Jodie Armour
I thought my soul too wild too reckless all kinetic no direction. I sought what would hold me Not knowing that holding would hurt. My flaw is not that I'm broken, but that no one can break me.
Perhaps no man has ever loved me for anything more than how I made them feel about themselves
"I don't want to disappoint you," He says as he tries to convince me He's not perfect. As if I think he's perfect. With that crooked nose That causes soft snores That head that surely Makes his Mama's hips still hurt Though damned if I care About those things The wounded puppy heart So big and so broken Capable of love But scared to love anew And those eyes Brown in some light Green in others A bursting star of both When the sun hits just right Are not conducive to Quick poems about gazing Into your lover's soul I could sit and list his flaws As easily as I list his graces With the depth and detail Only a poet could convey And find no more And no less Beauty in either No, he's not perfect Nothing worth exploring Ever is
The shirt you gave me When I left No longer smells like you. You took it off with a sad smile And handed it to me to place In a Ziplock bag As you did before every trip. You knew I didn't Love you anymore. You knew that I was never Coming back. But it brought comfort To us both, going Through that same routine. At first I pulled it out On lonely nights and inhaled The scent of sweat and cigarettes And a life left behind. Eventually it got mixed Into the pile of clothes and Placed in a drawer. You called last night To tell your kids you love them And sent a picture of your sad smile When they, too busy to come to the phone, Told me to tell you they love you too. Today I found that shirt. I buried my face in it And inhaled. But there was Nothing Left of you.
I made mud pies and climbed trees but there was always pink Barbie and Princess dresses No safety in the feminine No safety in the pink Pink that I was expected to be You have brothers – they said They will protect you Pink never protects you I went to my brother when The man renting a room in our house Made me pull down my pink panties I went to my brother When my mother's boyfriend held me Against the kitchen wall I couldn't find the power in myself Men - they would hurt me Men - they would protect me I was simply there In pink
You, who came to my bed With just a book of Shakespeare And took me as your lover And read me sonnets As your hands caressed My naked body You, who came to my bed And took me as your lover With such false confidence That I believed each word you said When you explored my body And read me Baudelaire You, who took a girl as a lover Who you thought was a woman You, who I thought was a man When you were still a boy Your hands tracing the skin above my hips And read me the poetry you wrote You, who took me as your lover Come back to my bed You, now a man with softly graying hair Take me as I am Leave the poetry on the bedside table You've nothing left to prove
"Revision, revision, revision." I tell my writing students Like any good teacher will. With prose, it is true. It is solid. It is the work That must be done. Poetry— Poetry is different. Poets don't write poetry. Poets wait— Sometimes for hours With pen in hand Pretending that there is something We can do to make it happen. Sometimes Still and silent Hoping we won't scare her off. Sometimes In the crowded chaos Frantically trying to grab her whispers. Poets don't write poetry. Poets wait— For when the muse comes to call.
I ran up the stairs pushed open the glass doors and walked out into the rain raindrops hit my head You weren't there coming up the stairs from the parking lot with the umbrella you kept in the car just in case I walked home in the rain a baptismal of sorts a cleansing of my sins Clothes soaked through I realized – I may be wet but I'm not drowning
I have a collection of single lines that will never become poems. Thoughts and moments that I can't pull anything from. Like waking from a dream with nothing more than a feeling that can't be put into words, but stays with you throughout the day. Draped over my shoulders until I discard it over the back of an old chair waiting to be put away.
For decades I have sat upon Mount Helicon Not just uninspired but uninspiring No scribe to curl up next to Whispering in his ear Sending off to the archive to take down the secrets More Melpomene than Erato Over time I lost my magic With cold and angry gods As empty as a writer without his muse Is a muse with none to inspire
Unpublished
Lines that live on their own. Some are the beginning of something. Some are enough.
No man has ever loved me without losing me first And I could never love a man who had to lose me to see my worth
I'm no longer matching energy rise to me or fall without me
I've let you be cavalier with my heart thinking it better than you not holding it at all
I don't believe in fate But I still believe in the moon
I asked the moon for a blessing and she sent me you
Please don't stop slow dancing with me in the kitchen when no one is watching
Clouds Cover Perseid And somewhere off a dirt road in the long bed of a white pickup we make our own star show
Don't listen to the words they say when they stand still and watch as you drive away
Don't turn the page our story isn't even close to having been written