POETRY PAGE 2
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHTED BY ROY EISENSTEIN
SHADOWS
I’m trying to put down the past
Drop the load for a while
Put it behind me
But even after a tree dies, it continues to cast a shadow
So I am in this ghostlike drama
Barricaded in
Hunkered down
Patrolling the perimeter
Still and forever the fucking soldier
With my heart clearly hidden behind glass I take my position at the gate
I am only weakened by memory
BLACK DOG
There was a black dog in traffic today
Standing there
Lost
Out of place in front of the wall of cars waiting for the light to change
He didn’t know what was going on
So out of place in the madness of rushing steel and glass
He just stood there
The light broke and he just started walking
Across the huge intersection
Through the obstacle course of death and injury
Limping from some previous wound
He seemed unafraid
Unaware
But as he passed there was a sadness to his gaze
A loneliness
He didn’t belong to anyone
SOME PEOPLE
Some people lock their mysteries within a smile
Secrets hidden softly in a pocket of the heart
Where strong winds can’t disturb their sleep
Where old lullabies quiet the tremors
And chase away the blackbird shadows that hover about and pick at the scabs of loves lost
Some folks courage the tempest and return to the that ocean of passion where all is at risk
Where the pulse is the thunder
Where the deepest waters live
I am that fool who returns to the scene of the crime repeatedly
I study the chalk outlines of kisses and whispers slain
Walk the hard terrain again and again
Each time believing in the next with eagerness and desire
Some people learn from fingers burnt
They hold back and live in that safety
Untouched again
Not touching
Secured in a tomb of protection
I’ll take the fires any day
Just show me where to put my hand
DRESSED IN BLACK
She spent a lot of energy as a shadow
A dark form of expressionistic femininity wrapped in the poetic gloom of the outlaw spirit
Keeping the needed distance so her heart won’t be revealed
That ghost walk that fits the fashion of youth
The posture that projects a false confidence to deceive and conceal
The vampire dream that never comes true while years age and take away the bloom
She cloaked herself in a manufactured mystery while weeping into journals and diaries where her weakness and pain ran free
And that ancient hunger for a kiss, an embrace, for consummation and connection, breathed in the creases and crevices of every artifice of her heroism
She was a soldier in uniform only while her loneliness made her ache
BUS
The Number 2 Wilshire
It’s a bus
A long rectangle with windows full of faces
A noisy thing on the streets I’ve seen without seeing a million times before
Something to drive around
To get ahead of
To close my windows for, so the fumes it belches out won’t come in my car
Now it’s a flag
A bookmark
A reminder
A memory of a ride I took to the museum
With you
Now it’s a sweet spot
A song
A box full of our laughter and our touching
Our journey
It will never be just a bus again
Never again be a stranger
A machine
A dull bit of the scenery
It reminds me of you
So it makes me smile
ON THE WIRE
On this hook
This barbed wire ache
This electronic fence of needing you
Waiting
Under the heel of time
In my space
Squirming
Counting the ticks and tocks
On fire
Ripped open with desire
Crawling on broken glass
Reaching for you endlessly
I’m afraid of the depth of this passion
I do my razor blade tightrope walk of wanting
I dangle from this wire
SCARS
She loved men with scars But any man who's been with any woman has scars
Even roughnecks and roustabouts
Burly men with unshaven histories
Bounty hunters and railroad men
Marred boys grown into leather fists who straddle conflicts and challenges like broken ponies
Soldiers of dark fantasies
Men with wicked smiles who have known how women moan
Males who have made strong females arch their backs
Sweat the heat of the raw war of the flesh and cry out to stop!
Don't stop
Guilt was her religion, her currency, and for that she always picked up the tab
Laid down the law
Inspired confessions and pleas for mercy
She could make even the hardened warrior dream of surrender
Throw down his sword and shield and howl at the moon
But even still she could not hold onto even the least of them
For they ran through her fingers like minutes
Blew away in the softest of breezes
Disappeared in the smoke and rain of her
Apparitions of desires who faded or escaped because she could not let them in
So this army of kisses and embraces came and went and were indistinguishable from imaginings or fantasies or phantoms from folklore
And in the end her empty bed sprawled around her a vast tundra of broken promises
Barren
Desolate
With only the horizon in every direction
UNLOCK THE DOORS
Take your daggers from my sleep The fist from my chest
Let this weight escape me
Shake the armor
Free the small creature that is my hope
Untie the child I was
Let me hear the closeness of your breath again
Let me fall from this height and never crash
Knock down these damn walls
Dismantle them brick by brick
Chase away the crows from the room
Set the fires so we can dance
Let our laughter shatter our fears
Wake me only with your smile
Or let me disappear into this night
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHTED BY ROY EISENSTEIN
SHADOWS
I’m trying to put down the past
Drop the load for a while
Put it behind me
But even after a tree dies, it continues to cast a shadow
So I am in this ghostlike drama
Barricaded in
Hunkered down
Patrolling the perimeter
Still and forever the fucking soldier
With my heart clearly hidden behind glass I take my position at the gate
I am only weakened by memory
BLACK DOG
There was a black dog in traffic today
Standing there
Lost
Out of place in front of the wall of cars waiting for the light to change
He didn’t know what was going on
So out of place in the madness of rushing steel and glass
He just stood there
The light broke and he just started walking
Across the huge intersection
Through the obstacle course of death and injury
Limping from some previous wound
He seemed unafraid
Unaware
But as he passed there was a sadness to his gaze
A loneliness
He didn’t belong to anyone
SOME PEOPLE
Some people lock their mysteries within a smile
Secrets hidden softly in a pocket of the heart
Where strong winds can’t disturb their sleep
Where old lullabies quiet the tremors
And chase away the blackbird shadows that hover about and pick at the scabs of loves lost
Some folks courage the tempest and return to the that ocean of passion where all is at risk
Where the pulse is the thunder
Where the deepest waters live
I am that fool who returns to the scene of the crime repeatedly
I study the chalk outlines of kisses and whispers slain
Walk the hard terrain again and again
Each time believing in the next with eagerness and desire
Some people learn from fingers burnt
They hold back and live in that safety
Untouched again
Not touching
Secured in a tomb of protection
I’ll take the fires any day
Just show me where to put my hand
DRESSED IN BLACK
She spent a lot of energy as a shadow
A dark form of expressionistic femininity wrapped in the poetic gloom of the outlaw spirit
Keeping the needed distance so her heart won’t be revealed
That ghost walk that fits the fashion of youth
The posture that projects a false confidence to deceive and conceal
The vampire dream that never comes true while years age and take away the bloom
She cloaked herself in a manufactured mystery while weeping into journals and diaries where her weakness and pain ran free
And that ancient hunger for a kiss, an embrace, for consummation and connection, breathed in the creases and crevices of every artifice of her heroism
She was a soldier in uniform only while her loneliness made her ache
BUS
The Number 2 Wilshire
It’s a bus
A long rectangle with windows full of faces
A noisy thing on the streets I’ve seen without seeing a million times before
Something to drive around
To get ahead of
To close my windows for, so the fumes it belches out won’t come in my car
Now it’s a flag
A bookmark
A reminder
A memory of a ride I took to the museum
With you
Now it’s a sweet spot
A song
A box full of our laughter and our touching
Our journey
It will never be just a bus again
Never again be a stranger
A machine
A dull bit of the scenery
It reminds me of you
So it makes me smile
ON THE WIRE
On this hook
This barbed wire ache
This electronic fence of needing you
Waiting
Under the heel of time
In my space
Squirming
Counting the ticks and tocks
On fire
Ripped open with desire
Crawling on broken glass
Reaching for you endlessly
I’m afraid of the depth of this passion
I do my razor blade tightrope walk of wanting
I dangle from this wire
SCARS
She loved men with scars But any man who's been with any woman has scars
Even roughnecks and roustabouts
Burly men with unshaven histories
Bounty hunters and railroad men
Marred boys grown into leather fists who straddle conflicts and challenges like broken ponies
Soldiers of dark fantasies
Men with wicked smiles who have known how women moan
Males who have made strong females arch their backs
Sweat the heat of the raw war of the flesh and cry out to stop!
Don't stop
Guilt was her religion, her currency, and for that she always picked up the tab
Laid down the law
Inspired confessions and pleas for mercy
She could make even the hardened warrior dream of surrender
Throw down his sword and shield and howl at the moon
But even still she could not hold onto even the least of them
For they ran through her fingers like minutes
Blew away in the softest of breezes
Disappeared in the smoke and rain of her
Apparitions of desires who faded or escaped because she could not let them in
So this army of kisses and embraces came and went and were indistinguishable from imaginings or fantasies or phantoms from folklore
And in the end her empty bed sprawled around her a vast tundra of broken promises
Barren
Desolate
With only the horizon in every direction
UNLOCK THE DOORS
Take your daggers from my sleep The fist from my chest
Let this weight escape me
Shake the armor
Free the small creature that is my hope
Untie the child I was
Let me hear the closeness of your breath again
Let me fall from this height and never crash
Knock down these damn walls
Dismantle them brick by brick
Chase away the crows from the room
Set the fires so we can dance
Let our laughter shatter our fears
Wake me only with your smile
Or let me disappear into this night