Jeff’s Poetry

BLOOD IN MY EYES

My eyes must have broken When I saw that muzzle flash. When the rifle butts fell Like a heavy steel lash, On my torn head and shoulders. Since my eyes bled In that crimson pain, I can still see the world But now it doesn’t look the same. It’s a […]

Freedom

Freedom covered me in bubble wrap To protect me from life Because that stuff would surely kill me. It took a while before it was safe to feel again. To look at my face in the mirror and count the bruises. It took a while before I believed That smiles […]

LAZARUS

Untouchable. An unclean dead body When they wrapped me in grave clothes, To separate me from the world of life. They covered me with spices To hide the scent Of my last voyage, Heading back to the stars From which I’d come. Called forth, I rose, Aye, I stood, Aye, […]

THE WILDERNESS

Ambrosia, delicious and sweet. Craving more as it takes you to hell. Grab that low lying, golden fruit, If you don’t do it, Someone else will. Power is a slave master. Think of the good we can do! Please, just a taste of that desire, It came with a can […]

THE BEGINING OF FREEDOM

On the Spring equinox of 23’ They paid my ransom They said I was free But they lied. I was dead, Because ten days before I’d died. As a rifle muzzle Flashed orange time and time again. Freedom doesn’t come Just because they make you strip And burn your grave […]

UNFIT

Misrepresented. The artistic renderings Had cast me as a saint. Separation Makes the heart grow fonder. But it doesn’t teach you how to paint A man you never really saw. The one that left never came back. I did. No firetrucks came To put out my burning life. It was […]

WIND CHIMES

I’m untouchable. People think my shadow Has PTSD land mines. They keep their distance, Heads down, Safe behind the line Of yellow Traumatic Hazard Tape. No one wants to get blown to hell. Look what it did to me. Life gave me chains To wear on my ankles. I broke […]

MIDWIFE

On my beach Is a maternity room Where poems are born. As both mother and midwife I exist in the middle space; The balance Between gestating ideas And the arrival of Living words. I don’t create truth. I painfully push it out, Cut it from my body, Wipe the blood […]

TREE

TREE One tree. Lost in isolation. Remote location. Deserted in sand, forsaken. One tree To cover me With the shadow of an untouchable. What was my rage against that wind? What was my rage against that sun? What was my rage against Isolation? My rage was nothing. I was left […]

Green Duct Tape

GREEN DUCT TAPE We who’ve been broken, are not easily seen. We are hard to understand We make people uncomfortable. Unspoken questions Beneath standard issue smiles; “Aren’t you better yet? It’s been two years now, Get over your fears now. No more tears now.” Their get-well wishes are for themselves […]

The Journal

THE JOURNAL This old journal, started in another life. Yellowed pages scratched with old ink. Words written before I had a child, Before I had a wife. When the smell of Humboldt Was a new mystery in my nose. Forty years separated by one blank page. Between where I jumped […]

Sea Glass

SEA GLASS I’ve never sat well on a pedestal. My glassware’s always been flawed. I was a chipped vase, tossed out into the waves. Some call it the sea of despair. I don’t know. All oceans have their storms. Washed up again, I’d been transformed. I am sea-glass, beautifully beaten, […]

The Birth of a Poet

The Birth of a Poet Rhythm. I knew it before I knew light; Learned from my mother’s heartbeat, Resounding in the darkness where I was knit together. Rhyme. I knew it before I had breath; My own heart mimicking hers, Rising and falling to the cadence of her pulse. Reason. […]

The Road Home

THE ROAD HOME Shimmering. So close, it whispers “touch it.” The bright horizon of Death. The space between us, A single breath. A single breath that’s all my breaths. A single death that’s all my deaths. A single choice that’s mine to make. A single step that’s mine to take. […]

A Conversation With My Therapist

A CONVERSATION WITH MY THERAPIST “Rhyme is meaning,” my therapist said. “Find happiness in words of joy’s bright spark.” “Poetry’s a spell that can raise the dead.” “Why are your poems always so dark?” I responded: My mind’s a buzz like the busy bees of Spring. Yet I can’t pen […]

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