Tag: spokenword

Hid away

the yellow room

cold concrete

sun won’t talk with the moon today

The stars still hide

Because they saw your face

eyes still burn

Looking in

Cold hearted devil…

Overcast, my soul

My strength just turns away

Ash in my lung

Coals on my tongue

Walk me to the end of the road

Where we buried letters

all of our secrets

The dirt crumbles

Dry in your hands

I still keep them

And our names

And what we do

Just fades…

Remember me

Moons (30 for 30)

And the sky moves quicker than my breath,

She woke up feeling older

how do you know,

Where the flowers go when the snow falls?

Only that they return in spring…

And the shadows fall

Filling these empty halls

Can we fix these broken things?

She said all her hope was gone

All her heart was wrong

I sat there waiting

maybe it all comes back around

And if it’s not when you feel it should be

Remember,

Some, things, love

Always the strong things …

grow

Only

in the moonlight

And the daylight won’t know who you are …

But at night

Under the stars

In the quiet

You will feel your heart heal

And your strength grow

30 for 30 (emotion)

Voices

Fading

How soon I forget

The world I’m in

She walks in

Everything turns

To smoke and shadows

She has everything I could ever want

And then some

She is

Fire and rain

My eyes have always followed her across the room

You should see the way she moves

I knew when she walked in

I would miss her

This house just isn’t the same

I reach out

But she’s long long gone

Now the moon plays the blues

I watch the sky run

Like a formula one engine

Soon it’s going to storm

And she’s just like that kind of energy

Building up in the sun

She’s everything I would ever need

The only thing I believe

All it takes is a touch

And the sky rains

Desire

Photo by Ethan Bethune

30 for 30 (slide away)

I woke up

Trying to write again

The streets are silent

The talk is on the inside

It’s all the same lines

And
everyone smiles at the table

Drink in their hand

We’re all real good liars

Does the future look good?

And we saw the signs on the interstate

We saw the signs but we didn’t mark the time

We keep waiting for music to save itself

But we’d have to touch something that makes emotion

And we’re still numb from the great promotion

Someone said

It would take a sound

only your gut could understand

What happened to soul ?

I took a walk

My shoes wear down from the unpaved road,

The humidity is so thick, sometimes I feel like I could cut it with a butter knife

I try to write,

But my word document keeps freezing,

So I break out a note pad, you know the ones, paper, pens,

I transfer it to a typewriter

Now I can mail it to the Paris Review

Turn on the radio –

I don’t recognize anything I hear

I don’t relate

What happened to soul?

They say Blues won’t pay your bills

But Blues is the only thing that knows the way I feel

This is a mill town

But the mills are all gone

Does that make this a ghost town?

I like old things

I don’t know how to change

When was the last time you heard a sound

That took you by surprise ?

When was the last time you read something that opened your eyes?

I dress everyday

I Pour wine and coffee

When I write

I have to take myself seriously

get up

Get up off the floor

No one else is going to make you-

Sometimes it takes the change

But one of these days

You’re going to have to start again

30 for 30 (sand castles)

She tilts her head back

As if to ready a violin

Her hands made into fists

Punching her face

Her mouth foams

Blood runs

From chewing on her tongue and jaw

I have timed

Tornadoes

Storms as they pass over

Shop lifters

But this was the longest

Minutes of my life

The seconds carry the weight of hours

After the seizure passes

Like the eye of the storm

It takes half an hour for the cloud mass to break

And clarity to return

I have to repeat answers to questions asked every few minutes

Like fragments

Falling to the earth

Left behind

And she slurs her speech

And I am reminded

How much we take for granted

This idea that everything will be here tomorrow

Exactly as it is today

And I think

How quickly all the lamps expire

And how much of ourselves we put on hold

Betting for tomorrow

How much I didn’t write

Believing I would be

Could be

Better

Tomorrow

Life

Tears us apart

And takes away our talents

The people we love

We are so bold

So brass

So full of our youth

We believe

We have time

But the lamps

Are expiring

As I hold my wife

And she is sleeping

I think about

The rain against the window

The dry lightning

As

The sun is setting

We are not permanent

We are not forever

I think about the orchestra

Playing in rhythm

I think about the shows we’ve seen

The musicals

The theater

I think about

How quickly we are gone

Even stars burn out

Even phoenixes are reborn

Even the air is thin

Between the lightning

Everything

Everything

Everything

Expires

Even when denied

Time will prove

Right

As the spring leaves

Are swept away

In the street

This is all we have

All we are

– Ethan Bethune