Megsies' Maiming of Metrical Manuscripts

...I forgot I wasn't a poet...

Spoiler

But here's a list of poems anyways...
1. At 8:30 I'll Lose My Mind
2.A Day Spent On The Lake
3. The Enchanted Prince's Philosophy
4. Discovering Hippies
5. The Baptism
6. The Complementary Poem on Writing
7. The Awakening
8. Refusing the Lie
9. The Giant's Hope
10. unnamed
11. The Silent One
12. The Importance of One
13. Headlines of Heaven
14. The Wallflower's Response to an Unexpected Corsage

At 8:30 I’ll Lose My Mind

and will kindly be asked to leave
the cafe I’ve gone to for breakfast
every day for the past sixteen years.
Then, because I no longer have a mind,
I will scream at the waitress,
threaten the cook,
and promise death to all the fellow customers
though Nelly was my mother’s fifth grade teacher,
though I was laughing with Frank at 8:29,
though three of the fellow customers
live on my street
and the one I just ordered to hell
is my boss.
I will leave in a self-righteous huff,
won’t look either way before crossing Main Street,
and when someone honks
I’ll do a handstand.
I won’t care that my skirt covers my face.
It’s about time someone looked at those legs.
Then, perhaps, I’ll do a back handspring
and land on the sidewalk with a bow
before disappearing, eternalized
in small town myth.

8:29, I’m staring at the clock,
still pretending to laugh
at Frank’s daily joke.
8:30 hits, and I slowly stand,
leaving a generous tip for Nelly,
nodding at my neighbors,
and giving my boss a bright smile,
before complimenting his tie
because raises are always appreciated.
I leave to the quiet clatter of broken bells.
I look left and right and left again,
briskly make my way across the street,
and disappear once more
into the dim reality of sanity.

A Day Spent On The Lake

The fay and the giant
entertain each other
while the enchanted prince
dozes in the sunshine.
The old wizard waxes
political with the scribe
turned sailor.
Will-o-wisps dance
just above the water.
The prince moves as his
warm sunlight shifts,
almost taunting him into waking.
The gentle giant
jumps up at the scribe’s
brisk command, so ready
to please, so ready
to rebel. He should
just choose one
but he’s stuck in that
limbo before the jump.
No one quite sees
the giant through his height,
not even the fay, though she
circles his head,
poking, prodding, provoking
in the name of friendship.
Her laughter rings
across the lake when
he finally gives her
a playful swat.
Indeed, somehow
this all makes a story.
Thy wizard be the great wisdom
bequeathed to thy gentle giant
as his fay champions him
in his great sojourn to
rend the chains of a disappointingly
innocent scribe turned sailor.

And the enchanted prince?
Oh, he merely sleeps.

The Enchanted Prince's Philosophy

He sleeps, drooling
seemingly without a care.

He sleeps through all
political, religious, personal
change and doesn’t seem to care.

Perhaps he has opinions,
perhaps he has worries.
It’s hard to peer through
shuttered windows.

People tease.
Friends pick.
He sleeps on.

Perhaps…
Oh look! He’s snoring.
Perhaps as he sleeps,
drools, snores
seemingly without a care…

Does he have it right?
Sleeping through life?
He doesn’t have to care.

Surely not! laughs the fay.
She twitters her
opinion to her giant.

Discovering Hippies

I type the song titles
my mother feeds me
and watch, spellbound
by these people in
tie dyed shirts and long hair.
I stare at Joe Cockren as he
loses himself on stage to the music.
As I plug in the next song,
my mom does a crazy dance.
I give her the expected look,
only to be drawn back to the screen.

I will admit to a certain
haughty disdain toward
the misled flower children
of my mother’s generation,
but
encouraged by
‘pharmaceuticals’ or not,
this
deep appreciation of music,
so deep that he waves
his arms around like a broken bird
in front of thousands
and thousands of people
as if he was in his bedroom,
is enviable.

And part of me,
the part of me my mother
doesn’t know of,
thinks that being a hippie
wouldn’t be so bad.
Booze, drugs, and sex.
It could be much worse
even without
society changing,
mind bending music
birthed by men and women
who love it.
They’re not artificial,
‘touched up.’
And as I discover Janis Joplin,
I see that ‘pharmaceuticals’
and the storm that was politics
created genius.

The Baptism

The volume climbs.
She's alone in the car
listening to an obscure song
by an old artist,
and the volume climbs.

Something in the music
speaks to her.
It leaves her hollow,
makes her hurt just a little,
and the volume climbs.

The song ends,
and she listens
to the fading rhythm,
bumbumdebum,
and the volume climbs.

She hits a button,
and the song repeats,
the sound wavering on the line
between loud and damaging,
and the volume climbs.

She listens to the words,
mumbling along before
finally giving up
with the realization
that the words are nothing.

It's the whine of the violins
the loud hallelujahs
of the trombones
the scream of the guitar
that makes her heart throb.

They make her want
to beat the steering wheel
and cry
for two different reasons,
so the volume climbs.

The one verse she knows
approaches, and she screams
the five words,
feeling as if they were her life,
and the volume climbs.

Bumbumdebum
The fading rhythm
fills the car.
She sighs, feeling new
and turns the stereo off.

She turns into her drvie way,
turns the car off
and sits there,
not wanting to dirty herself
with the quiet of home.

The Complementary Poem on Writing

I bleed black,
smearing it across
a white field.
I cut along veins
that pound with words.
They drip, and I watch
with a wry smile,
splitting skin up to my elbow,
branching off into tangents,
slowly making my way
to the heart of the matter.
I cross over scars,
some faint lines
only skin deep,
others ugly cords
where I released
demons and ghosts
on the white field
for all to see.
I study the spatterings

and stop,
run my foot over the marred grass.
Eyes cold,
I rub out the black.

When the field is white,
no mistakes to distract me,

I begin
on the other arm.

The Awakening

He'll never be quite sure
what made him stir.
Perhaps it was
a disturbing dream or
a brisk breeze or
the loud laughter
of his fellow passengers.

All he knew was that
he was bobbing in black
then blinking at brightness
to find that he
has no story.

He sits up stiffly,
stretches with a sigh
and squints at the scribe turned sailor
who's silently steering
the slow ship
sheathed in solitude.

The gentle giant,
friend fay, and
wise wizard
have all left
to live life.

The enchanted prince
peers through mist,
making out a small island
in the distance
and dares to break the silence
with a soft spoken
"Where are we going?"

The scribe turned sailor
shakes his head.
"You slept through it all."
He glances at the prince.
"What a time to open your eyes."

Refusing the Lie

He's getting so much better,"
she says for the fifth time.
You want to shake her.
You want to scream and shout.

He was getting better
months ago, you think,
and you're bitter because
now, you don't believe it.

You saw him
talking, joking, being normal
and two
weeks
later
he was gone.

Then, a week before now,
you took comfort
in the tap
tap
tapping of his foot.

His head bent
to his shoulder,
You took comfort in a tap!

A tap to Doc Watson,
a guardian angel,
you fancied then
gave you hope.

And now, a week
after whispered discussions
she tells you again,
"He's
so much
better."

How will he be tomorrow?
"Tell me how he'll be next week!"
you want to demand.
You refuse to lie to yourself.

You did that last month.

The Giant's Hope

The fay laughs
and complains
and chatters
into the giant's ear,
never knowing,
never guessing,
never believing
the giant's love.

He shares his regrets
with the sun
when the fay is
fast asleep
praying,
wishing,
wanting
his desperate hope would die

But when the fay
rises with the stars
she enchants
by the curve of her lips.
Though she courts
the jester of Diatriba,
people only associate
her with the giant.

The fay and the giant
entertain each other.
The fay twitters
her opinion in his ear.
The giant smiles
and laughs
and waits
for her to realize.

And the sun,
who is too far away
to know anything more
than a vague twinge
of affection tries to empathize
as the giant watches over
the sleeping fay.

The circle shrinks
coming closer.
Sweat drips down
his neck
and he spirals
farther and farther
out of control.

You see him
trying to fight
the suffocating circle,
pretend not to see.

though you don't
have the courage
to join him,

you won't

turn him in.

The Silent One

Silence
you think to yourself,
is hard.

You stand
under the hot sun,
silent,

biting your lips and closing
your eyes

as five
friends satnd in front of
the crowd.

People,
you know, are not kind
unless

kindness
is the only option,
of course.

This is no exception as
you watch

the crowd
hurl insults and jibes
at them.

Surely,
you should say something
right now.

surely,
someone should stand up
for them.

You open
your moth as the first
friend dies.

The next
perishes and you
close it.

They all
are brought to their knees,
all dead.

The fifth
sees you in the crowd.
He blinks.

And you
leave as he falls with
a scream.

Oh yes,
silence, cold and dead,
is hard.

The Importance of One

One mistake,
a loud mouth,
and competition
makes Jack crazy.

One mistake,
a white lie,
and a conscience
makes Jill guilty.

One mistake,
a group of words,
and a 'friend'
spells the end

For Jack and Jill.

Headlines of Heaven

You stare at the girl
as she stares
from the screen.
She'll never
smile for another camera
unless there are paparazzi
floating around Heaven.

"Extra, extra!
Two kids crushed
in construction.
New arrivals in the
Pearly Gates,
victims of the conniving
chaos of chance!"

They call down
gold streets
and Barnabus stops
to buy a paper
with a shekel.
"Read all about it!
Two unspoiled kids."

Practically clean
but missed out
on the pain and joy,
the first crush, first car,
first kiss, first baby,
graduation, college!
"Extra, extra!"

Two unspoiled kids
not yet stained
utterly red
washed white, washed out,
and you wonder
how conniving chance exists
if God exists as well.

Someone will probably
mock you, you're warned,
but right now
as the preacher prays
with a breaking voice,
you understand.

You're not sad for them.
What comes with those firsts,
those milestones
are tragedy and doubt.
Now, you're not sad for them.
You're sad for you.

And someone,
you actually already
have a name in mind
might think you're stupid,
but you can't quite accept
that two souls
vanished last week.

So, you familiarize yourself
with not knowing,
crack open the good book,
read a verse that replenishes
a struggling
starving faith
and accept as Unnamed would not.

And in Heaven
those angel paparazzi
fly around crying,
"Extra, extra!
Two kids saved
from struggles, from sadness,
from pain."

God bless Chloe and James

The Wallflower's Response to an Unexpected Corsage

You are reasonable,
you tell yourself.
Firm
Logical
Smart
Honest

But you are tired
of being second
to a coy
tall drink
of water
who doesn't even realize.

Your pride turns down
lockets.
Friendships
They are hand me downs
that you will not lower yourself
to accept.

You are reasonable,
you remind yourself
as he flfirts
and teases
and plays
and surprises.

But you are tired
and he doesn't like
that coll glass
and he offered you
flowers.
He's kidding.

You are resonable and tired
and a tad romantic.
You'll smile and laugh
and pretend not to be touched
by the flowers.