Poetry2ponder's Blog

“Poem of the Day” by Trevor Witt

To keep depression away,
To grow joy and let ambition hold sway,
To express grief and anger and regret,
And to love beings and concepts I have never met.

To make music for friends,
To contemplate the end,
To waste time alone in my room,
And to wait for the sun while outside is filled with gloom.

To eat words, to feast on phrases,
But most of all, to find the sacred spaces,
In the singularity of the soul, that eternal pit,
To explore the puzzle of the mind and to find verses that fit.

“I am done” by Trevor Witt

I want to bash my skull against
The wall of this industrial beat,
This club is great, but I am drunk
And trying, trying, trying really hard
To sober up, to not embarrass myself
Again, again, I am old now.
You may not think so, but I am
Old enough to know better,
I have made enough mistakes
To learn my lessons, several times.

I am done.

“I am a lightning bolt” by Trevor Witt

I am a lightning bolt,
A flash of electricity,
A current traveling from
The cloudy heavens to earth,
Firing photons across the sky,
Aiming to balance an electric field.

I am a temporary being,
Gone in a split second,
Exerting enormous energy,
Just so I can be seen.

I am a force of nature,
Untamed, relentless,
Intangible, dangerous

You cannot hold me.

“I pour my heart into a wooden chalice” by Trevor Witt

I pour my heart into a wooden chalice,
A cup for all to savor a refreshing sip,

The flow of my soul down the gullet,
Is not enough to ease the pain of the zeitgeist,

I am trapped in tar, as my fellow dinosaurs die,
I am wrapped up in my ego, as I complain and wonder why.

Why me? Why am I suffering so?
I am a broken record, a stubborn crow.

But even the crow learns to build a nest and to grow,
And even the moody, old cat catches himself a rat.

I sit here sunken, with wings that feel like weights,
But I am not so unlucky that they have been clipped by fate.

I will learn to soar again,
I will crawl and fly and slither,
I will roar again.

I will learn to howl at the moon,
And I will bellow and growl,
And I will cackle and chuckle and smirk,
Like a giddy, mischievous fowl.

I will whisper the sounds of the owl,
And relish the meows of the kitten,
I will return to my animal instincts,
As the rawness of life has me smitten.

Like a zombie, bit by the infected,
I have a hunger that cannot be deflected,
I am alive, I am alive, I am alive,

And I am ready to be self-respected.

“Working (in my room)” by Trevor Witt

Upstairs in my room,
Working on my computer,
While the parents watch TV,
Is this what I want?
To face a daily grind?

What else is there?
What is the Grand Plan for me?
The future is what you make it.
And I am building it brick by brick.
While I struggle, I succeed.

In each hour of service,
There are sixty minutes of love.

In each year of dreaming,
There are 365 days of work.

If you want the tree to grow,
Take care of the seed and sapling.

“Stray Bullet” by Trevor Witt

A stray bullet hit her in the head,
The stray, wild, untamed, lonely bullet,
Hit her, struck, damaged, attacked, injured,
The stray bullet did not kill, murder, or obliterate,
Yet her sense of normalcy, of the humdrum, quotidian boredom,
Was forever shattered, like the neural connections for …

She can function, but she, does, not, like before, she is
Slow walk-ing, slow driv-ing, slow speak-ing,
Sometimes with a stut-stut-stutter,

Delayed signals from the brain
Leave deep wounds in her psyche,
As she learns to do … again.

The stray bullet did not save a life.
It did not stop a criminal.
It did not break a clay pigeon.
It did not kill the “enemy”.
It did not drive out the invader.
It did not hit the intended target.

Obviously,
The solution
is . . .

Smarter bullets.

“The sunlight (a rainbow of feelings)” by Trevor Witt

Each day, a rainbow of feelings —
A spectrum of light, from the invisible
To the red hot, to the cool blue,
Including infrared longing,
And ultraviolet despair,
Gamma ray fury,
And radio wave calm —

A rainbow of feelings, every day,
Appears — after the storm,
The torrential downpour of empathy,
The deluge of frustration,
The tempest of revulsion,
And the rushing, overflowing rivers of joy,
— And I see the sunlight for what it is,

The burnt skin, turned red with blisters,
The roses and lavender blooming,
The drought faced by the desert dwellers,
The sweet juice of an orange as you bite,
The thirst of the boy, as the heat radiates off the asphalt,
And the melting snow on the mountaintop.

The sunlight is me

and

The sunlight is you.

“A punch in the balls” by Trevor Witt

A punch in the balls,
Like a football to the crotch,
It was crippling, the pain,
Brought me to my knees,
In prayer, I tried to accept it,

When she told me I would
Never be a dad with her,
And I could not understand,
Tried to ignore my anguish,
I loved her, loved her and wanted
To expand our universe of love,
But love’s labors were not meant to be,
There would be no contractions,

Except for our relationship,
Which crumbled under the waves
Of uncertainty and resentment.
And knowing that love could not
Replace my desire for new starlight eyes,
I let the erosion wash us away.
I was hurt, devastated,
And the earthquake of her departure
Shook my soul to its core.

But I remained a volcano, spewing lava,
Seeking to build new lands,
Through the hot and cold.
Steadfast in my desire, we burned like Pompeii.

(I see so much awe in the tropical jungles,
In the waterfalls in national forests,
In the curious behavior of Blue Jays and squirrels,
In discovery of new earths, distant worlds,

But time would not expand our universe,
As the big bang grew more distant,
So did she, and we reached our last,
The last verse, as we went to bury love’s hearse.)

“An Imperfect Prayer for Israel and Palestine” by Trevor Witt

Deir Yassin, the Nakba, Land Day, Sabra and Shatila,
The Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil,
Gaza, Gaza, Gaza,
Jenin and Nablus,
Huwara, Huwara, Huwara

Massacres and pogroms,
Collective punishment, collective death,
The collective destruction of our memories,
In the context of war (in the context of colonialism (in the context of refugee resettlement (in the context of return from the Diaspora (in the context of fleeing persecution))))

Murders,
Innocent people killed, injured,
Wounded bodies, battered psyches,
Bones and muscle and nerves broken,
By snipers bullets, by tank shells, by shrapnel and grenades,
By landmines, by mortars, and by missiles from fighter jets.
By phosphorus shells, by an embargo, by the walls of a prison,
By the blockade of community, the trap of a closed border,
By medical neglect and indefinite detention.

Enslavement and forced labor,
Desecration of holy places and exile,
The resistance of Moses, the Maccabees, Masada, and Bar Kokhba,
Laws against intermarriage, barred from many professions,
Accused of blood libel, blamed for The Plague,
Tortured into giving up their customs during the Inquisition,
Pogroms in the Pale of Settlement, Hebron 1929, Kristallnacht, Auschwitz,
The Farhud, the exodus from Iraq and Iran,
The Suez Crisis or The Tripartite Aggression,
The Six Day War or the The War of 1967,
The Yom Kippur War or the Ramadan War,
Suicide bombings – on a crowded bus, in a Sbarro.

Hebron – Baruch Goldstein,
The Cave of the Patriarchs,
The Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre,
The families torn apart by grief,
Clothes ripped in mourning,
Cries of “G-d is great”,
“There is no G-d but G-d”,
And “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our G-d”
“G-d is One”.

There is no repairing the despair,
There is only carrying love, despite its weight,
The Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum
Translates often to the Heavy Families,
It is too much. I cannot carry them,
And it is not for me to do.

But I do draw tears from their sorrow,
And I drink salty water from their pain,
I wish, I hope, I pray for the day,
When we can put this struggle to rest,
When we can treat each other well,
When we can truly say, “Never again”.

“You make me want to sing” by Trevor Witt

You make me want to sing,
Though my tongue is tied in knots.
You make me want to shout,
There’s something, in your eyes,
A sweetness, in your serious concern,
A calming, like ocean waves on a summer day
In your voice, as you encourage me,
You carry me, with your words,
And I float even when my heart is heavy.

“He doesn’t think I can do it” by Trevor Witt

Hold down the fort,
Hold down my liquor,
He doesn’t think I can do it.
He says it’s not my forte.

Negotiate the contract,
Negotiate the peace,
He doesn’t think I can do it.
He says I’m too weak.

Run my own business,
Run a marathon,
He doesn’t think I can do it.
But I know that he’s wrong.

I know I am capable,
I know I can work harder than him,
I know I can do it, I know I can do it,
So I pay no attention to Jealous Jim.

“Fuck It! Just write!” by Trevor Witt

Fuck it!
Just write!
Throw horse shit at the wall!
And see what sticks!

Keep going until your pen’s ink
Turns to smudged blood,
From your hands and feelings,
Oozing onto the page, like the flow
From an open wound, to form a scab,
To cover, to protect, to seal off
The hurt, to prevent infection,
To prevent the spread of
Trauma, anger, frustration, hatred,
Shame, guilt, fear, and regret,

Deadly pressures, poisons,
When concentrated in the mind,
As opposed to expressed,
Pressed out, let go, released,

And, finally, forgotten.

I do not memorize my poetry.

I write to forget,
To forget the madness,
The madness present
When I relive trauma.

I don’t want to relive it,
I want to be relieved,
I want relief,
A renewed lease on life.

If the right words are not coming,
If it’s hard to choose what to say,

Say nothing,
Say, “Fuck it.”

And,
Just write!

“Hearing them yell and cry” by Trevor Witt

Fear is scary,
And anger is hard,
Especially when people yell,
In the house and in the yard.

I’m surprised the cops were never called,
I remember hearing them yell and cry,
And I tried to sleep, to pretend it all away,
But I bawled and bawled and bawled.

I don’t remember the specific dollar amount,
But they didn’t have enough in their accounts
To keep me and my brother at our school,
But hearing them fight made me want to drown in a pool.

I remember choking myself with my blanket,
And lying under covers, hoping I would pass out,
From lack of oxygen or CO2 buildup,
I didn’t want to be a burden or fuck-up.

I don’t know if I wanted to die or just to disappear,
But that has stuck with me from seven or eight, until my thirty-sixth year.

“Dad is not always mad” by Trevor Witt

Dad is not always mad.
Dad can be sad.
Dad can be bummed.
And Dad can be glad.
He has matured over the years.
He has learned to face his tears.

Dad has a wide-eyed smile,
A grin from cheek to cheek,
When he’s happy,
No gloom can sneak!

But when you see his eyebrows furrow,
He might be confused in his emotional world,
And if his lips get tight and those brows form a “V”,
Then, an angry scowl might be what you see.

But dad can also ponder in concentration,
And he can ruminate on frustrations.
He can be goofy and make funny faces,
And he can take his mind to deep, dark places.
He can express wonder at beauty
And embarrassment after a blunder.

Dad can be excited watching the football game,
And he can feel let down by his team’s losing shame.

Dad is a complicated man;
He can feel many different things.
I am his number one fan,
No matter what emotion he brings.

“would not fit” by Trevor Witt

The poem would not fit,
The words would not contort themselves;
Flow and subject matter refusing
To be compartmentalized,
The meat could be cut up,
But then it would wound the meaning,
Disable the message, and
Alter the opus, diminishing the art.

And so, the poet moved on,
Unable to dismember his work,
He began anew.

“No body is perfect” by Trevor Witt

Nobody is perfect.
No body is perfect.
Bruised, scarred, traumatized,
Scared, temperamental, irritable,
Acne, a bad knee, with memory failing,

Our physical, mental, and emotional faculties
Fail us sometimes, like professors
Who try to teach us, but still make mistakes,
With ill-conceived jokes, offensive statements,
And, worst of all, inconvenient facts,

Like our parents, who want the best for us,
As long as we fit their molds of success,
With their fears assuaged, and their hopes fulfilled,
Then we can chase our dreams, as long as
We are careful — so that we don’t get hurt.

Like partners who say the wrong thing,
At a time of vulnerability — or worse,
They were not there when we needed them.
Mistakes and apologies are made.
Sometimes there is forgiveness.

No body is perfect,
As infections inflict suffering,
As we are ignorant of the causes,
Bacterial, viral, fungal roots?
Anger, hurt, hatred, a poor upbringing,
A chemical imbalance, traumatic brain injury?
Healing usually involves a lot of hurt.

Nerves connected, but separated,
Put together impulses — thoughts and actions,
And we act, like we understand, we pretend.
And I act, with confidence, though I am nervous.

Are our nerves us?
Our brains and spinal chords?
Synapses firing to control muscles,
To send immune responses, to do something —

I don’t know how it all works.
But it does, sometimes.
Sometimes, we suffer
Alzheimers, Parkinson’s, ALS,
HIV, long Covid, depression —

Or simply aging, the regular
Wear and tear of life:
Work, sports, carrying children,
And caring for them, and for our parents.

The feet ache, the hip hurts,
The back goes out.
Fat accumulates.

Zits, cuts, scrapes, scars,
Wounds, amputations, deformities, anomalies.

Unique degradation, after miraculous — if imperfect — growth,
No body is perfect.

No body is perfect.

Nobody.