A Poem loosely about emotional ties

Tea-Cup Tempest

I have etched
My footprint
Down the roads
You never took
And felt in ways
You have never felt.
I have stood above
Mist coated valleys
Stretched out my arms
Flew briefly –too close.
I have lain beneath
A macabre mist
So dense, breathing
Was belabored:
Asphyxiation—
A dream in the dark.
Shortly thereafter
I managed to live
Under the surface
Of a tea-cup tempest
In a submarine
Soldered with nothing
Other than a child’s
Imagination
Rent on escaping
In anyway possible.
I have swept aside
My darkest parts
Into dark corners
In my dark psyche
So I could brighten
A room or, perhaps, two
But darkened them
In the long term.

But at other times
I have had copycat
Experiences
Just like all of you.
All of our feelings,
Reactions, even
Thoughts—
Were all identical.
This is so we all may
Hold each other raised,
Like wine glasses in air
Above gaping mouths
Waiting to drink us dry—
Maliciously sipping
At our very being
Until we are empty
Again.

©Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

An Experience

The God Spot

I spent today in another world, another universe, another time. It all started when the day refreshed much like a browser window does with an influx of new data. I awoke on my friends couch. The others were in the other room neatly tucked inside a warm summer’s morning bed. Its been a blur these past few days – something to do with my tempests under the control of the moon, some bitter lows like an aircraft caught in a hot pocket, that same old revolting self pitying, and then excuse making. We all reported to each other what we had forgotten from the previous night, found nourishment at a local smoothie shop, and went our separate ways. I found myself driving slow down sunny surface streets the same way old people do while they wait to die. And instead of turning down the street where I am visiting my parents for a brief time until my financial situation is cleared – I turned down a nearby canyon road. I found myself returning to a spot I found a week or so before: the God Spot, as I call it. It is here where I parked my exhausted sputtering vehicle and stepped out into another world. The God Spot is at the apex of a canyon hill – but is not the apex itself which lays a little ways ahead, or behind depending on your direction. No, the God Spot is a humble spot on the side of the final climb to the top. There is a small path and a mediocre clearing. But that is not why I came to it – I came to it for the view. Because you are so high there you can usually see above the clouds but not today. Today when I slowly stepped out of my rolling coffin I stepped into a heavy fog that was rushing over the hill tops. I quickly walked down the path to the mediocre clearing and it was the same. The fog was rushing from inside the canyon to the top of the hill and then was burned off by the sun. In a sense the fog was striving to die. It rushed up the beach of the hill like a high tide coming ashore. I was drowned. I fell to a sitting position beneath the oncoming flow. I then told God I would not leave until he spoke to me. I waited an unknown amount of time beneath the fog, not reveling in the fact I was at a greater altitude than those in their toy cars below me – but burdened by a silent God. But I had made a pact, so I asked questions: “Where am I going?” – “Where should I go?” – “Hello?”. Then after I had meditated I felt the small quiet voice of God tell me this very specifically: “I am bigger than you. You cannot push me around.” I sat there a moment not sure whether it was God or just my mind trying to not let me be disappointed. At last as I watched more of the fog commit suicide overhead I knew it was God. Quickly, I apologized to him for bullying Him and general evils done. I sat a moment longer looking out across the now almost clear canyon. I had never been there during the day before and thus had never seen the canyon fully unveiled. I watched as the fog slowly ran up and, much like an elegant dress sliding off a young woman’s body, the canyon began to be revealed. However, I got up, went to my car, and left before I saw all of her treasures. I did this because I felt I was undeserving to see the glorious view at this time. Perhaps later, my spirit will be at peace and bring me back for a better view.
I then returned home to my glorified bed-sit, walked in past my mother vacantly watching government propaganda on her small, black broken television, and went into my room where I began to conduct a symphony with imagined instruments digitally mastered for my enjoyment. I took a break from my composition to rest briefly and watch the thoughts of other people on a DVD. I dozed off multiple times but caught the gist of what the person was portraying – something about forgetting not being the opposite of remembering, but its lining. “So true.” I thought at the finish of the film.
And now, I sit in silence. My vague disconnected thoughts played out before me on digital paper written by digital hands of which I am the puppet master. I write this not only for others to read and maybe comment, but so that I do not forget what happened this day: July 5, 2007.

Illistration

Yeh.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Without Our Names and About Me

New Poetry of the "In Silence"


Without our names.

Those moments that you deem perfect
Fade like an old over worn belt
Donned around the waist of time
Underneath the shinned leather
Is the gray fabric called Shame
And this, we all wear delicately
Even when referring our past
When we were ivory deities—
But no one recalls our memories
They have sailed away down stream
Into a small pond full of dreams,
Delusions of grandeur, and moments
We are left up stream, in silence
Left only with our nightmares,
The acceptance of obscurity,
And time traveling around us
While we are harnessed to a rock
Where we die a little more each day
Only to rise the very next
And wait to be torn apart again
By an eagle. Or maybe vulture
As the historical record
Fades and is carefully rewritten
Without our names.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.



About Me

No one will read of me.
About me no one
Will ever wonder.
My existence?
Purely negligible.
I am the small cog
In the American
Dream machine
Limping home every night
Defeated again
Defeated again.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved

New Poem

Welcome Home

These blank walls
That welcome me
Back inside
Make me sick
So, I throw up
A painting here
A picture there
Masquerading
The emptiness
With Feng Shui.
No avail
This here room
Has not found
Itself yet
And cycles
Through fads
Underneath
Which lays
The same void.


© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Announcement and New Poem

I am starting a new body of work- which means that I have already started it and will close "The Unmentionables" soon. The new body of work will be entitled "In Silence". It is partly enspired by the fact that one day I ran out of things to write about I had noticed my topics become boring. I fell into a poetic silence. I searched inspiration and found an audiobook of Billy Collins' which I listened to promptly because I rather enjoy his literary style. He encountered a similair experience in his writting carrier to the one that I am in - so, I decided to take a few pointers from his work. "In Silence" is basically what I think of when I am surrounded by silence. It will be a collection of quiet calm maybe sad maybe happy moments. The blog will be filled with it and such and so forth. Art Galleries was the first of this new venture.

Here is a new one.

Airplane

There is something
So warming about
Watching airplanes
Fly overhead
The way the white stream
Slowly follows the plane
And passengers soaring
Soaring above us mortals
Stuck with our heads
Supported by our arms
Stuck in the grass
Like tent pegs.

The plane moves slowly
Or it seems that way
From such great distances
But really, the plane is speeding
Towards a horizon that we,
Down here, can never reach.
Once the plane goes over the horizon
We must find another flying machine
To watch drift across our little blue sky
Perhaps aliens in a flying sauce pan
Who has come to take you and I
Back home – at last.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All RIghts Reserved.

Yet Another New Poem

Comments and criticism very welcome. You do not have to be a member to comment.


A Car Ride

She listens to bland music
Riding in the car back home
The kind of music
Which drives men to seats
Erupting long stares
At the plaster on the wall
Or maybe, out of a car window
At night as yellow streetlights
Move like stars briefly lighting
The car and couple returning home.
She drives, the radio drones,
And he watches light-speed
In the white lane marks
Wondering about movement
And whether the world moves
Around him
As if he was perpetually
On a treadmill watching scenery
Drift slowly by inanimately
Or if things are as they seem
And he is insignificant
To the world outside
The four wheeled vessel
Traveling along a stationary road
Late at night.

© Liam Elliot 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Ta for reading.

~Peace.