Napkin Poems Altis Conners
Published by Diminuendo Press Imprint of Cyberwizard Productions 1205 N. Saginaw Boulevard #D PMB 224 Saginaw, Texas 76179 Edited by Crystalwizard
Cover photographer: Ashley Johnson Photos shot on location at Eurotazza www.eurotazza.com Napkin Poems Copyright Š 2009 Cyberwizard Productions Individual poems copyright Š 2009 Altis Conners ISBN: 978-1-936021-01-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2009924162 First Edition: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher and the individual authors, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews.
To the people that listen,
the people that reason,
and the people that walk away.
There is a mystical, almost ethereal bond in poetry that is used to connect the poet to the audience. A type of unsaid link in which the understanding of any poem is sewn against the mind of the listener or reader with the thread of personal experience. The end section included in this book is not meant as a violation of such constructs, or a fraying of that thread, but to enhance the experience with subtext and context; as I myself am always curious of what made the poet take pen to paper. It is also not intended to make certain the words herein take on only one meaning. Even after reading what I like to call “the conversations”, they may not change the perspective of the poem for you. I hope only to add another layer upon what was already established. We set marks for ourselves and try to hit them with our words—try to paint not only the bulls eye but the arrow. In the last sections I attempt to draw in the scenery and let you color it in. And you are still welcome—perhaps even more than ever— to decide for yourself if the mark was indeed hit. -Altis Conners
Table of Contents Angel’s Descant Corporate Flames And the Moonlight Sonata Imperfect Slick Pages Hide the Webs Something Blue Slightly Crazy Heart Out Done Submit to Silence Quiet Things Love’s Ashes Wheel Peel the Watch Back No Kin in the Coffee House Bells My heart home to you Time Speaks Open Dis-close Letters Smoke Stained Serenity Home Whispers Rainy Day Decoupage Nearly Breaking Stalled One New Message Chronophobia Professional Conversationalist Drought How Some Words Stop the World Overworked Subconscious Secretary Things That Were Meant to Remain Unsaid
8 11 12 13 15 16 18 20 21 22 25 26 28 29 30 31 31 32 34 35 36 37 38 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 51 52 53 54
Napkin Poems
Angel’s Descant Silent notes defusing in the wind under pale silver wings, feathers washed in baths of excelsior Moon drenched curtains fall to liquid black Falling Swooping Diving Weeping at sweetly bitter ebony Smoldering darkly, pulsing red hot coals of anger spent blindly Searching fingers Yearning Feeling heaven’s scent Weakly fighting Throwing voice wildly into the void to silence the abyss. Forever passing embered passion yet from emotion to be misled Light flashes, beauty lashes, steal pinned whips of silent red.
Corporate Flames The city is burning in corporate flames Caught in the hood of an SS Camero. We cannot water it down with indifference that flows unchecked through the streets Weaken the corporate dress with blue and red plaid. Corrupt the ingredients of the capitalist’s cocktail Too much truth, Not enough vodka Watch your hope set the 67th floor suite The shades lower The stock market bell tolls in another night The wind shifts, carrying the reek of victory from the side streets. Carbon copies give wild applause. I could stand and protest Wait for you to act surprised I could wade into your mind through the tides of indifference and GAP commercials. But I’ll leave the view to those who never look up While they silently wish for wings
And the Moonlight Sonata The wind bends in Taking breath away. Leaving in me liquid yearning. Flooding my eyes Before I give in To the need Of silence. Differential tones of dew Washing over swollen banks, Hidden from drying eyes Inside the veil Of things unsaid. Waiting for sounds remembered From lips where darkness falls; Unable to grasp the moonlight Through silken tones of never was. Linger hopelessly In wrenching moonlight. Here Among the stars
Imperfect Imperfect lines colliding Spiral in and die Injuring outside the flame Visual perception Drenched in rain Tears of all that’s ending Before the infinite begins With a clash of thunder, those without purpose Hide within Ignore the lightening Catch rainbows in a cup Smile because THEY tremble and look down As WE are looking Up
Slick Pages Hide the Webs Capitalize on heartache with visions of absurd beauty. Nothing adorns the pages you rip from hope to decorate the late bus walls. Concentration slips in parts down the ashes of a cigarette. And love will linger in the dark with silent hope and rain drenched sweat. The words bubble like fire losing its flame Desperate to let the world know it was there. Scorch the walls in pain, And let the remnants Glow. Still the images haunt the halls With their vacant wide eyes Innocent minds flow Towards rarity’s demise
Something something in the way it fell deeply dying into the world that all the way down it wailed and at the end... the silence came. something in the way it is a wicked line on a forked tongue that never ceases with the end of what it is, of what it’s done patterned after dark of day spirited after the fall in the daylight is the darkness that consumes it all something in the way it shelters anything it lands upon that has the ability to recover what has been covered in the fall something in the way it wasn’t that holds on dearly to the hope all the things that now it can see can someday somehow be undone
Blue Vision Quiet and urgent Pulling for me I lead before I follow Fingers black with cold indifference of silent streets Below Unturning Blue They sink into oblivion, Of needed sky Of you
Cut loose wings that belong to the gutter Inside the tide The underbelly Regress faith Into jaded disarray Heaven sent cinders Under the mask of lighted vanity Panting in succession of rebellion Speak Of the blue The bottom rimmed blue of before Between fingers I can see it Pressing in from the gray ash falling from Heaven, yet unseen Speak as if you can remember at all Remember the dream Of blue
Slightly Crazy She’s slightly crazy slightly just enough to make me excruciatingly nervous I try to keep my hands from fidgeting, my leg from twitching; but she’s staring at me, wanting, waiting for me to divulge my fear slightly crazy slightly crazy is good here slightly crazy means you are slightly alive being in the company of people slightly crazy means you are really living and I was liberated from simply surviving to living within the moment her hair resonated into the light of the room her hand over mine, turned my head and I fell like a ton of bricks through the floor through the cellar, I was in the wine basement, swimming in Merlot before they caught up with me drunk on her breath, my sanity lost in her eyes the wine was nothing, I couldn’t even feel it anymore I felt alive and, slightly, crazy.