[Though technically ANDREW DAVID KING was a student of mine during his freshman year in high school, the truth is I've been a student of his for the past month. I believe in his prosody and his future as a thinker.]
"In Silence"
For T.R.
with a shred of hope
my worn being remembers
that in the eternal forest
balance resides
the cycle brings one into another
and the circle is complete
the trunks of great oaks
knotted and tired
wind-caressed
roots morphed into
mouths open wide
but speak no language
human ears may understand
in the dying light of
forlorn incandescents
this cold house breeds ghosts
i write my own obituary
line by line
no sound in my cell, my cage
save for the rushed shallow breathing of the highway
a heartbeat that i know
like all
will one day come to an end
this portrait paints the wrong image
of the future
reflected in shattered glass
the smoke of burned books rising
spelling out each
and every
crucified letter
in ash
so that it may speak again
albeit through a broken and toothless mouth
the skies above offer me no answers
the door ahead offers me one choice
I have been here before in a faded photograph
unkempt thoughts are swarming bees
stingers bared
when the day has ended
when the universe has come to its last and final point
these words shall echo out
spilling into the endless abyss
just as before
their chaos searching for completion
madness, happiness, love, despair, hope
are all pieces of the puzzle
but it seems i will never find the last one: truth
there are two parts of one person
the inside
the outside
one is content to lay beaten into submission
the other is an open mouth greedily devouring
approval
in our world filled with a thousand soundtracks
to a thousand lives
the clash of these two titans
does not go unheard
II.
in the pale quiet of early morning
our bodies content to lay in rest
our minds desiring fulfillment in dreams
with meanings we will never completely understand
and there are so many people out there
this amazing globe of ours
so many voices that
in silence we find
the unspoken words
the hidden deities
the caged soul within us
all come alive
despite such belief
such trust in the unknown
the calculations of doubters
shall always prove me wrong on paper
but in their eyes i was never
pure anyways
i have held up these scars
opened these ears
to the universal heartbeat of humanity
the all-encompassing tongue
a dead language
murdered by
our new ever-changing dialect
of lies and war and greed and money
everything in between what we hoped to be
and what we have become
because of this
we have forgotten
good and evil
light and darkness
as the shadow is cast
and the warmth of the sun
becomes the cold embrace of the night
the statue of destiny weeping
begs us to remember that
this parasite
has written our past
in stone
but our future
in sand
