A Note to My Readers... Think of this as my gift. None of it's really good enough to get published so I thought I'd take advantage of my inebriated web prowess and share the following works with you. I hope you find them as fulfilling as I do.
My Poems
I Still Smile
Of That
The Bard
Oakland
Companion
Road to California
Shasta
I Want to Be a Wilting Flower
Fake Waterfall
Beauty
Open Your Eyes
The Game
Nightmare
Noise
The Path
Crimson Shades
Caffeine
I Am Slain
Mickey Mouse Is Dead
Multicultural American Lit.
Noisy Neighbor
-.R.L.
Red & White
Untitled
The Test-taker’s Prayer
Please note that ALL of the above poems are the creative works of C. Bryan Tidwell and all rights relating to their use are in his hands alone. If you have any questions or are seeking permission to use/publish these works, please don't hesitate to contact him at not.literally@gmail.com. Thanks.
-.R.L.
The Bard
Beauty
Caffeine
Companion
Crimson Shades
Fake Waterfall
The Game
Haiku
Haiku
Haiku
Haiku
I Am Slain
I Still Smile
I Want to Be a Wilting Flower
Mickey Mouse Is Dead
Multicultural American Lit.
Nightmare
Noise
Noisy Neighbor
Oakland
Of That
Open Your Eyes
The Path
Red & White
Road to California
Shasta
The Test-taker's Prayer
Untitled
I say 'ah'nvelopes, not
Envelopes as she does,
And I realize then in her
hug, embrace, her
Arm searching, My
Back needing,
That her love is for all
Not
For Me. And somehow
I still smile
In that Peace
That surpasseth
All
Understanding
5.04
The complex burning of that ball of gas
Mentions nothing but the sight, the recalled
Emanating light that touches my soul
Millions of years from its existence. And yet
While my body feels this mind's experience,
No shudder, no jarring distraction
Can separate our bodies. A strength that would engulf
My mind and soul and body and fingertips
Will not harm my clay pot, my fragile vase.
I am not inside.
I am millions of years
Before the gentle swing in the small playground
With a trail cut in the gravel at my feet.
2.04
Shakespeare never wrote about you.
He never made you a comedy.
He never took your passion for a man
And made you crossdress
Or touched your eyes with
Flower nectar to make you fall
In love with an ass.
And He never made you a sonnet.
He never wasted Petrarchan prose
On something only another soul can share.
He never threw away words
That couldn't begin to describe you.
Thank God he never scribbled you into a tragedy.
He could have killed
Your only son in a battle
And given you a soliloquy that would
Wet every eye.
But when you raise that blade to your chest
I won't cry from the bard's words.
I'll cry because he killed you.
Shakespeare never wrote
About you.
4.19.03
Explore Uncharted Territory - Foreign and Domestic.
What have you got to lose?
Food and Drug,
Gas and food,
For sale... or lease. Free TV w/ purchase.
Tacoman Love, $499,
Almost actual size.
Caution this ladder not designed.
No step.
No step.
No step.
No step.
No step.
Coast Guard Is Next Exit.
Use Broadway
The Savings Are in the Card!
Fire Extinguisher Inside.
Let's jump in through the window!
It's inside that counts!
Fast. Easy. Reliable.
www.sourdoughbread.com
Where else?
3.27.03
It's funny how I write alone
But long for a companion.
Each word's no longer on its own.
I wish they could be free.
I tried to sing a song today
And longed for a companion.
The words just floated far away.
I kept a few
For me.
3.26.03
Green pastures and rolling hills
Should be England not California.
Oh. There we are; a mother smoking
In a minivan. We've reached the Golden State
After all.
If stereotypes were real, life would be easy.
Hmm. Cleavage in a Mazda convertible.
These tall buses have their advantages
After all.
And who is this?
How does she reach the pedals?
She must be nearly five feet
Outside her mismatched cadillac.
BJ&A Trucking, huh?
I'm not even going to touch that one.
Gutter mind today.
Guess things are looking up!
3.25.03
Wind is musical.
Leaves give rhythm to branches
That can't find the beat.
3.24.03
Is a mountain unseen by me
Still a mountain?
I like to think so.
A powdered cap set free
Envelops everything.
My mountain is different.
It envelops me.
3.24.03
I want to be a wilting flower.
If my love was shone straight out,
A chilly breeze would kill me. But wilting
I have nothing to lose.
3.23.03
The stream is calming and well-built
But not by Nature's hand.
No geologic condition could create this assortment
Of displaced stones.
The sound is distracting enough for my ears
But my heart won't let you go.
Can I still touch you?
Frogs now sing my awkward song,
Content with a home of lies.
Endless piercing croaks release these sensations.
But I am not at ease.
The frogs cease
And I am left with a scathing half-rhyme.
3.23.03
I'm not sure I've ever seen beauty
Like the way your hair darts across your cheek.
Sunsets have tried but can't impose day
As your smile does. It brings light
To my world.
Cast your gaze on me just once and you
Might find my arms around you,
Whispering sweet somethings that I hope
Might move you like you've shaken me.
3.23.03
Sleep is beautiful.
It is silent, but her head seems to hit the pillow
Again and again.
I don't think I ever really saw her face
Until she fell asleep beside me,
And I couldn't
Look away.
Someday maybe she'll wake and see only me.
3.22.03
10 years old.
Kingdome: 4th row, third base line
Hot peanuts, Jim Presley, and 7th inning ice cream.
Tiny plastic mitt holding cracker jacks and the foul ball dream.
We lose: the greatest night of my life, ever time.
20 years old.
Safeco: center field bleacher with my best buddy
Sunshine, cold drink, and scorecards in hand.
We see him:
10 years old.
Two-hundred dollar jersey, screams to a deaf Cameron, curses to an umpire miles away,
Smooth seamless Rawlings will hold whatever appeasement Dad buys after the game.
We lose: the playoffs are shot.
We've lost
the game
forever.
November.02
Raindrops on the ground
Become less than they had been,
But happy with friends.
November.02
I walk down the stairs in the middle of the night. I peek around the corner into the living room and hear the sound of the rocking chair. I can almost feel the smooth pine beneath my fingers, and the rough lattice.
I look into the darkness: I see only a slit in a green eye.
The shadow on the floor rocks back and forth.
It stops.
I run in circles through the kitchen, back to the hallway and into the living room again and again. My feet slip on the cold wooden floor.
November.02
Music without love
Is nothing.
Verse is nothing
Without song's embrace.
November.02
An old guitar plays softly.
I am deaf to it.
Winding forward and back,
out of tune I remain.
To strike
Is maddening.
Pitch wavers in and out,
constantly pushing the boundaries of my ear.
Deceitful tones: my fingers' creation.
I hear nothing.
November.02
The sun hits our eyes
like a cradle strikes the wall
to wake your child.
November.02
Sweat drips down my placid face of dreams.
Nature consumes me, taking my body into it's furnace.
Two paths lie beside my field of daffodils,
One path smooth and cared for,
One barely visable, covered by brambles of fear and weeds of hostility.
The sun beats down like a demon pushing me on: life lasts but a moment.
But I will not take the path my friends and family have prepared.
I will not stand and feel the cool asphalt beneath my feet.
Instead I turn, leaving all behind.
My sandals are cast aside and I gasp as the stickers tear into my flesh.
But then He lifts me up on His shoulders.
My words of refusal are not heard as he takes the thorns for Himself,
And each grimace of pain is louder and more powerful than I ever could have felt on my own.
"This path is mine!" I cry in vain. "I have chosen to hurt only myself!"
My choice, my path, His love, His pain.
Why has He forsaken me?
7.24.02
Seeing the world in rose.
Contacts disguise my fallacies better than glasses.
No one can see what I see.
Except for my biggest judge: myself.
Soon all is unraveled and I am left standing here naked.
"Why did you do that?" I ask myself.
3.1.02
Nectar to my lips.
Cool bubbles dribble up that delicate straw,
And crawl into my brain.
Feed little synapses, take in all you need.
Wake up!
Coffee is your friend!
3.1.02
Hastening eyes of my peers.
Not quick to see, but quick to judge.
"Who is he?" they whisper.
"Where does he stand on the issues?"
I step forward and state my piece,
But walking away gracefully is not a gift I will receive.
I am chased off the stage by stones of silent hatred.
No words to me, but word quickly spreads.
Their indignity makes them too weak to speak to my face,
Their hatred too stubborn,
And their kindness too fearful.
I am slain by nothing.
2.22.02
Mickey Mouse is dead.
Goofy smears blood from his wrinkled nose.
And hides his "scalpel" in Michael Eisner's coffee mug.
The Magic Kingdom's Tyranny is finally seen.
"Beware the Ides of March" quoth Donald.
Caesar listens not and to avoid trial,
Every cartoon by Walt's golden hand casts a bloody knife into Eisner's unhappy spinal column.
Et tu Goofe?
2.22.02
Each glance at the clock shows time slowing.
The words flow, but my ears like wall of brick resist them.
Shut up!
I grow tired of your words, dear sir.
Don't you understand my hatred, my inattention,
And did I mention my hatred?
What on God's earth could teach you my tears?
The back of this classroom is my mother's arms when I am six.
My notebook is her shoulder where I gently weep.
The clock again.
Five minutes closer to freedom.
Still not close enough to dry my tears.
February.02
Echoing vibrations,
Each more off than the one before.
The rhythms of the sub incomprehensible without melody,
So how can I survive?
Mayhem! Chaos! and more rain down from above,
While Satan himself shakes beneath my feet.
Perhaps I will choose to sleep another night.
1.16.02
Patterned antiquity.
Classical themes but no Chopin.
This is what you are to me.
Each expression is like an interlacing loom.
Strands dashing back and forth bringing together your lips,
Pressuring them into the smile I long each moment to gaze upon.
Your laugh: a gasp of smiles bouncing from your face to mine.
Your frown: a worry entering the depths of my heart.
Your love: greater than creation.
Your friendship: patterned antiquity.
January.02
Checkers!!
Flee the Saga sheets that show no mercy.
Our hall engulfed in their crimson flames.
Save yourself!
First East has fallen.
Spread the word and flee the grill.
Clogged arteries now a weapon of history's ignorance.
Checkers: the nuclear bomb of tomorrow.
January.02
Every day seems yet another,
Never a unique sunrise,
Never will a new moon find its way into the black of night.
These consistencies, although they will not change or grow,
Help bring a base into the life that does.
The sun will stand every day rising and setting as it should,
But each day will not seem as yet another.
The sun will stand unchanging,
And the same moon will reflect its light,
But the eyes with which we view them will never stay the same.
December.01
Dear Lord,
May my mind be sharp,
My pencil swift,
And my answers plausible.
Spring.01