Shadow Crow/Like a Pencil

Two pieces that go together

Shadow Crow

 

I fumble around in the dark

 

For the doorknob

 

Opening the door to my heart

 

I write poems and throw crumpled pages at the wall

 

Hoping they’ll stick

 

My eyes glued to the back of my head

 

Hoping they’ll stick

 

In a pitch white plane of silence

 

The noise of nothing screaming

 

Pounding my eardrums like a heartbeat

 

The repercussions of never fitting into this jigsaw world

 

Just another piece of the puzzle

 

I hitchhike through the narrow hallway of my mind

 

Trying to leave the labyrinth like a lost bullet

 

A tripwire of many climbing the walls of my skull

 

The metal melody metallic melodramatic majesty

 

In the lone man’s banquet of sanctuary

 

Tragic tapestries trappings of rhapsodies rattling ravelled staccato

 

Reverberating mosaics playing permeating radioactive Rorschach orchestras

 

Strawman anguish vanquishing dangling pancreas ankle-weights knee-deep to waist

 

Holding heavy hate over his head like a pedestal

 

Remnants of emissaries vicariously lariat into a mountain of bodies

 

Twisting and turning and knotting until they become one

 

Tongue-tied spirals kaleidoscope the nightlights of vice-grip the psyche

 

As the people form together into the jigsaw I could never be

 

Fumbling around the doorknobs for the lightswitch

 

In an endless basement of swallowed stars

 

Where even the foundation of light lost its way before the end of the tunnel

 

And somewhere amidst this trainwreck, I am still alone

 

Sitting by the stairway, like a telephone line crow

 

Under halftone piano notes

 

I return to the dark as I emerge to the light

 

Two heads with the same skull

 

Talons of Valkyries scratching the vinyl surface of the abyss

 

The skin of the morning dew

 

Stretching taut across the trypophobic rockface of Gaia

 

Valhalla’s alleyway’s for clandestine valentines scraping homo-sapient

 

You cannot wipe yourself completely clean

 

And start anew

 

Everyone leaves a stain on this world

 

The fabric of history was once a white canvas

 

The sky is not only full of bright colours

 

There is no guiding light to walk towards

 

Without the existence of your shadow

 

There is no door

 

Without the same empty force, watching, entering

 

Wishing for both shadow and light to begin blurring together into art

 

The seeing of two eyes

 

Crisscross paths

 

Both wishing to be on the other side of the moon

 

Wanting, losing everything they left behind

 

I fumble around in the dark

 

And find my way inward and out

 

(Third eye blind)

 

Walking the line

 

The chalk angel in the black snow

 

The tightrope of a kaleidoscope

 

Somewhere between the light of my shadow

 

 

 

 

 

Like A Pencil

I hold my temper like I would a pencil

 

A graphite knife of nightlights abyssal polycrystalline chrysalis

 

Like the flare of a city-lamp in Ontario winters

 

Golden light glistens hanging over half-frozen newspaper scraps dancing amaranthine

 

Half naked figures of mannequins cast alabaster shadows, art galleries

 

Pirouette like deathless epitomes of marionettes predestined maleficent

 

Mimicking how the hands of the clock take their time

 

Every precious moment like a movement of maestros intertwined

 

Every conductor a trainwreck of emotions and music redesigned

 

Nocturnal murmurs of phosphorescence apostles stars aligned

 

And bathe my oasis in memories of the finest art

 

Rewinding and unravelling like a windmill of flower petals

 

I hold my temper like I would a pencil

 

How the hands of the clock take their time

 

Every precious moment like a movement of maestros

 

Every crescendo a conductor

 

A trainwreck of emotions and music

 

A speckled sepulchres’ nectar

 

A shattered horizon intertwined rewinding Ursuline scythe made poltergeist

 

A church giving birth to its circumcision

 

Hallucinations praising euthanasia

 

Hypothetical weatherworn pedestal of drowning arms called stars

 

Armageddons’s arpeggios woven into fourleaf clovers

 

In metempsychosis’s metamorphosis

 

Meteor chlorophyll primordial as the morning sun

 

The celebratory metaphorical oracle torments solar-flares in sporadic madness

 

The spores of rigour Mortis ornery cornucopia meandering propaganda of pandemonium

 

Chthonian custodian of embroidery’s planetoid void of comatose ambrosia

 

The bottomless mirage of entourage jawbone francophones become daffodils’ pathogens

 

The chandelier sulfuric lyrics mural dreary metallurgy of iceberg clergy surging divergent hurricanes

 

To maim in God’s good name all the same

 

Blessed by deathlessness etching phosphorescent embers of the resin of pestilence

 

Insane malaise allegations playground amalgamation down to the roundabout foundation   

 

I am so tired of playing a game that rules over me win or lose

 

Heaven’s escalators take a flight of stares watching from open windows

 

Cathedrals zebra zigzag skin-tagging shadows of stained-glass lightning ichor of kaleidoscope

 

I hold my temper like a pencil

 

Shaving hours of my life away, sharpening myself, scratching white black

 

Like a knife

 

A record-players needle

 

And every word is another scar

 

And every scar is another story

 

As what is a body, but an empty page?

 

As what is humanity but a book?

 

A false bible to quote and praise city skyscraper god’s of humanity’s sickness

 

Something to cling to

 

In an endless library of bountiful beautiful cruelty

 

I hold my tongue

 

(Like a pencil)

 

A whip I am hesitant to crack

 

 

 

Author's Note

I promise I read every single review, and I generally will reply to them. I look forward to my next review, because it helps me learn. Even if it's just one word, I promise, I will be happy to hear anything you feel needs sharing. Whenever you write on my shortcomings or breakthroughs, or the themes of my poems, or share ideas and friendly criticism, it decides my next poem to an extent. I will listen, learn and be thankful. And 99% of the time, you'll get a reply unless you're trolling me.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

in art, I love charcoal and sketches even more so than paintings...there is more to the imagination...like
watching black and white films..."scratching white black"
love that image....as we cover the page with words...lead intruding on white skin...

"a record-player's needle" (apostrophe needed there)

wonder how many would read this and wonder what a record player is....excuse me while I play tunes on my ipad...
"and what is humanity but a book" reminds me of Will Hunting...and Sean saying that he could read a book of him but know nothing of him really...life has to be experienced...it can't just be memorized.
This is the third piece i am reading by you...really impressive...i am still digesting the others...
but You are an amazing poet, R.J.....
Thanks for the reads.
j.

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

And thank you for sharing what you like about this poem. Means the world to me that you like my work. I'll definitely be sure to read more of your poems, as I really like the poem I left a review on, and I'm sure you have plenty more where that came from.

[Kari Rakitan]

This poem feels like an epic journey. Holding things like a pencil is a very sharp (pun intended) metaphor.

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

Hey Kari, thanks for giving the poem a read. Glad you liked it. :)