Poem Time: Lament to Johnny Cash

This is a little late, and I really meant to post this Friday (Johnny Cash's birthday), but here is a poem I wrote a few months ago.

Lament to Johnny Cash

You sang what I felt,

But it wasn't the words

So much as the tone of your voice—

A train, they say, shuddering and full

It reverberated within in me, Mr. Cash

Did you know that you could do that?

Or did you practice that power?

Was it something you focused on

In the shower while you shampooed

Or shaved?

Probably not, for a true master

Does not have to try to be great…

Unlike me. I am constantly striving

For some grasp on reality,

Some string to hold me above Hell.

I'm sure you know the feeling.

It is there in your music.

Along with the love and heartbreak

There is the desperation

The slow drawl of emerging insanity.

But I am like you, Mr. Cash,

Yet I have never found an escape

Because I am afraid of not feeling

Or of feeling more.

I think the white pills and alcohol

Made you more sensitive, yet less

Aware of your vulnerability.

But you were never contented

Like me, you always wanted something more

Or someone more.

But I want everyone

I want them to look at me and see me—

See my pain as if were a sheet of music

Or guitar strings, still humming.

I think they saw you, Johnny,

More than they will ever see me.

I have never shined,

Neither with light or darkness,

But am stuck somewhere in-between—

In the twilight perhaps.

You would wear black for me

I'm sure. I think I need that color.

They will wrap me in it one day

And carry me to ground

And lay lilies on the mounded earth.

But once they leave, they will forget me

Because, unlike your songs,

My voice will never stick in someone's soul

And this poem will be just another

Useless lament

Pieces

“Pieces”

I find you sometimes

In a book I’ve read

That certain flavor of bubblegum

A lemon’s zing

You lurk in corners

So easy to forget, to misplace

But I find you at the bottom of my purse

In that perfect shade of lipstick

The broken compact

A crumpled receipt with “Hello” scribbled on the back

I often find you

In the shower’s steam

Drawing hearts and funny faces

In the fogged glass

The smell of shampoo

The scrape of a razor and its silken aftermath

You hide in closets, shelves, drawers

Just waiting for me to find you

A picture taken long ago

That same face, fuller, rounder

Pink with sunburn

Smiling

For a moment, I have you

And then you slip away

Sometimes I find you

In the eyes of someone else

Blue-green, so different

But it’s enough to make me believe

I can finally hold you forever

Slowly, you fade

I hardly realize you’re gone

Until I start finding the pieces again

A mermaid’s fins

A strand of pearls, a coffee cup

And I’m left standing in the middle of some room

Some place

With the certainty that something’s missing