An old poem, but it still works.

I wrote this poem back before Common Groundz closed and I could still sit in on Open Mic Nights once a week. I never performed this one, but it was written between people's performances. At the time I was writing it for someone else's situation. Now it is funny how it can become so much more personal. It's rather adolescent in a way, but that's alright. It's performative qualities are there, but in terms of a simply written poem it lacks in innovation. I have revised it some to carry more meaning for myself. When it's personal, it's easier to perform with conviction.


don't love me anymore?
(beat)
can't figure how that can be true-
because after all
all that's happened
I somehow
still love you.

those years flew
and I have lost
- love
I have lost soul
-lost
the ability to renew.

today- I put together the shards
of a broken heart
still
still thinking of you-
of your touch
and of how
how you loved me so-
loved me so much.

Can't help.
Help waiting for you
to walk back
Back into my life
but
when you do-

I will know
know.
to give it up
to live it up
just-
to live
live. without. you.

I still love you,
the you of yesterday-
but I do not love
this man.
the you
who left me
that day.

I cannot accept
your offer
now
you are a stranger
in the crowd
I cannot love you,
because I no longer know how.


Here is one of my favorite peoms:

Where You Go When She Sleeps
By T.R. Hummer

What is it when a woman sleeps, her head bright
In your lap, in your hands, her breath easy now as though it had never been
Anything else, and you know she is dreaming, her eyelids
Jerk, but she is not troubled, it is a dream
That does not include you, but you are not troubled either,
It is too good to hold her while she sleeps, her hair falling
Richly on your hands, shining like metal, a color
That when you think of it you cannot name, as though it has just
Come into existence, dragging you into the world in the wake
Of its creation, out of whatever vacuum you were in before,
And you are like the boy you heard of once who fell
Into a silo full of oats, the silo emptying from below, oats
At the top swirling in a gold whirlpool, a bright eddy of grain, the boy
You imagine, leaning over the edge to see it, the noon sun breaking
Into the center of the circle he watches, hot on his back, burning
And he forgets his father’s warning, stands on the edge, looks down,
The grain spinning, dizzy, and when he falls his arms go out, too thin
For wings, and he hears his father’s cry somewhere, but is gone
Already, down in a gold sea, spun deep in the heart of the silo,
And when they find him, he lies still, not seeing the world
Through his body but through the deep rush of grain
Where he has gone and can never come back, though they drag him
Out, his father’s tears bright on both their faces, the farmhands
Standing by blank and amazed - you touch that unnamable
Color in her hair and you are gone into what is not fear or joy
But a whirling of sunlight and water and air full of shining dust
That takes you, a dream that is not of you but will let you
Into itself if you love enough, and will not, will never let you go.

I'll have to find the last poem I performed at open mic night. I have no idea where it might have gone.