I am so sorry

I am so sorry that

I don’t want you.
The want has sort of
disappeared, faded,
and transformed into
distant memory
taking with it
all of the baggage
that once was me.

I know sometimes
words slip out
like disease
repeating echoes
of what once was felt,
but it’s just the
shattered remnants
of the then
reaching gasping for breath
trying to grasp the humanity
that was once there.
How can I blame it
for trying? We are
always told to try
and sometimes I realize
I try accidentally…

hanging that bait
before your head
leading you into my rusted trap
where it will snap
grasping your leg
injecting you with
a thought, a venom, a hope
as you struggle to figure
out WHY?–(yet, still no answers)
and wondering when I’m going to
come and save the day…

the chances are
I’m not…

I stand there
hesitant to help
hesitant to fall
back into a backtrack
ignoring the advancement
I’ve made in the definition
of who is me.

I realize that I’ve
chipping off a part of
a soul. Whether mine
or yours I’m not quite
sure. (The chances are
it’s probably
both.)

One could argue
I’m soulless
during such attacks,
but if you were me at night
staring at the glow
of candle you would
know I’m nothing
but a soul
confused trying
to put together the puzzle
the words that make
me go.

I stare at your blood
dripping
through the
trails and traps
in
the
pathways
of my mind.

I want to help.
I want to be nice to you.
I want to nurture you.
I want to give breath back to those moments.
I want to be me, like I was
before, but I can’t
because I’m somebody
else and I’m craving
something new, something
different, something without name
because I’ve yet to
christen it
with language.

Memories
guiding me through
the walks, the thunder,
the hourly bell tolls,
the late night talks
that still got us
no where, but here
a nostalgic jealousy
of a me in past yelling out
a message
to this page which is
only to tell you

I could never love you,

but still in unconscious I try and try
and the night still comes
only reminding me
the importance of staying
silent, mouth shut,
and so I can finally
set right
some our

regrets.

Whiskey

This isn’t the first time.
I’ve fallen in love with whiskey bottles before
dancing to the late night serenades, singing
to myself songs of reprieve,

but I’ve also have felt
mornings’ harsh hands
suffocate the life
out of a day.

I hopped from one
cast shadow to another
avoiding the sun’s judgement.

I’ve hid in dive bars with no
windows, waiting for the
moon,

attempting to again
to drown away sorrow
again only feeding
despair.

Whiskey never did me wrong, but
I’ll admit I abused that
son of a bitch

far too many times.

But it keeps calling my name
and I keep returning
drowning out the
hours the minutes
I’ve spent
alone with
you.

But such is life,
there are the winners
the losers and
the boozers who
are too far gone to
differentiate between

the good, the bad
and the wretched.

Pour me another one,
and, please, leave me alone,

crutched up by the whiskey bottles–
the same reason you’ve
went away.

In the beginning

In the beginning was us
and we’d sit bar side amongst
our friends having our
own conversation
burying overly
zealous grins, keeping
our cards in our
own hands

we sat there with
weak attempts of pokerface.

They knew,
every one knew, but

we didn’t know
actually we did,
how couldn’t we?

The way we’d walk next to
each other and our
hands would dangle next
to each other waiting in
anticipation daring the other
hand to hold it,

but we were too shy
victims of those butterflies
which flew around deep inside
chest tickling our
guts with joyous nerves
questioning, fearing
rejection or affection

“what if this
what if that
what if… what if.”

How we seemed to laugh harder
at unfunny jokes, stutter goodbyes at night
so we could see each other
a little longer at night.

And then one day,
it happened,

the dangling hands grasp
small smirks became
giant grins and
instead of stuttered
goodbyes we
talked until day light

and even though
we were dead tired
saying goodbye
was hard to do.

And there, some where
two friends became
humble lovers,

wading patiently,
okay impatiently,
through out the day
to see and talk
to the other.

And in the end?
There was no end,
just a continuation of
the beginning

date nights haunted by
butter flies which
dance in our stomachs
to our own songs

as whisper our confessions
in each others ears
silently laughing

about how we’re both still here.

My Never Ending Love

“Kiss me,”
she said.
“Kiss me
and kiss me
and kiss me!”

as she uncontrollably
kissed and kissed
and kissed me…

But pushed her
away and I said,
I’ll pass

because I knew not
where her mouth
has been.

“Love me!” she said
“Love me! Love me!
Love me!”

I told her I did, as
I walked with her through
the parks.

“Hold me”
she said, as she looked
at me with those soft
puppy dog eyes.

I lifted her up off the
ground and held her in my arms
and ran my fingers through
her soft fur.

Then as she rested her head upon
my lap,
I knew that despite
those times that she smells like
Doritos, tries to steal my
unguarded snacks, or occasionally
barks at strangers

I know I can come home
to her, and she’ll love me
forever, that is as long
as long as I keep putting
food in her
dish.

Finger Tips

fat finger tips pressed against
plastic keys attached to arms
of this dip shit mind.

clickity clickity clickity
tic tock tick tock tick tock
the minutes hours months years go by.

Once again,

my finger tips drag me
into the depths of depths
of yesteryears and
nostalgia consumes me,

Back to a summer night
and my finger tips wrapped around
a crystal glass
with two ice cubes melting
in some cheap ass
gin,

I sip,
legs kicked up on a tattered
old porch my worn
college house

as my eyes gaze over
a book as my mind sits back
to 1964 in an old English pub,
“The Moon Under Water”
carefully listening
to Orwell describe to me
what was and will always will be
perfection.

Back to now, this moment
this one of so many, watching my
fingers dance across the
keys despite the lack
of music bathed
in silence I wonder
how long this silence
will be there,

I close my eyes and
try to sit in the tomorrows
questioning whether everyday
will always feel like today
the silent fears that my finger tips
will only know these
hard keys to be left starved of soft
hands of affection…

Plagued and callused by despair
I reach further
grasping beyond the
clutter and deep within meditation
my fingertips reach forward
into the soothing, cool
warmth of confidence.

Searching in confidence
my finger tips grasp
hope and tomorrow

I can feel life with in my hand
the surging heart beats
of possibility,

my soul.

When I open my eyes again
my finger tips are still
dancing across
the hard plastic
keys
click click clicking
and I question
if they are still
grasping upon
my soul

or maybe just the now.

Breath, droplets, dust, and hope.

Cold,
so damn cold
the heart beats that
keep beating
and beating
and in fear that we
for one false moment
will transcend imagination
where the nights fall short of expectation
days seem simplistic: we fall
towards our death gasping
and grasping for something more.

we are left
piecing together events in strings of
of moments finding
meaning behind
hollow words.

Still
We carry onwards
whispering
“everything will be okay”
when really some where
at this moment
hope is loss:

decaying promises
of eternal love
lay within
a shallow
grave. Some where
lingers
hatreds
last breath,
the evaporated of tears drops
from fallen victims, and
scarred memories
of time.

It’s all some where
with in this earth
remnants of a horrible
past, and we
still eat, drink, breath
and walk upon the atoms
of the horrors that are
yet to come.

Our blood lines eventually
must end in travesty, and

yet we whisper
“everything will be okay.”
we hope, we hope, we hope
“everything will be okay.”

And as
we pace back in forth
contemplating hope
the tomorrows,
all praying for forgiveness,
we grasp onto our our hearts
in fear it’ll become stone.

Some nights we cry,
we know of “the horrors
that loom with in the shade”
because through all
matter we are connected

the good
the bad
and even the nothing.

We are but
breath,droplets, dust
bound together in hope
that for some reason
this all has a
meaning.

*sorry for such a dark poem on this fine morning. I am experimenting with a character’s voice and philosophy for a story I’m writing, and, well, let’s just say he’s not the most optimistic and positive person in the world.

Pinterest

Hey everybody,

I just wanted to let people know I have a Pinterest page dedicated to “Poetry and Spoken Word” so if you’re bored and curious, you could pass a few minutes watching or reading some of the poems I have collected.

http://pinterest.com/jbarnha2/poetry-and-spoken-word/

~JAB

If only, If only

if only
if only
if only
if only

I could tell you
how much your little
words mean to me.

Your hellos
goodbyes
chit chat
and small talk.

And how after days
of being alone in a crowd
consumed by long pauses
of meaningless conversations
and invasive silences,
your moments relinquish me
from the grasps of numbers and
again I become an individual
when I can hear your voice
calling forth mine.

And although the conversation
may have been about an
apple, something as arbitrary as
and armadillo, or about how much
you want to
“kill” your cat,

I cherish those moments
you allow me to escape
to somewhere else, a little
universe of memories that I keep
tucked in mental pockets
just in case…

just in case of those times when stress weighs over my shoulders
and reality seems dead press on drowning me
in faux melancholy and heartache,
so I close my eyes and slip into a euphoric
flashbacks of your chuckles
and your closed mouthed giggles
and obscure philosophies and wisdoms,
and I breathe, in then out, like you once randomly
told me, “just keep breathing. Just keep breathing.”

Then I open my eyes to a reality
tainted by glitz and glam
of an optimistic truth–

the dull drab grey skies
burst into a kaleidoscope
of possibility,

and as self doubt succumbs to
confidence, and there muse sprouts
from inside of me.
This muse, your splitting image,
whispers in my ear
all the words you’ve
already said

which more than enough to lead
me to this note pad so
I write a poem about how
if only
if only
if only

I could thank you for
your words and
tell you how much
you mean to me.

Alone in The Corner (sometimes I’m an asshole)

As I sat at
my corner table of the
coffee shop, I couldn’t
help but notice
this fairly good looking guy
with his arm wrapped
around a horse-face of
a girl–

he was laughing
she was laughing
and I felt like
I was going
to be sick.

Too much horrid cuteness
for my afternoon.

As I drew sketches and
wrote shitty poems on
napkins, I couldn’t help
ease-drop on their
conversation

he told her, “you
know you’re beautiful.”

and I mumbled to myself
“well mister, do you know you’re
fucking blind.”

But she giggled and said
nothing and pulled him close
for a deeply emotional
kiss. THis was a public display of
affection which is usually despised

but this time for a moment
I pictured myself in an art gallery
standing before a great painting
saying, “I just don’t get it,” and

the guy walks over to me
saying, “look closer,
imagine the skill it would
take to achieve such perfection
look beyond the painting,
feel what it has to say.”

and then, for a split second
I got a small glimpse of
of the potential beauty
just before it all
subsided

and I was left to sit
alone in the corner
writing poems of jealousy

In response to the terrorist attacks in Boston.

My hopes, thoughts, and prayers go out to all of those who were affected by the terrorist attacks in Boston and to all of those who are left questioning humanity. I am so sorry for those with corrupt ideologies which believe carnage is okay and that terror is a means to an end. I wish I could go back in time and show them all the caring hearts that I’ve seen in my life time. I wish could show them love of mankind and show them the appreciation and beauty of life and Nature. However, I can wish a lot for a lot things, but, alas, we are left in reality with the blood stained streets of Boston fighting against the unknown as we so often are. When fighting against terrorism and hatred, it’s important to do one thing, do not let their actions break you. Instead of damning all of of you humanity, focus on those who stand strong. Do not let hate over come you. Do not let seeking justice mean blind hate. Stand strong and do not lose your humanity–your humanity is the essence of you soul, the one thing that separates you from the monsters.