Inside The Hearts' Walls

by W


I know
 what happened to a dream.

It was diffused, not deferred, it was a silver dandelion
that blew away in a spider web and  sprinkled
its dream  pollen on ground and on grass and caught
in long  hair and landed in the wondering eyes of small children.

People once thought it would melt in the sunlight.
It grew into fields full of stars.
 
--------------------
 
This is this week's submission to the Commuter. Whitney's stuff is always so dreamy, isn't it?

By W

Blackberry brambles
Such uncomfortable places.
Prickly, stickled, webbing in wings
Not letting them out.

To be picked is just another
Way of saying chosen.
There remains in all hearts
A honey drunk awe of it.

You who hibernate coolness,
Your day shall come.
So still for it, wait for it
To rest is, after all, one of many ways to praise.

Someday—yes—
        It
              Will
                      Find
                            You.

That growing warmth of ripened grace
When you know in each wondering burst
Of your body that your time has come

At last.
 
--------------------
 
This poem is our submission to the Commuter this week.

Have a happy Final's Week everybody! The Poetry Club will be taking two weeks off, meeting next on Tuesday, March 29, in the first week of spring term. The prompt for writing for that meeting is no prompt at all, just write on whatever topic strikes your fancy.

In other news, the Choir Concert was last night (pics here), and four of our poets read their works to the sold out auditorium (500 or so people; the fire-mashal's certificate by the door certified a capacity of 524, but I spotted a couple rows of mostly empty seats over in the crappy corner where the piano would have blocked people's view of half the stage). The so honored poets were John, Teagan, Whitney, and Tav (in that order (chronologically, not in that order in the picture below)).

If I ever left Corvallis


If I ever left you,
‘  I would never be the same,
   I would never quite recover,
   I might somehow lose my name.
   I could not forget your colors--
   Your soft and sporty gray,
    Or those cheesy chunky snowflakes,
    You bring out each Christmas Day,
    Or that pink you say is salmon,
    Or that gold you say is brown,
    You’re my gold and salmon heartbreak,
    I just can’t let you down.
    So many scents are my reminders,
    Of all the things we were,’
    Although when I try to bring to mind,
    They smudge and smooch and blur.
     The rubber tired pavement,
     The sweet fresh scent of lawn,
     The occasional whiff of sultry smoke,
      Oh, I’ll miss you when I’m gone!
       If I ever left you,
       I would never quite forget,
      The way you act on game day,
      Like you owe the crowds a debt.
       The rush the roar the shouting,
       Your orange and black and pride,
        I always groaned hrmmph outwardly,
        But I was proud of you inside,
        For all you are you’re not yet,
        But someday you’ll become,
        And grow and change and change and grow
        And somehow still seem young,
        So if ever again I hear that song,
        That one night became ours,
        When the old man with the violin,
        Played underneath the stars,
        If I hear that song some someday hour,
        On an old forgotten stair,
        Or an old forgotten park bench,
        It will haul me back right there,
        To all our times at schools and dances,
        And rainy old busstops,
        Or our red umbrella moments,
        On the way to coffee shops,
‘       But now that I am leaving you
        To help me dull the pain,
       I  pulled out  my friends sound advice,
        Saved for penniless days or rain
       That sometimes yeah you fall in love,
        Then go your separate ways,
   It hurts and aches but snap it heals,
    And you start fresh again one day.
   Yet maybe now even as I write this
     I finally see the light,
    Because I think inside,  wise as she was,,
    My friend must not be right ,
   So maybe instead I‘ll tell her so,
    That this isn’t what you thought,
     You made it sound so easy,
     But love is simply not….

         or…..
                     at least

                                    not when you’re in love with

                                                       a
                                                                    whole

                                                                                         entire

                                                                                                town.

(you’re my ebony orange darling and I just can’t let you down.)