February poems lost archive

mike swanberg (sorry about the quiet)


St. James

I know I am stronger then most
And with age I have become handsome
I know these things but uncertainty
Keeps tossing rocks into my pond

I would have gone anywhere
I would have said anything for a love
This truth isn’t lost on me still
Oh there were girls to kiss I am sure
But what good

They think I am blind I see this
They say my ears are bad because
I pretend not to hear them

Lord I hear them now and call your name
Blankly into the forest that holds its breath
To touch our land those woods I wouldn’t
Cut or bother

So don’t say my name in a tone
You wouldn’t want me to use
To say your own because I am
Stronger then most and with time
I have become


Here comes your man

I don’t know why I couldn’t explain
That I felt far from you all day
And wanted your sympathy

So I questioned your love for me
Hoping it would bring us closer
I just needed to be kissed by you
So I could touch the floor again

I am tired of finding you in my poems
As only a beautiful girl my love you are flawed
And often times more then myself
When I kiss your face, your broken nose
I cant remember it before the break
Why would I want to

Love I do not care if you have been
Scattered by the wind
Even I am destined for that place of lost kites
Wherever you were sent I am going
I will get there

I am swimming in the lake of your
Knowing if I get tired, I can drink.




Wedding Guest

I thought that if I kept drinking champagne and smiling
then eventually your family would stop wondering who I was
and just confuse me with another cousin who got lost
amongst the photo albums the fights

and then I thought that you alone might carry me
dress shirt and all, up over the hor dourves and bridal party
past the disapproving mother of the groom, the aunt
whose drunkenness laughed in my face and called me chicago

Was I a fool to think you could have taken me out that row of windows
and into that hard bright skyline ? you had done more impressive things
the night before you had already humbled me so many times
that I was no more myself then I was you acting through me

I was you lacing my shoes at the foot of the bed, love
I was you kissing your cheek so quickly in a stairwell

Lucky

She could tell by my eyes and easy smile
that I wanted her naked and she was going
to prove something by staying clothed

I must admit that even I was cheering for her
as I kissed her softly where her jeans
met her hip

We were putting touch to the test
I bit her a little My heart and my want
for her shook like dice in my chest
Because she thought she was going to teach me
a lesson .

i wont bring you into the bedroom with me
I wont show you how it ends Just know she kissed me gently
and I couldn’t tell if she was crying
and that when I addressed her which was often
I only ever called her love