing if I do not acknowledge that I simply am. That I breathe and experience. There is no greater explanation.
My Name
My name is six letters
My name is 4.3% probability
My name is two syllables, black and white
decorating lips shyly.
My name is a title
an identification, a story
My name is not an apology,
although sometimes I’ve heard is said with such
remorse that I have cause to wonder…
My name is not good behavior
not straight A’s
not sunshine and open skies.
My name is not a hand you can hold
My name is not a safety net,
not a life vest
or a parachute,
not a search and rescue team.
My name is a dark place
My name is monochrome...
My name is 4.3% probability
My name is two syllables, black and white
decorating lips shyly.
My name is a title
an identification, a story
My name is not an apology,
although sometimes I’ve heard is said with such
remorse that I have cause to wonder…
My name is not good behavior
not straight A’s
not sunshine and open skies.
My name is not a hand you can hold
My name is not a safety net,
not a life vest
or a parachute,
not a search and rescue team.
My name is a dark place
My name is monochrome...
90 reads
2 Comments
Summer Storm
Who told you those monsoons in your eyes were wrong to unleash? Who told you the roots of the mountains weren’t yours to explore, that these poems weren’t breathing, that ink doesn’t bleed and you can’t feel through words? I think I know you. You’ve got Schubert’s serenade tangled in the valves of your heart, braided with the bronchi of your lungs, and I know that system of highways pounding through your head, asking those eyes of yours to focus only on the horizon pains you. Don’t withdraw from the ache. Maybe it hurts for a reason. Maybe the sky shifts and the color bleeds away so that the...
93 reads
2 Comments
Anchors on the Corner Lot
11th and Hogan used to talk about
Rock walls that led to quite solitude,
The death of exhaust as cars passed by.
11th and Hogan used to flutter
Kaleidoscope eyelids and flaunt
Floral skirts beneath summer blues.
11th and Hogan used to stutter pleasantries
On blossoming hands
Through rich soils that defied its new name.
11th and Hogan used to spill light
On tattooed Africa,
On quotes of ink she liked to sing about.
11th and Hogan used to sigh
Winter storms on fireplace hearths,
Brick comforts on spinal conversations....
Rock walls that led to quite solitude,
The death of exhaust as cars passed by.
11th and Hogan used to flutter
Kaleidoscope eyelids and flaunt
Floral skirts beneath summer blues.
11th and Hogan used to stutter pleasantries
On blossoming hands
Through rich soils that defied its new name.
11th and Hogan used to spill light
On tattooed Africa,
On quotes of ink she liked to sing about.
11th and Hogan used to sigh
Winter storms on fireplace hearths,
Brick comforts on spinal conversations....
51 reads
2 Comments
Beside the large crater on the right-hand side
The purse I keep all my words in
has been stolen
by the earthquakes and tsunamis that
keep leveling the branches built into my tree house.
I’ve been trying to persuade daytime
to inspire me because I haven’t slept in weeks.
Some nights you are just a dream
Some nights you are a nightmare
with his face
and his hands
and all the lies he filled my lungs with.
Sometimes I feel light enough to want you.
Sometimes the claustrophobia sitting
in my chest forms icebergs in my veins
and I can’t stop screaming silence.
I’ve been...
has been stolen
by the earthquakes and tsunamis that
keep leveling the branches built into my tree house.
I’ve been trying to persuade daytime
to inspire me because I haven’t slept in weeks.
Some nights you are just a dream
Some nights you are a nightmare
with his face
and his hands
and all the lies he filled my lungs with.
Sometimes I feel light enough to want you.
Sometimes the claustrophobia sitting
in my chest forms icebergs in my veins
and I can’t stop screaming silence.
I’ve been...
68 reads
1 Comment
Where a forest of agate jars tells me I’m foolish
My hands forgot to tell you
why I needed you to say
‘I’m leaving’
‘This isn’t working’.
I have too many words that still remember our last kiss
how the rain cemented it into the skin of my lips
and refused to fade.
Blue trucks remind me of unfounded expectations
of a gray sky and hope held
on a too-loose promise around my finger.
On good days, I’ve forgotten the blades in your memory.
The bad days –
I spend counting cracks in plaster walls
supposed to keep me safe.
You were a devotion scribbled into the margins of my story...
why I needed you to say
‘I’m leaving’
‘This isn’t working’.
I have too many words that still remember our last kiss
how the rain cemented it into the skin of my lips
and refused to fade.
Blue trucks remind me of unfounded expectations
of a gray sky and hope held
on a too-loose promise around my finger.
On good days, I’ve forgotten the blades in your memory.
The bad days –
I spend counting cracks in plaster walls
supposed to keep me safe.
You were a devotion scribbled into the margins of my story...
78 reads
2 Comments
Only Time shows love between magma and Oceans
You shouldn’t touch me,
I’ve got semi-solid fragments in my veins and
I tend to suffocate what I try to keep.
I’ve got soot boiling my bones,
magma swirling in my stomach
and pyroclastic clouds fluttering on my tongue.
I try to hold it all in,
but Love, sometimes its too strong
sometimes it’s been building too long.
And four-wheel drive
isn’t enough to get you over the slopes
of my hesitance when I’m spilling acidic rain,
darkening the skies with rolling memories.
On the beds of the Pacific
I met a volcanologist
who said my...
I’ve got semi-solid fragments in my veins and
I tend to suffocate what I try to keep.
I’ve got soot boiling my bones,
magma swirling in my stomach
and pyroclastic clouds fluttering on my tongue.
I try to hold it all in,
but Love, sometimes its too strong
sometimes it’s been building too long.
And four-wheel drive
isn’t enough to get you over the slopes
of my hesitance when I’m spilling acidic rain,
darkening the skies with rolling memories.
On the beds of the Pacific
I met a volcanologist
who said my...
76 reads
6 Comments
This should not be a safe place for my shadows
Carefully crafted half-truths
have never learned to ignore
all the things I’ve failed at being.
Like when the hand struck at noon
and I tried to dance across your sunburns
to ease your discomfort in the way you were exposed,
but I ended up with blistered feet,
and regrets that scalded my esophagus
with the bewilderments sitting in your eyes.
You are five-layered uncertainty
and I only have a mouthful of understandings
to offer you comfort.
Lay it down.
Release it.
Meet eye to eye, teeth to skin
you are more than the whisper...
have never learned to ignore
all the things I’ve failed at being.
Like when the hand struck at noon
and I tried to dance across your sunburns
to ease your discomfort in the way you were exposed,
but I ended up with blistered feet,
and regrets that scalded my esophagus
with the bewilderments sitting in your eyes.
You are five-layered uncertainty
and I only have a mouthful of understandings
to offer you comfort.
Lay it down.
Release it.
Meet eye to eye, teeth to skin
you are more than the whisper...
60 reads
2 Comments
The Ocean isn’t afraid to kiss the sky Goodnight
Notice has been percolating throughout justifiable auditions.
I’ve seen you try to stave off
chimney tops spiraling out of cracking planets.
Watch your step,
those hands of yours must be careful
handling cosmic deviations
even if the constellations spell your name
and know your face
and love the lines at the corners of your eyes
as they appear when you swallow sunsets.
When the world watches too much,
slip below.
Don’t be afraid of the dark
or the pressure it lays on the high ridges of your shoulders,
sunlight is only an option...
I’ve seen you try to stave off
chimney tops spiraling out of cracking planets.
Watch your step,
those hands of yours must be careful
handling cosmic deviations
even if the constellations spell your name
and know your face
and love the lines at the corners of your eyes
as they appear when you swallow sunsets.
When the world watches too much,
slip below.
Don’t be afraid of the dark
or the pressure it lays on the high ridges of your shoulders,
sunlight is only an option...
74 reads
2 Comments
These fingers are still counting Today
Today’s poem is not about forgiving or forgetting
although I think at some strike of lightening
it has invested in at least one.
Today’s poem is a locked door wedged against
a breast bone tormented by too many apologies.
Today’s poem is a start to a beginning that has only ever fed on end.
Today’s poem is blistered finger prints,
whimsical ideals in the dead drifts of frost
where honey and promise meet
over and over and over again.
Today’s poem is full of isn’t
and packed past veins and sinew with is.
I want to tell you that it’s okay to...
although I think at some strike of lightening
it has invested in at least one.
Today’s poem is a locked door wedged against
a breast bone tormented by too many apologies.
Today’s poem is a start to a beginning that has only ever fed on end.
Today’s poem is blistered finger prints,
whimsical ideals in the dead drifts of frost
where honey and promise meet
over and over and over again.
Today’s poem is full of isn’t
and packed past veins and sinew with is.
I want to tell you that it’s okay to...
89 reads
2 Comments
Threatened
This world is white and cold and heavy.
A battlefield of semipermeable identities
torn asunder by I don’t feel anything I feel too much.
Maybe this world is melting
drip drip dripping down the age lines of my palms
tying my feet with their tears
and I’m not sure which turn of this rotation I will land on.
My legs are bending where they’re not supposed to
sliding sliding sliding off the side of this undirected journey.
I am faltering deviations on black-top roads,
weathered and withered inside panoramic itineraries
promising only junctions...
A battlefield of semipermeable identities
torn asunder by I don’t feel anything I feel too much.
Maybe this world is melting
drip drip dripping down the age lines of my palms
tying my feet with their tears
and I’m not sure which turn of this rotation I will land on.
My legs are bending where they’re not supposed to
sliding sliding sliding off the side of this undirected journey.
I am faltering deviations on black-top roads,
weathered and withered inside panoramic itineraries
promising only junctions...
107 reads
2 Comments
Wished upon a wish, and fell
Nobody told me about all the clouds
in wishes that spills sorrows like leaky faucets,
but I’ve learned not to question which ocean
the dish water will contaminate this time.
I’ve been planting this garden for a decade
and never noticed how brown
had redrawn my finger prints
and dyed my bloodstream with lavender,
even when you slept pressed against my pulse
did I believe you loved it.
White chalk always stood out
like blacktop veins, crusted and stitched
spent hop-scotching over parcels of reality,
where the waving end of fairytale...
in wishes that spills sorrows like leaky faucets,
but I’ve learned not to question which ocean
the dish water will contaminate this time.
I’ve been planting this garden for a decade
and never noticed how brown
had redrawn my finger prints
and dyed my bloodstream with lavender,
even when you slept pressed against my pulse
did I believe you loved it.
White chalk always stood out
like blacktop veins, crusted and stitched
spent hop-scotching over parcels of reality,
where the waving end of fairytale...
66 reads
2 Comments
I’m no damsel, neither am I helpless
You always wanted conversation to explain
all the solitudes I dressed myself with
all the wanderings imbedded in my bones,
but the words found no mold you would accept
because you never understood that the sky
can sometimes be empty and still give flight
to featherless things.
I tried to tell you that black is the only color I know
how to embrace with any kind of explanation,
that touching me meant changing those ears to eyes
when ink is slithering from beneath my fingernails
staining everything I dare to touch.
I can’t bleed out any more...
all the solitudes I dressed myself with
all the wanderings imbedded in my bones,
but the words found no mold you would accept
because you never understood that the sky
can sometimes be empty and still give flight
to featherless things.
I tried to tell you that black is the only color I know
how to embrace with any kind of explanation,
that touching me meant changing those ears to eyes
when ink is slithering from beneath my fingernails
staining everything I dare to touch.
I can’t bleed out any more...
147 reads
8 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Lee